José Andrés was born and raised in Spain and has brought his love of Spanish cuisine to successful restaurants in New York City and Washington DC. While he now has dozens of dining establishments in a host of different cities, what really sets him apart is the work he’s done with World Central Kitchen. Founded in 2010 in response to the devastating earthquake that hit Haiti, World Central Kitchen has gone on to feed survivors of hurricanes, tornadoes, and fires all around the world, as well as countless people traumatized by war.
In this episode, José talks to Sid about the many kitchens of his childhood, how cooking for those in peril is both an act of relief and a chance to learn, and how longer tables are perhaps the closest thing to a perfect place on Earth.
In this episode, José talks to Sid about the many kitchens of his childhood, how cooking for those in peril is both an act of relief and a chance to learn, and how longer tables are perhaps the closest thing to a perfect place on Earth.
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00:00Welcome to our fifth season of Biscuits and Jam from Southern Living.
00:12I'm your host, Sid Evans, and for our first episode, I'm very excited and honored to be
00:18talking to one of the most remarkable chefs in the world.
00:21Jose Andres was born and raised in Spain, where he fell in love with the food of that
00:26country and eventually brought it to his successful restaurants in Washington, D.C. and New York City.
00:32He now has dozens of dining establishments in a host of different cities, including one
00:37called Mini Bar with two Michelin stars.
00:40What really sets him apart, though, is the work he's done with World Central Kitchen,
00:44which he founded in 2010 in response to the devastating earthquake that hit Haiti that year.
00:50Since then, World Central Kitchen has gone on to feed survivors of hurricanes, tornadoes,
00:55fires, and other natural disasters, as well as countless people traumatized by war.
01:01We'll talk about the important and sometimes dangerous work of that organization, the recently
01:06released World Central Kitchen cookbook, and the true meaning of hospitality on this week's
01:11Biscuits and Jam.
01:18Well, Jose Andres, welcome to Biscuits and Jam.
01:22I mean, anytime they invite you to a podcast that is called Biscuits and Jam, I mean, you
01:28know, it cannot be bad.
01:32Well, I'm glad you're here.
01:33Where am I reaching you right now?
01:35I'm in Washington, D.C., downtown, the Penn Quarter.
01:38I can see the National Archives.
01:40I can see the Navy Memorial.
01:42I'm in a good part of town between the White House and the Capitol.
01:46The mall is right there.
01:48A good place.
01:49Yeah, and nice to be home, I'm sure.
01:51Oh, yeah.
01:52I've been away for the last four months, so it feels good to be home.
01:58Well, I want to start with a very simple question.
02:00What was the last thing that you cooked for yourself or your family?
02:04Well, last night, my wife and I made lentils like the way we do in Spain.
02:09And it's this amazing pardina lentils.
02:13They come from Spain.
02:14And we do these carrots and leeks and onions and kind of we saute and then some Spanish pimenton,
02:23the smoked paprika, a little bit of garlic.
02:25And then we saute everything until all the vegetables kind of are nice and sweet and kind of sweating.
02:32And then we put it in with the lentils and we let the lentils cook for close to an hour, simmering.
02:39And at the end, the lentils, some of them began breaking.
02:43The water becomes thicker.
02:45Traditionally in Spain, you may put some chorizo or some blood sausage on some bacon that then you cut in pieces and you serve as a garnish with the lentils.
02:55But my wife likes the lentils used with all the vegetables and nothing else.
03:00So I do it like the way she likes it.
03:03And that lentil in a snowy, rainy Washington, D.C. wintry day is great.
03:11Great comfort food.
03:13Yeah.
03:15Well, so, Jose, tell me a little bit about the food you had growing up.
03:20You were born in northern Spain and then you moved to Catalonia, not far from Barcelona.
03:26But tell me about the kitchen where you grew up.
03:29Who was doing the cooking and what was on the dinner table?
03:33Well, I guess I grew up in many kitchens.
03:36The main one, the kitchen in the house I grew up and where I have real memory, that's in Barcelona.
03:43And then the other little kitchens that they were part of our life was the kitchen on my grandmother's house during Christmas or was the kitchen in the restaurant of the little hotel.
