Food for Thought at the Clinton Global Initiative

I was invited by the French Culinary Institute to cook with some of NYC’s most prominent chefs at the Clinton Global Initiative’s “At the Chef’s Table” event last night, where I had the honor of meeting “Iron Chef” Masaharu Morimoto, Marcus Samuelsson and the ex-president himself, Bill Clinton. While I was drawn to the event for the cooking opportunities, I ended up staying to absorb the CGI’s annual awards ceremony, which recognized visionaries like Reverend Christopher Senyonjo, for his advocacy on behalf of Uganda’s LGBT community, and Luis Alberto Moreno, the President of the Inter-American Development Bank, for his leadership in public service.

Similar in concept to the United Nations think tank approach, the Clinton Global Initiative “convenes a community of global leaders to forge solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges.” Founder Bill Clinton’s closing remarks made quite an impression: In terms of global development and success, there’s no doubt that cooperation among nations is a boon. “We’re smarter when we work together,” Clinton said. “But in the process, we [must] find an identity in this new century that [will] reflect the fact that, whether we like it or not, our futures are bound together.”

—Alexa Weibel, Senior Copy Editor