1. Bon Appétit!

A wonderful aroma will fill your kitchen when you join Home Cooking New York’s Jennifer Clair for this cooking class dinner party. Ms. Clair, who has been teaching in person and virtual cooking classes for two decades and has authored two cookbooks, will instruct a small group to create perfect wild mushroom risotto paired with a lemony arugula salad. All the ingredients you need will be delivered right to you.

• Get to Know our Guests of Honor: Check out this video of Jennifer Clair teaching the hosts of ABC World News how to use a chef’s knife.

Hosted by Gisela & Richard Goldstein • Dinner ingredients will be delivered to guests.

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2. Musical Interlude

Reconnect with our cherished community institution, the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Music Director Alasdair Neale. Mr. Neale will walk us through his artistic leadership of the orchestra, including the various roles that make an orchestra work, the greater relationship between an orchestra and its community, and his vision for the future of the NHSO. The audience will be transported by musical excerpts performed by NHSO members.

• Get to Know our Guests of Honor: To hear more from Mr. Neale, watch him in conversation with Stuart Chafetz, the principal pops director of the Marin Symphony.

Hosted by Julie Wilson & Tom Ruggieri • Dinner from Union League Café

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3. Lessons from Plagues Past

Imagine finding yourself in the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy during the spring of 2020, having just published your book Epidemics and Society: From the Black Death to the Present in October 2019. Spend an evening with Frank M. Snowden, world-renowned epidemiologist and Professor Emeritus of History & History of Medicine at Yale University, to hear about that experience as he discusses his book, which the World Economic Forum calls the “#1 book to read for context on the coronavirus outbreak.”

• Get to Know our Guests of Honor: Check out Mr. Snowden's Q&A with The New Yorker on his new book and the impact of the coronavirus on our society.

Hosted by Cynthia Farrar & Paul Kennedy • Dinner from Caffé Bravo

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4. Handpicked Pairings

“Every cheese has a story,” and no one can tell them better than Jason Sobocinski, owner of Mystic Cheese and Black Hog Brewing. Join Mr. Sobocinski, who holds a Master’s in Gastronomy from Boston University, starred in the Cooking Channel’s The Big Cheese, and founded New Haven’s popular Caseus Fromagerie Bistro, as he leads participants through a carefully tailored menu of cheese and beer pairings.

• Get to Know our Guests of Honor:  Find Mr. Sobocinski's tips and recipe for the best mac n' cheese here.

Hosted by Cynthia & Matt Haiken • This ticket includes a selection of cheeses, each with a paired beer, with additional food pairings from Anna’s Catering.  

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5. Heritage for the Future

Travel with the adventures of Turquoise Mountain, an NGO founded in 2006 by HRH The Prince of Wales and Rory Stewart, and led by CEO Shoshana Clark Stewart. Currently senior fellows at Yale’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, the Stewarts will share the challenge and joy of creating Turquoise Mountain amidst political turmoil in Afghanistan, Myanmar and the Middle East to drive economic development based on the arts—preserving the cultures and traditions of these lands, restoring over 150 historic buildings, training over 6,000 artisans, and building over 50 small businesses.

• Get to Know our Guests of Honor: To learn more about their work check out Rory’s recent appearance on CNN and Shoshana’s feature in Forbes magazine .

Hosted by Nancy & Rick Antle • Dinner from Caffé Bravo

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6. In Sickness & In Health *Saturday 2/27 at 7:15 p.m.

COVID-19 and the presidential debates have highlighted the challenges, intricacies, and controversies surrounding America’s complex healthcare system. Join award-winning journalist, author of An American Sickness, and Kaiser Health News Editor-in-Chief Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal for a discussion investigating our country’s healthcare failures, implications for the pandemic today, and what we can do to move forward.

• Get to Know our Guests of Honor: Watch this video from the Aspen Institute to hear Elisabeth in conversation about her book, An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back.

Hosted by Helen Kauder & Barry Nalebuff • Dinner from L’Orcio  

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7. Innocent Until…? *Saturday 2/27 at 7:15 p.m.

Explore the systemic hurdles facing wrongfully convicted prisoners with Christina Swarns, Executive Director of the Innocence Project, and Miriam Gohara, Yale Clinical Associate Professor of Law. Learn how the Innocence Project exonerates the wrongfully convicted through DNA testing and reforms the criminal justice system under the leadership of Ms. Swarns, a renowned civil rights and criminal justice attorney representing death row inmates and one of the few Black women to argue (and win) a case before the U.S. Supreme Court.

• Get to Know our Guests of Honor: To learn more, check out this introductory video of Ms. Swarns from the Innocence Project and read Ms. Gohara’s piece in The Conversation on the T.R.U.E. program in Connecticut prisons.

Hosted by Kica Matos & Henry Fernandez • Choose dinner from the list of participating restaurants and caterers.

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8. Doing Well by Doing Good

Join a lively conversation with two trailblazing entrepreneurs as they delve into the explosive growth of purpose-driven businesses. Esi Eggleston Bracey, COO of Personal Care at Unilever overseeing a $5B portfolio including Dove and Suave, and Ziad Ahmed, Yale College ’21, founder and CEO of the Gen Z-focused JUV Consulting and nonprofit Redefy, will take you on an exploration of how young people of color are shifting industries and the impact on the strategies and fortunes of the global market.

• Get to Know our Guests of Honor: To learn more about their work, check out this feature on Mr. Ahmed in the Yale News and this interview with Ms. Bracey in Refinery 29.

Hosted by Shelley & Gordon Geballe • Choose dinner from the list of participating restaurants and caterers.