03:57My father would take us one week a year by the beach side, two hours outside Barcelona.
04:03My father would take me in Lent to visit a cousin in a town with very few homes where my father, I guess, grew up there in his childhood.
04:14And that was a kitchen with an open fire.
04:17So it was little kitchens all in the middle of the mountain in the countryside where my father would cook paella for friends and family.
04:24So the main kitchen, the one that really was more the kitchen of living, the kitchen of survivance, is where my father and mother live.
04:3530 minutes outside Barcelona by a beautiful mountain, a mountain that became very important to me, San Antonio, because the school was right next to the mountain.
04:46In summer, we will go up to the top of the mountain, all the children very often.
04:50It was kind of the Goonies kind of mountain for me, you know, where things happen.
04:58Your first kiss, the first time you fall down the mountain and you broke your head, was the mountain of childhood.
05:05So from the room where I live, I could see that, the mountain of San Antonio, the town was Santa Coloma de Cervello.
05:12And I could see the cherry trees and the peach trees, los cerezos y los melocotones, that in a spring created this amazing blanket of white and pink flowers that was mesmerizing.
05:26Flowers that very soon after will give birth to the cherries and the peaches.
05:31And this was very important for me.
05:33But the kitchen, that's what you asked me.
05:35All of this was important because all of this was surrounding the kitchen.
05:39And in a way, that was important because my father liked to hunt for mushrooms.
05:43And we will pick some mushrooms in mountains like the one I had in front of me.
05:47And we will cook with those cherries or those peaches.
05:50But the most important is that that kitchen will be the home of all the ingredients that will be coming from the little fruteria, the fruit place.
05:59It's funny, they call it fruteria, the fruit place, but they will sell mainly vegetables and some fruits.
06:05And we will go shop for these at least two times a week.
06:08And that kitchen was home to all of that.
06:11My kitchen was very small.
06:12We had a table that will be the during the week kind of quick dinner table that will be attached to the wall.
06:22But then you could lift up the table or close the table against the wall with these two hinges to make more room.
06:29If the table was up, it was very little space.
06:32If the table was down, you could have three, four people standing up, but not a lot of room to dance, used barely in place.
06:41But it's still a fascinating room where my father and mother will make magic.
06:46And my mother will cook things like croquetas at the end of the month, empty fridge.
06:51But my mother, like a magician, like Harry Potter, will be able to come up with things that you couldn't even see.
07:00And out of that empty fridge, she will create this bechamel that will add the forgotten piece of chicken or the forgotten half egg that was boiled and chop everything and make croquetas and roll them in the bread crumbs.
07:16That was the forgotten bread during the last month, using the coffee grinder as the way to make the crumbs and olive oil that always is plentiful in Spain and frying those croquetas.
07:27And those croquetas, my brothers and I, we will be fighting for them or we will exchange cores at home or things like if you give me your croqueta, I will go tomorrow to pick up the bread in the morning.
07:43Those croquetas became, I was in the Navy and I will exchange food for things.
07:50I will be the one giving the food and I will get other things.
07:53Those croquetas were amazing.
07:55My father would cook in the countryside, big paella on weekends for friends.
08:00And the kitchen was the countryside, a little fire in the middle of nowhere.
08:04And out of that fire and that paella pan and a little table on the side, my father will be able to cook for 30, 40 or 50 people.
08:10You see, this is the kitchens of my life.
08:13It was not just one kitchen, but plenty of places that even without a kitchen, I was surrounded by people that could feed anybody.
08:21That may have to be your next book, The Kitchens of My Life.
08:25Man, nobody asked me such an interesting question.
08:28Well, tell me how the kitchen of your childhood was.
08:30Nobody has asked me that question in the way you ask me, Sid.
08:33So, Jose, you mentioned your father cooking for a lot of people and you've said that cooking food for people makes you happy and it brings you a lot of joy.
08:45And I'm sure you cooked for your family quite a bit growing up.
08:49But what was one of the first times that you cooked for a lot of people, for a crowd?
08:54Well, because early on, I will help my dad cook the paella, but I was not the one in charge.
09:02I always tell the story that my father never, never, never ever let me cook.
