In the mid-1990s when Russia’s foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov wanted to signal his alarm at Nato’s expanding girth, he picked a Washington DC meeting spot long favoured by policymakers: Strobe Talbott’s kitchen table.

In a 40-year career that has taken him from the foreign bureaux of Time magazine via the US State Department to the Brookings think-tank, which he now heads, Talbott has applied true kitchen diplomacy to global hotspots, often diffusing tensions by inviting key players into his own home.

“One reason people liked to come to our kitchen was not just because of the conversation but because of Brooke,” says Talbott of the late Brooke Shearer, his wife of 38 years who passed away in 2009 and whom he credits as having been a full partner in all of his life pursuits. “Brooke presided over the hospitality of the place.”