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9. Say Anything?

Join New York Times journalist and Yale Law Fellow Emily Bazelon for a reflection on free speech in an era of disinformation and the aftermath of the 2020 election. Ms. Bazelon is a co-host of Slate’s Political Gabfest and the author of the national best-seller, Sticks and Stones: Defeating the Culture of Bullying and Rediscovering the Power of Character and Empathy.

• Get to Know our Guests of Honor: To learn more, check out her article, The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation, in the New York Times Magazine.

Dinner made possible by our generous hosts • Choose dinner from the list of participating restaurants and caterers.

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10. Pandemic Disruptions

Explore the relationship between the uprisings over police violence and racial inequity within the pandemic of 2020 with Dr. Khalilah Brown-Dean. The author of Identity Politics in the United States, host of Connecticut Public Radio’s Disrupted, and Associate Professor of Political Science and Senior Director for Inclusive Excellence at Quinnipiac University, Dr. Brown-Dean can show us a path through these disruptions to a better and more inclusive community.

• Get to Know our Guests of Honor: Watch this video from Quinnipiac University to hear Dr. Brown-Dean discuss identity politics with a group of students.

Hosted by Deborah & Gary Desir • Choose dinner from the list of participating restaurants and caterers .

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11. Telling Untold Stories

Spend an evening with the first undocumented immigrant finalist for the National Book Award in non-fiction, Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, author of The Undocumented Americans, Harvard graduate and Ph.D. candidate in American Studies at Yale University. Kica Matos, VP of Initiatives at the Vera Institute of Justice and immigrant rights activist, will join Ms. Cornejo Villavicencio to discuss her genre-defying book, which has been widely praised for its sensitive reporting, personal narratives, and the unique lens through which it depicts the lives of America’s undocumented.

• Get to Know our Guests of Honor: To learn more about our guests, listen to Ms. Cornejo Villavicencio's guest appearance on NPR’s Code Switch and read Ms. Matos' reflections on John Lewis here.

Dinner made possible by our generous hosts • Choose dinner from the list of participating restaurants and caterers.

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12. The Magic behind the Podcast

Hear how Jake Halpern and Jack Hitt turn a complicated tale into an audio delight as they discuss their new podcast, Deep Cover, and their celebrated episodes on This American Life. Mr. Halpern is a contributor to the New Yorker and the New York Times and winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for his graphic narrative series "Welcome to the New World." Writer at large for the New York Times Magazine, Mr. Hitt has won Peabody Awards for his radio program, Uncivil, and Habeas Schmabeas, about Guantanamo Bay for This American Life.

• Get to Know our Guests of Honor: Check out this excerpt from “Welcome to the New World” by Jake Halpern and watch this PBS NewHour segment on storytelling with Jack Hitt.

Hosted by Anne Higonnet & John Geanakoplos • Choose dinner from the list of participating restaurants and caterers.

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13. A Shot of Hope

The newly appointed co-chair of President Biden’s Coronavirus Task Force and founder of Yale School of Medicine’s Center for Equity and Innovation Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith will share a conversation with Dr. Gary Desir, Chair of Internal Medicine at Yale, about her plans to lead the fight against coronavirus and to ensure equity in the governmental response to the pandemic.

• Get to Know our Guests of Honor: Want to learn a little bit more about their work? Check out this feature on Dr. Nunez-Smith in the New York Times and this article on Dr. Desir's work on faculty development and inclusiveness.

Hosted by Cynthia Mann, MD and Claudia Rankine & John Lucas • Choose dinner from the list of participating restaurants and caterers.

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14. Preserving Democracy in the Age of Disinformation

Join Asha Rangappa, former FBI counterintelligence agent, CNN analyst, and Senior Lecturer at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, to learn how Russia adapted Cold War tactics for a digital age to exploit social media and target and manipulate the American public. Ms. Rangappa will highlight how the political fragmentation in America facilitates these efforts and the implications of this for the future of our democracy.  

• Get to Know our Guests of Honor: Read an op-ed on CNN, authored by Ms. Rangappa, on the recent Capitol riots investigation.

Dinner made possible by our generous hosts • Choose from the list of participating restaurants and caterers.

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15. An Insider’s View

Enjoy an exclusive virtual tour of highlights from Yale University Art Gallery’s West Campus Wurtele Study Center with Art Gallery Director Stephanie Wiles and Wurtele Programs Manager Roksana Filipowska. Currently closed to visitors, the Wurtele Study Center is a state-of-the-art educational and research facility with over 42,000 of the collection’s objects on display. Together, you will explore the Center, as well as learn about its neighboring Hume Furniture Study and the conservation laboratory on Yale West Campus.

• Get to Know our Guests of Honor: Check out Side by Side: Oberlin's Masterworks at the Met, which Ms. Wiles helped curate when she directed the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College.

Dinner made possible by our generous hosts • Choose from the list of participating restaurants and caterers.

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16. Back to the Future *Saturday 2/27 at 7:15 p.m.

Fly into the future Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History on a family-friendly animated tour guided by Mark Simon of Centerbrook Architects. Mr. Simon will share the plans to transform the museum, currently closed for a $100 million renovation, into a hands-on interactive learning center. In this exclusive tour, get a sneak peak into the upcoming renovations, including the Peabody’s beloved dinosaur exhibit. Children can attend for free!

• Get to Know our Guests of Honor: To see more of his work, you can check out these projects on the Centerbrook website.

Hosted by Sue McDonald & Corey Stone and D. Ellen Shuman & Douglas Rae • Choose dinner from the list of participating restaurants and caterers.