09:08He only let me make the fire and follow his orders on the fire.
09:13But the cooking, putting the spoon in the pan, in the pot, not allowed.
09:19So, for me, making the fire was no cooking.
09:23And I tell the story when I got upset and he sent me away.
09:25And then when the paella was finished, without my help, obviously, he said,
09:29my son, everybody wants to learn to do the cooking, but nobody wants to control the fire.
09:35Learn to control the fire and then you'll be able to do all the cooking you want.
09:39So, for me, I went to culinary school early on because my father and my mother realized,
09:44while I think I was a smart student, I was not a good student in the way schools expect you to be a good student.
09:52I guess that the traditional way of learning was not meant for me.
09:57Being in the classroom, listening to the teacher or being real, that was not the way I learned.
10:02I am more a 21st century kind of guy learning, traveling the world.
10:06And so I went to cooking school, but I was not learning anything either.
10:10And I went to restaurants and in the restaurants is how really with boots on the ground, I began learning.
10:18And in my first year of school, we're talking 85, 86, to make some money and to learn,
10:25because for me it was not so much the money, it was learning.
10:28They will always offer you to go to the big convention center in Barcelona, which is majestic, beautiful.
10:35It looks like a castle.
10:38People will know it from the Olympic Games in Barcelona in 1992.
10:43And it was this restaurant called El Universo, the Universe.
10:48L'Universe was in Catalan.
10:50And it's the type of place they will do like 500 covers in two hours,
10:53because it was the lunch break in the conferences of the morning and following.
10:58And you had to be quick, fast.
10:59And we had a lot of people in the kitchen.
11:03And that's the place I began understanding volume.
11:06And it's funny because at night I will work in a three-star Michelin, two-star Michelin restaurant.
11:10So very early on, I had the experience of big volume.
11:14Even I was getting the experience on more high end.
11:17But you ask me, when is the time I began cooking?
11:20Anytime there was a big conference, I will be getting a call.
11:24And I became very good in what I had to do, few dishes, but big volume.
11:27And I became very, very good in volume.
11:31And every time my cachet went up for a 16, 17-year-old, I was getting paid, oh, my God, so much money.
11:39Very well.
11:39And I couldn't say no, but I couldn't say no, no, because the money.
11:42I couldn't say no because I love it.
11:45It was like, oh, we have to feed all these people.
11:49We were only a few people in the kitchen to do it.
11:51And the menus were great, cooked from scratch.
11:54Began their days early.
11:55So this was kind of my first experience cooking for the masses.
12:00One day, the chef didn't come because he was sick or something happened on the subway, on the train.
12:05And there I am with boom, and I'm kind of in charge.
12:09My life has been living like this all the time.
12:11Like, I've been not put in charge because I was given that job, but I had to cover the gap because somebody didn't show up.
12:19So, Jose, you're a teacher.
12:22You've taught at Harvard, and you've taught at George Washington University, and you've taught a lot of young chefs coming up.
12:30Who was the best teacher that you had?
12:33Who was the teacher that really made an impact on you and kind of changed your trajectory?
12:38I had one teacher that I only had a few classes from him, and he was the professor de gastronomia, the teacher of gastronomy.
12:50And he was more like a thinker, a thinker of food.
12:54And his name was Llorence Torrado, Llorence Torrado.
12:57He passed away already a long time ago, and I wish I was able to see him a few weeks, even a few months before he passed away.
13:05I never spent a lot of time with him, but the time I spent with him in the classroom was very meaningful.
13:10And then life gave me the opportunity to a few times outside the classroom to also spend time with him.
13:15And for me, it was very important because this was a guy that will be able to have an egg in his hand and establish a fascinating conversation about the egg.
13:24And I know it looks like, what was first, the chicken or the egg?
13:29Well, kind of that, but food, the history.
13:32When we think humans ate an egg for the first time, when it was recorded, when it was written.
13:38But when we think it really happened before it was written, what things humanity has done with eggs.
13:43When was the first time mayonnaise ever happened or the first time eggs were used in cooking?
13:49I'm using egg as an example.
13:50He will do the same with any other ingredient or a glass of water.
13:54And I think he was more like a philosopher, more than a teacher.
