My wife, Patricia, knows. I always have my Orvis fishing vest and two back\u00adpacks at the ready. I took them with me to Haiti after the earth\u00adquake in 2010, to New York when Hur\u00adricane Sandy struck in 2012. Last year, I went to Houston in Harvey\u2019s wake. Two weeks later, Hurricane Maria ripped through Puerto Rico. I needed to go.<\/p>\n
I am a cook. I came to the United States from Spain and opened a res\u00adtaurant, Jaleo, which just turned 25 years old. I now have more than 30 res\u00adtaurants, from fast casual to Michelin-starred. My team and I feed the few, but I also believe in feeding the many. That\u2019s why I volunteer at places like DC Central Kitchen, learning about the world outside professional kitchens. I have also learned about the spiritual world: I\u2019ve twice walked the Camino de Santiago in Spain, a route walked by thousands of pilgrims each year. While food will restore us physically, churches restore us spiritually.<\/p>\n
When I arrived in Puerto Rico, the island was in trouble like I\u2019ve never seen before. Flying into San Juan five days after Maria, I could see that the destruction: roofs ripped off, homes peeled open like tin cans, toppled trees stripped of every leaf. And when I landed, I saw that people were hungry. There was no electricity, no fuel. The entire island was shut down. I knew I needed to get involved.<\/p>\n
I had already established a nonprofit, World Central Kitchen, where profes\u00adsional chefs could come together to feed the hungry. Before going to Puerto Rico, we went to REI and bought solar lamps, water purification pills and ba\u00adsic survival items. I took out as much cash as I could from the ATM\u2014no tell\u00ading when banks on the island would reopen. In San Juan, we rented a four-wheel drive. Driving was a test of nerves. No traffic lights. Downed phone and power lines everywhere. I thought we could set up at the Coliseum, or El Choli as it\u2019s called, San Juan\u2019s biggest sports arena. But as I\u2019ve seen time and again, red tape was our biggest enemy. We were told that the kitchen could be used to feed only the people working there. One hundred and fifty of them. When millions were in peril of starving!<\/p>\n
Where next? We needed a loaves-and-fishes miracle. When people tell me something can\u2019t be done, I am even more determined. I knew a lot of chefs on the island. We headed to my friend Jos\u00e9 Enrique\u2019s place in historic San\u00adturce, a neighborhood usually crowded with tourists. Everything was dark, but Jos\u00e9\u2019s generator was working overtime. \u201cBienvenido,\u201d <\/em>he said, giving me a hug.<\/p>\n He\u2019d been feeding the hungry with his sancocho <\/em>stew. The lines were huge. \u201cWe run out early every day,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can help,\u201d I told him. Jos\u00e9\u2019s place became our center of operations. We\u2019d serve sancocho <\/em>outside. Inside we set up a sandwich-making assembly line run mostly by volunteers. What we needed were supplies, literally tons of them.<\/p>\n I served two years in the Spanish Navy, sailing on the tall ship Juan Sebasti\u00e1n de Elcano. <\/em>I\u2019ll never forget coming into New York Harbor on July Fourth and seeing Lady Liberty and hundreds of boats flying the American flag, a symbol of all that\u2019s good about this country. I became a U.S. citizen in 2013, alongside my wife. I knew that citizenship came with an obligation to make a positive difference, to improve the lives of my fellow Americans.<\/p>\n The biggest food supplier in San Juan was Jos\u00e9 Santiago. We drove to his place. We needed bread, cheese, vegeta\u00adbles, plates and uten\u00adsils. We\u2019d have to buy on credit. The cash in my backpack wouldn\u2019t go far. As we talked, I was amazed to see a picture of the Juan Sebasti\u00e1n de Elcano <\/em>on his wall. \u201cThat\u2019s the boat I sailed on in the Navy,\u201d I said. He asked where my family was from. \u201cAsturias,\u201d I said. His people had come from Asturias too. That did it. We shook hands on a deal and filled up the four-wheel drive.<\/p>\n The loaves-and-fishes miracle was becoming a reality.<\/p>\n Back at Jos\u00e9 Enrique\u2019s place, we gathered our team, a growing group of chefs. I sketched out our needs on a flip chart. ENERGIA<\/em>\u2014gasoline, natural gas and diesel. ALIMENTOS<\/em>\u2014dry goods and fresh goods, especially water. COMUNICACI\u00d3N<\/em>\u2014social media to get the word out. VOLUNTARIADO<\/em>\u2014volunteers. When I helped out in the Rockaways in New York after Hurricane Sandy, I saw what a group of very orga\u00adnized church volunteers could do. The Southern Baptists were everywhere, dishing out mashed potatoes, chicken tenders and gravy. Their mission: to be \u201cthe hands and feet of Jesus to people seeking hope during a time of crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n We could do the same. We could learn from them.<\/p>\n We branded ourselves #ChefsForPuertoRico and set up a WhatsApp group. Phone calls and e-mails were unpredictable, but WhatsApp worked. I insisted on preparing hot meals and sandwiches. In a moment of crisis, a simple sandwich looks like heaven. And if you feed the people, you are creating an army of first responders. They in turn help others.<\/p>\n We found food trucks, drivers. We fed the local police, and they donated diesel in return. We kept doubling our output. From 500 sandwiches to 1,000, from 2,000 hot meals to 4,000. Soon we were doing 10,000 meals a day. Could we do more? More than the government?