salt, bread and sami

In December a friend in a Facebook group put up a notice that a friend of hers was starting a new project in 2012. She asked if we would help. Well anyone who knows me knows that I'm fascinated with social media, some might even say obsessed. The thing that really intrigues me about social media is information sharing and problem solving, two of my favorite things. So when asked to help I typically jump right in and this case was no different. Especially when I heard that her friend Sami Ari was embarking on a project to better understand people and to prove that we are all the same no matter what our backgrounds are. This aligned so closely to what we're trying to build with PoshPorts that I knew I had to participate and meet Sami.

Sami's experiment, Salt Bread & Sami began the first week of Janaury 2012. His plan is to take a different person to dinner - someone he doesn't know - every week. Sami references that Salt and bread are symbols of many wonderful things in different cultures. He says that they signify not only life's happy days but also the ones we work hard at. 

This project deeply interested me so I quickly dashed an email off to Sami. To my surprise he answered my email within a few hours - saying he would be delighted to have dinner with me and that he would touch base with more details in the upcoming weeks. 

Needless to say, I was thrilled to make the cut. We later made plans to meet the first week of January at Hub 51. As fate would have I came down with a horrible cold and had to cancel. I felt bad but didn't want to share my germs with Sami. So we rescheduled for the following week to meet at Vivo.  And as luck would have it, Chicago decided to come out of Spring and whip up a snow storm that day. 

Since I'm a born and raised Chicagoan - and I have a car with all-wheel drive - I figured let's do it, and Sami agreed. We met at Vivo and had no problem jumping right into our conversation. It was delightful to meet someone with whom I had so many similar interests - art, photography, travel and, yes, even television. We chatted away the hours and nibbled at our food. It was like we had known each other for years. And those of you who know me know that I can talk about travel and my travels for hours on end. 

From what I understand his first week dinner companion Zach also had a great time with Sami. So he's two for two and my guess is that he'll be batting a thousand by the end of the year. I can't wait to hear about all the different folks he'll get to meet.  Be sure to check out Sami's website and follow along on his special journey. You can read about our dinner right here. 

Thanks Sami for letting me be part of your experiment.