13:58I will argue that philosophers are teachers.
14:01But for me, he was very special in that sense.
14:05It was not how long I knew him, but the intensity of the time you spent with him.
14:09I know my friends who took his class.
14:11And I know when he passed away, it was many of us kind of, oh, man, because he really was to me like a true food whisperer.
14:21But now that you are asking me the question, without a doubt, he was one of those guys that when he was teaching, you were mesmerized.
14:28When he was teaching, you were listening.
14:32When he was teaching, he was the center of attention because the way he delivered, but the way he was thinking about what he was delivering, almost you got the feeling like he was not teaching, but he was learning in the process of sharing what he knew.
14:46And this, to me, is the best way of teaching, that you realize that in the way you are teaching, you are also learning and that almost you are connecting the dots.
14:54The same way you're asking me this question, and right now my brain is going through the memory lane.
14:59In a way, he was connecting the dots as he was talking to us about things.
15:05And I think this is a fascinating way to teach because you don't go with the pretension that you know everything, but you go also with the mind of the young people that they are also in the process of learning.
15:17And when both are together, you know a lot, but you realize the more you know, you know nothing.
15:23It's a very fascinating, you know everything and you know nothing all at the same time.
15:27This is a fascinating way to see the world.
15:30Well, it sounds to me like you took a lot away from him, and particularly when I think about World Central Kitchen and everything that you've done, and you talk about this in the new book, that you started it and you went to these places and you listened first.
15:48And there may have been some times when you thought you knew more and that you were going to be the teacher, but really you went into these communities and you learned.
15:57What they needed.
15:59Is that fair?
16:00Yeah, obviously, he was important in me on this.
16:03And then obviously, Ferran Adria, who was really my culinary icon and my friend, my brother, my teacher.
16:11In a way, I think he's a guy that inside him, he's like a little child learning when he's the supermaster and that's who he is.
16:20And for me, culinary was also the guy that allowed us just purely cooking to look food through a different lens and don't take things for granted and always sharing, right?
16:33So I think, obviously, the guy I mentioned you, Jorence Torrado, Ferran Adria, but now you're mentioning World Central Kitchen, but obviously it's my business and it's my life, what I do in my restaurants.
16:43It's funny because a lot of people associate me with World Central Kitchen, but for me, this is like a side gig.
16:50You know, everybody volunteers.
16:52A lot of people try to do something.
16:54There's many ways to collaborate.
16:56For me, World Central Kitchen was, before was DC Central Kitchen, where still I participate, fighting hunger, creating opportunity right in Washington, D.C.
17:04For me, the best NGO in America, an NGO that is almost for profit, generates wealth, trains people, fights food waste, feeds the homeless, generates economic growth.
17:17It's a fascinating NGO and I learned there.
17:20But for me, obviously, what you ask is for World Central Kitchen and the lessons learned about going to communities and seeing out of the box.
17:28Totally. It's not any different.
17:30I'm speaking from where I opened my first restaurant, Jaleo, in 1993, and the place was empty and downtown was empty after four o'clock.
17:40And here we are 30 years later and the restaurant cannot be doing better and obviously became a very important icon for everything that had to do with downtown DC.
17:50But we were not the only ones. We were part of an ecosystem of other people and other businesses, theaters, and others that believed that downtown was a place we all had to invest.
18:01That's how we make communities better.
18:04When many people believe in a place, when you put faith and belief in a place, the communities do well.
18:10At the end, it's just people giving their best to make their communities better.
18:14This is for profit.
18:15This is how you create communities, how you create cities, how you make things better, not by finger pointing at what's wrong.
18:22But when you take the responsibility to fix what may be wrong, the communities are what you are fighting for the communities to be and not giving up on those communities.
18:33This is the heart of what America is.
18:35That's the heart of what the world is.
18:37Not about politics, because you are not of my party.
18:40You are a bad person.
18:41But if they are Jewish, great.
18:43Can I learn from your tradition?
18:45They are Muslim?
18:47Can I learn from your traditions?
18:48I'm a Catholic boy.
18:49Let me share mine with you.
18:50And together, we become better.
18:53Why?
18:53Because it's the way the world works.