<\/p>\n I often thought of something my father told me. We would cook pa\u00adella over an open fire on weekends. I, of course, wanted to help. \u201cBuild the fire,\u201d my father said. Gathering wood, building the fire\u2014these didn\u2019t seem as important as being the chef, stirring the paella. One day, I complained. My father replied, \u201cThe fire is everything. If you don\u2019t control the fire, nothing else matters.\u201d<\/p>\n The fire for us was building this network of helpers. Anybody and ev\u00aderybody. We reached out to corporate donors: Goya Foods sent supplies, UPS sent bottled water, Chili\u2019s restaurants donated thousands of pounds of chick\u00aden. A restaurateur friend was abroad when Maria hit, but he sent me a mes\u00adsage: \u201cTake everything out of my re\u00adfrigerator and anything in storage.\u201d<\/p>\n I went back to the Coliseum. This time my efforts were successful. Soon El Choli was a buzzing scene inside and out, generators humming, the scrap\u00ading of huge paella pans, cooks heaping mountains of rice in stock. So many amazing volunteers came to help.<\/p>\n Sometimes a priest would lead us in prayer. But those weren\u2019t the only prayers. One cook said \u201cGod bless Puer\u00adto Rico\u201d every time she poured oil into a pan of rice. The blessing was the exact amount of time for the oil she needed.<\/p>\n I felt like I was living two lives. I\u2019d hear from our R&D department in Washington, the general manager at our new Zaytinya in Texas, the chef at our new restaurant in Beverly Hills. Then I\u2019d talk to the cooks and volun\u00adteers about the sandwiches they were making. \u201cMore mayonnaise,\u201d I said. \u201cThe sandwich has got to have fat, cal\u00adories, to be moist. And it has to taste good.\u201d A plate of food is more than food. It sends a message that someone cares about you, that you are not on your own.<\/p>\n We fed the National Guard and Homeland Security. Partnered with the Salvation Army and the Red Cross. We partnered with FEMA\u2014eventually. But this network of restaurants and chefs made it happen. We even had a pastor in the hills, Eliomar Santana, who in\u00adsisted on using his church\u2019s kitchen to feed his community. We sent meals to the elderly, the homebound, hospitals.<\/p>\n Both of my parents were nurses, so I understand the stress that the hospital workers were under. Air conditioning, ventilators, operating rooms barely functioning with old, unreliable gen\u00aderators. This is what they were facing while working to save lives every day.<\/p>\n Still, we overcame blocked roads and collapsed bridges, red tape, supply bottlenecks, lack of electricity. To date, we have served over 3.5 million meals with 20,000 volunteers working across 25 kitchens. It has been hot, sweaty, ex\u00adhausting work. But it has also been life-changing. My friend Robert Egger once said, \u201cToo often charity is about the re\u00addemption of the giver, not the liberation of the receiver.\u201d Our food was liberating.<\/p>\n I went back at Thanksgiving with Patricia and our three daughters, and we cooked to thank all those who had helped after the storm, especially the chefs. Chefs understand how to create order out of chaos, just as they know how to control the fire. There were times when we didn\u2019t know what to do. But we kept cooking. And the fire kept burning.<\/p>\n Sadly, there is always another natu\u00adral disaster around the corner. While most of our team was in Puerto Rico, we watched from afar as wildfires dev\u00adastated Sonoma and Napa counties in California. My friend Guy Fieri began cooking thousands of meals for evacu\u00adees and first responders, saying we were his inspiration. \u201cIf this guy is able to go to a city with no power or running water and is able to feed thousands, we\u2019ve got to figure this out,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n How to make a loaves-and-fishes mir\u00adacle? You can\u2019t possibly plan everything in advance. You show up. You spread the word. You pray. And help comes.<\/p>\n We needed a restaurant; we got one. We needed chefs; they came. We need\u00aded food trucks; we got them. We didn\u2019t have gasoline, so we traded it for food. We needed more space and found it. We needed volunteers, and they came. Twenty thousand of them, making one plate at a time, feeding the many.<\/p>\n I\u2019m back home now, but Patricia knows my vest is ready. Those well-traveled backpacks are ready. World Central Kitchen is working to increase resiliency in Puerto Rico so it can bet\u00adter withstand the next hurricane. We are working toward new solutions to combat hunger, new responses to emergency, new pragmatic approaches to disaster relief. And when the next hurricane strikes, we will be there, always working to change the world through the power of food.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My wife, Patricia, knows. I always have my Orvis fishing vest and two back\u00adpacks at the ready. I took them with me to Haiti after the earth\u00adquake in 2010, to New York when Hur\u00adricane Sandy struck in 2012. Last year, I went to Houston in Harvey\u2019s wake. Two weeks later, Hurricane Maria ripped through Puerto […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27264,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[199,185],"tags":[207,11,54],"ppma_author":[1850],"class_list":["post-17148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people-helping-people","category-stories-of-faith-and-hope","tag-cooking","tag-helping-others","tag-miracles"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n