The type of bomb used in at least one of the Boston attacks is one that many recent veterans are all too familiar with. It was fashioned out of a pressure cooker. The devices are common in kitchens around the world. Instructions for turning them into bombs are distressingly easy to find. But I hope that their misuse as devices to wound and kill won’t obscure their value for bringing people together.

The young culinary student learned paella thanks to exchange cooking classes put on by UNIFIL’s Spanish contingent in south Lebanon. The five-week course seeks to broaden the culinary expertise of a dozen or so hospitality students in addition to teaching some of the Spanish UNIFIL members Lebanese dishes.

Along a roughly two-mile stretch of Massachusetts Avenue exists a secret world, one with high-profile names, ritzy locations, and extravagant experiences that many can only dream about: the kitchens of Embassy Row. Amid the stoves and shelves, cookers and cutting boards, the chefs at the helms of these kitchens feed some of their country’s most important people, contributing directly to culinary diplomacy and showcasing the best their homeland can offer to an equally select audience.

Twenty-five food professionals from chefs, restaurant owners to food writers and critics from different countries, traveled together throughout the United States as participants in the International Visitor Leadership Program, IVLP.

Graduate School USA has completed its nearly month-long program, “Culinary Diplomacy: Promoting Cultural Understanding Through Food,” with rave reviews from participants hailing from 25 different countries. These members of culinary, education and journalism communities met in the United States from September 6-28 for the opportunity to explore the role of food in bringing people of varied backgrounds together.

If you bring in the best chefs of your area, your country, to bring people around the table so you can get to know them better in a way that doesn’t so much involve words as it does flavor, and the history of flavor, and the experience of flavors and textures.

The Korean embassy Tuesday night in Abuja treated invited guests including top Nigerian government officials and heads of establishments as well as diplomats to a full course Korean cuisine which the country's Ambassador, Jong hyun-Choi, said would "open the door to the heart of Nigerians", leading to closer relations.

This month, the State Department welcomed 25 chefs and foodies from all over the world to Washington, D.C., as part of an exciting new International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP). From Brazil to Vietnam, every country in the world has a unique food culture, and the United States is no exception.