18:56More is more.
18:59Now you bring this to the nonprofit.
19:00It's exactly the same.
19:02How do we make the place a better world?
19:03When we solve problems.
19:06When charity is not about the redemption of the giver, but about the liberation of the receiver.
19:11That's what my friend, Robert Egger, the founder of This is Central Kitchen, told me.
19:15And the lessons I learned is that you go somewhere, like I went to Haiti in 2010, and a group of women comes to me that even if I was trying to do good, they tell me, hey, boy, thank you for making these black beans.
19:28But we don't need them like this around here, okay?
19:31Can we tell you how we eat them?
19:32I could go and say, hey, who do you think who you are?
19:38You're going to eat them this way or no way?
19:41Or, oh, man, thank you for letting me know.
19:44Thank you for establishing a relationship.
19:48Thank you for letting me be part of who you are because I want to learn.
19:53And at the end, it applies the same for your communities, for the nonprofit, for government, for the world.
20:01If we all listen more to each other, the world will be a much better place.
20:04And when you feel like when somebody tells you I don't like something, it doesn't mean that they don't like you.
20:11They're only telling you this is the way I like it, which if you are an open mind, it's a fascinating way to be part of this world.
20:19After the break, I'll talk more with Jose Andres about the new World Central Kitchen cookbook, a few of his favorite recipes, and the meaning of hospitality.
20:40Welcome back to Biscuits and Jam from Southern Living.
20:43I'm Sid Evans, and today I'm talking with the chef, cookbook author, and humanitarian, Jose Andres.
20:51Jose, let me ask you about the World Central Kitchen cookbook, which just came out.
20:56And it's not like any cookbook that I've ever read.
20:59And one of the things that I loved about it is that it brings together so many different cultures.
21:04And even though the dishes in the book come from all over the world and all sorts of different cuisines, they seem to come from a similar place.
21:16Why is that?
21:18Well, because they come from a place of empathy.
21:20They come from a place of love.
21:23Also, they come from a place of we'll do whatever we have to do today because we don't have much around.
21:28Sometimes people, oh, it's great.
21:31You are making tamales and you're serving them in this corn husk or in this banana leaf.
21:37So good, so clever, so nice.
21:41You know what we did it that way?
21:43Because it's the first day.
21:45Everything is chaos.
21:46It's nothing around.
21:47It's no electricity.
21:48We barely have any ingredients yet.
21:50It's no forks.
21:51It's no plates.
21:52It's no knives.
21:52It's no spoons.
21:53It's no fancy equipment.
21:55But what we have is some woman that they've been making tamales for generations and work with a little open wood fire and a little big pot with holes.
22:07They're able to steam the tamales and they have corn because they know where to find it.
22:11And they have maybe some chicken.
22:13They make the tamales.
22:14And they make the tamales because that's what they do all their life without electricity and under the most difficult situations.
22:21And all of a sudden, the tamale is the place where the banana, the corn husk is where they are putting the tamale mix with the corn, sometimes with banana, green banana, that also is a steam.
22:36It's not always corn.
22:37And then that same banana becomes the perfect medium for you to transport and for you to deliver in the early hours of a hurricane.
22:48And while it may look fancy, it's actually the most creative way to do it in a moment that you have literally nothing at your disposal that is clever, is the best solution for the moment.
23:01So in the book, you see a lot of the stories like the one I explained about the black beans.
23:05But the stories is not about the food, but the people behind the food that made it happen.
23:10And it's many more people.
23:12This book could be a hundred thousand recipe book.
23:17That's how many recipes I believe World Central Kitchen has done, where people did what they could with what they had.
23:25Sometimes in the early days, under very challenging situations.
23:29And as the days and the weeks move forward, the quality, the diversity, and the complication of the dishes increase accordingly and not necessarily become better dishes than the one we serve first day.
23:44But there in this book is the stories of how the dishes happen in the middle of mayhem, in the middle of chaos, in the worst moment of humanity, the best of humanity show up.
23:55So there's a recipe in the book for chicken chili verde.
24:02And you've said that this has become a World Central Kitchen classic.
24:07Tell me just a little bit about that dish and why you describe it as a classic.
