...in the Benjamin Franklin Room at the Department of State, flanked by grinning men - and two women - in navy blue chef coats emblazoned with American flags and the department's official seal. Now Chief of Protocol of the United States, she unveiled the department's new Diplomatic Culinary Partnership, which will "elevate the role of culinary engagement in America’s formal and public diplomacy efforts."

The State Department is deploying a new, elite force onto the precarious stage of international diplomacy. More than 80 top chefs from across the nation were inducted into the first-ever American Chef Corps on Friday.

“The Broadcasting Board of Governors is structurally a mess,” a former chair of the governmental organization that runs the premier Voice of America and Radio Free Europe told a panel discussion on countering Islamist Extremism at the Hudson Institute Wednesday afternoon.

Zingerman’s Roadhouse executive chef Alex Young is among the first group of American chefs and culinarians to be tapped for the American Chef Corps, part of a wide-ranging new State Department program called the Diplomatic Culinary Partnership.

WASHINGTON – The personal touch was the focus of a USC public diplomacy forum here last week, the first in a series of 2012-2013 USC public diplomacy programs in the nation’s capital.

The U.S Department of State announced today that the Papermoon Puppet Theatre will travel from Yogyakarta, Indonesia, to communities across America September 5-October 1, 2012 as part of its Center StageSM initiative

The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs announced today that musicians from 21 countries will travel to the United States to engage audiences as part of One Beat. Beginning September 10 in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, OneBeat, a cultural diplomacy initiative, will connect international musicians with American musicians and audiences, especially underserved youth.

The “Culinary Diplomacy: Promoting Cultural Understanding Through Food” exchange will provide an opportunity to explore the role of food in bringing people of varied backgrounds together. The participants will meet with chefs, farmers, and culinary experts across the country.