Feed Me

Feed Me

Feed Me has a new nightlife column.

You think you know what’s happening at D.C parties, but you don’t.

Emily Sundberg's avatar
Cami Fateh's avatar
Emily Sundberg
and
Cami Fateh
Oct 01, 2025
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Hello everyone. Last night Feed Me hosted a book party for

Natasha Stagg
’s new book Grand Rapids at Library180. Natasha said she hasn’t thought about making a movie (although she loves movies), but I think Grand Rapids would translate chillingly and beautifully to the big screen. Someone should email her about developing it.

Thank you to all of the beverage brands who filled our bar — Something & Nothing, Ghia, and what seemed to be the go-to drink of choice, Dio canned cocktails.

The reason we were all gathered, Natasha.

Today’s newsletter includes: a party report from D.C. where State Department employees smoked cigarettes with lit girls, a secret hotel in New York City, Sierra Tishgart (co-founder of cookware brand Great Jones)’s new project, and our increasingly paywalled world.

The first time

Cami Fateh
wrote for Feed Me was back in April, as a contributor. She emailed me asking if I was interested in a dispatch from the Community Board 3 meeting in the basement of Mt. Sinai Beth Israel on Rivington Street, in which the fate of Le Dive’s outdoor dining was being decided. Her reporting revealed a keen interest in both the social fabric and local politics of New York City, and I was excited to invest in that reporting when Feed Me hired her on as our associate editor months later.

Today, Feed Me is launching its fourth column (I’m assuming you’ve already met our restaurant, transit, and entertainment columnists). Political Parties will offer readers a glimpse into the unspoken politics of party culture, in rooms that they didn’t even know existed. If you want to send Cami an invitation to your next party – political or otherwise – shoot her an email at cami@readfeedme.com.


📱 Have a story you think I should look into? Text the anonymous Feed Me Hotline: ‪(646) 494-3916‬

Political Parties is a nightlife column by Cami Fateh. It offers readers a glimpse into the unspoken politics of party culture, in rooms that they didn’t even know existed. This week, she writes about the jelly salad- and federal employee-filled launch D.C. party for

Secret Ballot
.

Gossiping with writers and feds at Secret Ballot’s D.C. launch party.

Trump has declared a “crime emergency” in D.C. and the National Guard is still patrolling the streets. There are daily headlines about creeping authoritarianism and political polarization, court battles over deportations and mass firings. But inside the Secret Ballot party on Saturday, September 13 — in a rowhouse in the city’s laidback Columbia Heights neighborhood — there were a different set of conversations taking place. At the beginning of the night, Secret Ballot’s co-founders and editors, Sarah Beth Spraggins and Kelly Chapman, had set up a whiteboard with a series of topics for people to vote on: “Integrity or Diplomacy?,” “Cash or card?,” “Boring or Evil,” and, perhaps most significantly: “Blondes or Brunettes?”

“‘D.C. usually lacks soulfulness,’ opined editor and digital strategist Jed Miller, who’d just gotten another martini from the open bar located on the top floor of the house.“

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