24:11Well, I think it's a classic because some dishes are naturally beloved by all.
24:17I don't even remember in the book where it says it came.
24:20I don't know if it was one of the missions we did in New Mexico or in Florida, because sometimes it's so many dishes happening at once.
24:29I don't go to every mission, but I go to the big ones.
24:33And I'm not in every kitchen.
24:35Remember, in Ukraine alone, we had over 500 restaurants.
24:38During the pandemic, we had also hundreds and hundreds of restaurants in America alone.
24:46But I can tell you about dishes that they are not even in the menu.
24:51Like Rondon.
24:54And Rondon was a dish that was served to me in Colombia in an island called San Andres.
25:01This is an archipelagos.
25:03And in San Andres was an island called Providencia.
25:06Providencia was totally destroyed.
25:086,000 people with no light and no homes.
25:11Every home was blown away.
25:132,000 more people that came from the military of Colombia.
25:17And all of a sudden, we show up there and we have to feed 8,000 people a day.
25:21At the beginning, we were kind of, ah, we don't need you.
25:24But I knew they needed us.
25:26And I was very glad we were there, knocking on the door at the aviation of the Colombian Air Force.
25:33That at the beginning, it's not like they tell you we don't need you because they don't care.
25:39It's because sometimes the chaos of the moment doesn't allow people to say we need you, especially when they don't know who you are.
25:47For some reason happened I knew the president of Colombia, Ivan Duque.
25:50But I didn't even realize I knew the president of Colombia, which is what makes everything even more fascinating.
25:57We only show up because we knew they needed help.
26:00We were coming from Honduras and Guatemala.
26:03It was back-to-back hurricanes.
26:05But long story short, the dish happened many weeks later when the people of San Andres, we had a lot of restaurants helping us.
26:12And thanks to the Colombian military, we will be able to ship every day by plane to the island of Providencia.
26:21And the main dish there was called Rondon.
26:23And this was a fascinating dish I never even read about.
26:26A mix of the best of Africa with the best of the Caribbean, Latin America.
26:31And this was like a very big stew with coconut milk as the base, red snapper, conch, pig's tail, pig's ear, some dumplings, a little bit of bay leaf, boil, yuca, mandioca, malanga, all these roots, all these fish, all these vegetables.
26:55Oh my God, I couldn't believe that dish.
26:58So that dish is not even in the book because we didn't really use it to serve the people.
27:04But this is a dish that was an homage to the men and women of World Central Kitchen.
27:08And to this day, I remember this dish.
27:10I'm like, oh my God, we need to use a show about that dish because it's the show that tells the story of the forgotten islands of the Caribbean where Afro-Americans came and then the Spanish came and other.
27:22And out of that, all those dishes came out.
27:24So, again, this is a book that everybody's going to have a favorite from the green chili to the black beans to so many other recipes that already people are tweeting about it saying, this is my best new favorite.
27:37This is my best new favorite.
27:38And I have a feeling is because they realize, and I think this book is able to send this message, that those recipes really gave hope and comfort in a very difficult moment to a lot of people somewhere around the globe, from Indonesia to Colombia, from Mozambique to North Carolina.
28:00And that's the beauty of this book.
28:04Jose, the work that you do can be very dangerous.
28:09And you have another new book out.
28:11It's a graphic novel called Feeding Dangerously.
28:14What do you tell volunteers who are heading into war zones and disaster zones with so many unknowns?
28:21Well, this is a good question.
28:23And it's one that sometimes doesn't let me sleep easier.
28:26Understanding that I don't work for World Central Kitchen, I'm one more volunteer, but I have the pressure on my shoulders by being the founder, that people may be putting themselves, obviously, in those difficult situations.
28:39I want people to know that World Central Kitchen, we lost six people in Ukraine.
28:44If anybody listening to us has any doubt if America should be supporting Ukraine, I will say, I'm sure we should.
28:52But Ukrainians are great people, they are fighting for their freedom, their democracy, they've been attacked, and they are defending themselves.
28:59And it's not the same to attack others than to defend yourself.
29:03We lost six people in Ukraine, and I wish we didn't.
29:08But obviously, we don't put anybody in harm's way.
