Lunch with Mary

I decided to create this section for my blog because I was becoming curious as to who others would like to take to lunch. ‘Lunch it Forward’ outlines the dream lunches of my lunch guests. I make this section with no rules – dream lunches can be with people who are still living or not. Feel free to comment who your dream lunch would be.

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Ben Barry’s Dream Lunch:

• I asked Ben this question over email and he replied the following: I don’t have a dream list of celebrities and well-known people with whom I would take for lunch. I much prefer the random, unplanned encounters with people who sit beside me on the airplane, train or subway. The chat might last 5 hours or 5 minutes, but they always leave me with wise words that I always remember.

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Sunny Fong’s Dream Lunch(es):

• Madonna
• Gael Garcia Bernal
• Tom Ford

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Corey Mintz’s Dream Lunch(es):

• David Foster Wallace
• Thomas Crown
• Ferris Bueller
• John Dillinger
• Mr. Smith (Corey’s grade 5 teacher)
• Jim Steranko
• Spider-Man
• Tina Fey

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Ryan Taylor’s Dream Lunch(es):

• Richard Branson
• Charlamagne – Carolus Magnush

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Patricia Lovett-Reid’s Dream Lunch:

• I asked Patricia this question over email and she replied with the following lovely note that made my day: My preference is always to go to lunch with people like Mary. People who have a dream, a focus and want to share that dream. That is what inspires me. I don’t need headline names to learn and be motivated. I left lunch yesterday with a smile on my face because Mary gave me so much more than I think she got from me.

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Dr. Qinya Liu’s Dream Lunch:

• Mozart

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Dr. Steven Cohen’s Dream Lunch(es):

• Friedrich Nietzsche
• Thelonius Monk

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Bruce Bell’s Dream Lunch:

• William Lyon Mackenzie – Toronto’s first mayor and radical reformer

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Tanya Howard’s Dream Lunch(es):

• Kristen Wiig - Same as me!
• Miriam Makeba

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Alexander Manu’s Dream Lunch:

• Uma Thurman

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Naheed Mustafa’s Dream Lunch:

• Third Grade Teacher Wendy Pacey – Naheed wrote me a great email on why she chose Miss Pacey that I thought I would share:
  “When I was a kid in her class we had academic house league and she’d organize it around math or spelling or whatever. At the end of the month whichever team had the most points would go for lunch at her apartment and she would make us lunch, typically spaghetti and meatballs. I had the good fortune to be on the smartest team so I went to her house a lot. She lived with her mom who sold Avon and had a cat.
  “Miss Pacey was the prettiest, sweetest woman I knew. She had blonde hair and was young and really tall and so stylish and this was at a school where there really weren’t any young teachers and I was basically in love with her (in that way that little girls love their teachers of course). So anyway, I’d take her to lunch so I could ask her some real questions about herself and find out what she’s been up to.”

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April Williams’s Dream Lunch(es):

• Margaret Thatcher
• Morley Safer
• Edie Sedgwick

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Olivia Chow’s Dream Lunch:

• Mother Teresa

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Mathew Ingram’s Dream Lunch(es):

• Jessica Jackley
• Hunter S. Thompson

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Eamon MacMahon’s Dream Lunch:

• Michel Gondry

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Gary Ellis’s Dream Lunch(es):

• Nelson Mandela
• Sir Winston Churchill
• Jesus Christ

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Juste Kayihura’s Dream Lunch:

• The Most Reverend Desmond Tutu  

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Meghan Warby’s Dream Lunch (she was very specific):

• High tea at the Windsor Arms with Rufus Wainwright

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Matt Adams’s Dream Lunch(es):

• Brian Colangelo
• The Obama family (Matt made the stipulation that his wife would have to be invited to this lunch as she would really enjoy it)
• Rowan Williams
• John Stott
• Billy Graham
• Ben Ellis (According to Matt, he is the future Prime Minister of Canada and his friend who he has been meaning to meet up with for lunch for ages)

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Ali Piazza Kaniouras’s  Dream Lunch(es):

• Dalai Lama
• Albert Einstein
• Jesus Christ