Chef José Andrés’s Simple Advice for Helping Those in Distress
Andrés visits a meal distribution center in Loíza, Puerto Rico, on Nov. 23.
Photographer: John Francis Peters for Bloomberg Businessweek.
Does José Andrés ever sleep? In August, he was in Houston after Hurricane Harvey, where his World Central Kitchen (WCK) organization helped local chefs such as Bryan Caswell provide 20,000 meals at the George R. Brown Convention Center. By early December, he was coordinating relief efforts for those affected by the fires in the Los Angeles area, tweeting at the Red Cross from Miami that he’d found a kitchen to make 1,000 meals a day.
In between, he spearheaded an effort to feed the citizens of Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, which made landfall on Sept. 20. In his ever-present khaki field vest, Andrés’s name became synonymous with the relief effort that has provided 3 million meals across the island—about 75 percent of them hot—serving paella outside the José Miguel Agrelot Coliseum in San Juan, delivering Thanksgiving dinner in Vieques, and bringing carne guisada to rural mountain communities such as Naguabo.