29:11The people that we had in Ukraine, more than 6,000 Ukrainians at one moment, were Ukrainians that were going nowhere.
29:18I remember very often telling people, we are getting too close to the front lines to feed people.
29:27And they will always tell me, Jose, we have to.
29:30They are elderly.
29:31They are impaired.
29:32They are in wheelchairs.
29:33They are sick people.
29:34They are too poor or too old, or they have to take care of their animals.
29:40That's why we have to feed them, even if we're putting ourselves in danger.
29:43I think one of the biggest moments was I took my daughter Inez with me to Ukraine.
29:49Actually, I didn't take her with me.
29:51We were in the middle of shooting a TV show in Spain, which has been on CNN and other channels, Discovery and HBO, called Jose Andres and Family in Spain.
30:02And this is when the war began.
30:03And in between shootings, I will go back and forth to Ukraine.
30:06I spent more than 130, 140 days in Ukraine.
30:09And one of the times, my daughter Inez wanted to come with me to Poland, which is the place you will come first.
30:16And I thought I was leaving my daughter in Poland.
30:18We already had a very big kitchen doing tens of thousands, you know, hundreds of thousands of meals a day, feeding every single place in the border in Poland, plus other countries surrounding Ukraine, with coffee places 24-7, hot soups and others.
30:33But my daughter told me, Daddy, I'm going with you to Ukraine.
30:36I said, I cannot.
30:37I'm not going to get in trouble with your mom.
30:40I said, Daddy, how do you want us to change the world without taking some risk?
30:45And my daughter came with me to Ukraine.
30:47I'm not going to protect them better behind a wall.
30:50But when I tried to make the world around that wall safer for everybody else.
30:56And that was a big lesson from my daughter to me.
30:59We lost six people in Ukraine.
31:00I was in earthquakes in Turkey.
31:03I went into Syria with my buddy, San Blok, who right now is in Gaza.
31:08Every time you go, it's dangerous.
31:09You have cables.
31:11You have mountains that fall down.
31:13You have situations that you don't know.
31:15You have floods.
31:17But as my daughter say, how are we going to take care of the wall if we don't take some risks?
31:21So obviously, nobody goes anywhere that they don't feel comfortable.
31:25We don't push anybody to go anywhere they don't feel comfortable.
31:29But we need all to remember that those places we are trying to help is people that they are in danger themselves.
31:37So the big question is how are we going to be changing the world and be making the world a little bit better?
31:43Well, we need to all take some risks.
31:47We can all stay in the comfort of our homes and it's okay.
31:51And nobody should feel guilty by doing so.
31:54At times, I wonder, what the heck?
31:56I keep going places.
31:57But I want to believe in that very simple message of my daughter when she asked me in a very naive but powerful way.
32:07Daddy, how are we going to be changing the world if we don't take some risks?
32:11Made me proud of that.
32:13But at the same time, obviously, we need to make sure that we take care of the people that take care of the people.
32:19I've been in some difficult situations.
32:22We've been under shelling.
32:23We've been in mines.
32:24We've been under bombs and gunshots and who knows what else.
32:28I think it's worth the risk because it's always people in more danger than we are.
32:35And the least we can do is to be there to understand.
32:38Because if we are blind to what happens in the world,
32:41there's no way we can come up with the right solutions to solve the problems that people are facing.
32:47Well, I hope all of your staff and your volunteers and you stay safe.
32:52Jose, you're a busy man.
32:54I just have one more question for you.
32:56You know, we talk a lot about hospitality at Southern Living.
33:00And, you know, it's the idea of welcoming people into your home and feeding them and making them comfortable.
33:05And you turn away no one.
33:07And as someone who's built his restaurant business and a whole organization around this idea,
33:15what does hospitality mean to you?
33:17For me, I was always trying to search why we are all so attached to food.
33:24Why we all seem to have this connection to food in ways that they are so powerful,
33:29that we all have a story, even if we don't know how to cook,
33:32that we are able to lie.
33:34And that lie is a good one.
33:36Because when you say this Thanksgiving, I ate the best roasted turkey in the history
33:41because my grandma made it, you know, you're lying because probably it was dry.
33:47But even the lies allow, because those are the good ones.
33:51Those are the good lies.
33:53But maybe it was a great one.
33:55And usually it's friends and it's family.
33:57And you're cooking or you're going to a restaurant.
33:59And you know the chef or the cook or you know the waiter or the manager.
34:02And usually what happens is that around the table,
34:06we are always inviting somebody that we don't know.
34:08And lunch or dinner is a way to bring somebody we don't know into our lives.
34:13Even if you're having a coffee with a little croissant or some churros,
34:17the moment of bringing somebody into your life and eating with them,
34:21it's almost like you're sealing a relationship.
34:26Always the beginning of a relationship may go places.
34:29Obviously, if you bring somebody home, wow.
34:31But I always say that this moment is because the first moment in life
34:36that we receive a tangible in the form that sends the message of love,
34:43of high care, is when our moms, when we come to the wall,
34:46bring us to their bodies, their warm bodies and feeds us.
34:50Even if they are not able, it's our dad or our grandma giving us a baby bottle.
34:56But the first moment we receive love is in the form of food.
35:00And I think this gets sealed inside the deepest part of our self, of our DNA,
35:08and forever stays with us.
35:11And what I want to remind everybody is that, obviously,
35:15food is this ultimate gesture of love because going shopping,
35:19getting everything ready, cooking, putting the table,
35:22that's a lot of work, my friends.
35:25I remember me, I had a good example in my dad.
35:28My dad was hands-on in the kitchen.
35:30Here, there was no separation of powers.
35:33But my mom was always the one that, okay, what are the children eating tonight?
35:36So I think people need to remember that longer tables wins the day.
35:42A table usually is one of the happiest places,
35:44that even when we are with people that we disagree with,
35:47the plate of food, the glass of wine,
35:49the ultimate respect that the table sends to everybody
35:53makes people to have conversations even in a more magnanimous way.
35:59Even that you are listening to the person,
36:01sharing their ideas, even if we disagree with them,
36:04and then that person is going to listen to ours.
36:07And that's why I say longer tables is the very simple place where
36:11what is good for me must be good for you.
36:14Don't be fooled by anybody that tells you it's them versus us,
36:18because it's never been the case.
36:20America was founded in three very simple words.
36:23We the people.
36:24And we need to believe that we the people is not our people.
36:28It's we the people, all the people.
36:31Not we the people that once are like me and think like me,
36:35and that the ones don't, they are my enemies.
36:37No, we the people means we all.
36:40Where even if you think different than me,
36:42I'm going to see it as a way for me to learn,
36:44not as a way to feel attacked.
36:47And I'm expecting the same back from you when I share with you what I think.
36:52And actually, I'm going to try to find a middle ground,
36:54because if somebody was holding all the truth and nothing but the truth
36:59and had all the answers to make a perfect world,
37:03please tell me where that place is because I want to go.
37:06And that's what the table is.
37:07It's the closest thing we have to the perfect place.
37:10The closest thing we have to heaven on earth is the place that we can be who we are,
37:18where we can express love and affection and empathy,
37:21where we can be welcoming those that we want to bring into our lives,
37:26and where we are all sharing the goodness of the earth.
37:30That's what hospitality means to be.
37:34It's the almost perfect place on earth.
37:37Wow. Well, I hope you'll keep doing what you're doing.
37:41And congrats on the book.
37:43And congrats on all the work that you've done at World Central Kitchen.
37:47And thank you for being on Biscuits and Jam.
37:50Thank you. Thank you very much.
37:51And I can add one more thing.
37:52You mentioned Feeding Dangerously.
37:55And it's a comic book.
37:57If you want to learn through a comic what was the beginning and the idea behind World Central Kitchen,
38:04trying to find it, Feeding Dangerously, the money raised on that book 100% goes to World Central Kitchen.
38:14Thanks for listening to my conversation with Jose Andres.
38:18Southern Living is based in Birmingham, Alabama.
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38:38Our theme song is by Sean Watkins of Nickel Creek.
38:41I hope you'll join me next week for an interview with the rising country star Brittany Spencer,
38:46who just released her debut album, and it's fantastic.
38:49I'll see you then.