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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer, on WNYC. Now, we'll talk with the renowned chef José Andrés about cooking and causes. On the cooking side, chef Andrés has a new TV special that premieres today on Amazon called Dinner Party Diaries. He's got a new cookbook called Zaytinya: Delicious Mediterranean Dishes from Greece, Turkey, and Lebanon. Chef Andrés has a restaurant called Zaytinya here in New York, as some of you know, also one called The Bizarre at the new Ritz Carlton, a couple of others in New York as well and so many around the world in major cities.

Chef José Andrés is also in the news for his humanitarian relief organization World Central Kitchen, which has brought food to many areas around the world, including Ukraine, where they say 260 million meals delivered since the Russian invasion two years ago, and where at least four World Central Kitchen workers were injured in a bombing, according to what I read. Chef Andrés says Ukraine has now been forgotten. Last week, they shipped 200 tons of food to Gaza, enough for a half million meals. He says they're prepared to send much more by land, sea, and air. Over time, they serve more than 37 million meals there, they say.

This weekend, Chef Andrés was on some of the network's Sunday talk shows and called for a ceasefire in Gaza, as the situation becomes more dire. How dire? Here is UN Secretary-General António Guterres yesterday after a report by the UN Food Program found an imminent risk of catastrophic famine.

António Guterres: This is an entirely manmade disaster, and the report makes clear that it can be halted.

Brian Lehrer: UN Secretary-General António Guterres. If you believe the US more than the UN, here's Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday on the unprecedented scope of the emergency.

Antony Blinken: According to the most respected measure of these things, 100% of the population in Gaza is at severe levels of acute food insecurity. That's the first time an entire population has been so classified.

Brian Lehrer: Antony Blinken there, Chef José Andrés here. Chef Andrés, it's an honor to have you on with us again. Welcome back to WNYC.

José Andrés: Thank you for having me.

Brian Lehrer: We'll get to the book and the TV special, but could you begin by describing to our listeners, in your own words, for people who don't know about it already, what World Central Kitchen is and the scope of the work that it's done in recent years?

José Andrés: World Central Kitchen is organization that was founded in 2010 after the terrible earthquake that has had such destruction in the heart of Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti. I went there, and I began, obviously, learning the ways that cooks like me, organizing the restaurant, feeding apparatus anywhere in the world could be the quickest and fastest way in emergencies, hurricanes, fires, volcanoes, tsunamis. The quickest way to provide people with food and water today. No week, no month later, today.

Since then, we've done-- Imagine, every single hurricane, unfortunately, that hit America, fires, hurricanes in Latin America, earthquakes like the last ones in Turkey, and Syria. Also, we were in Japan when another earthquake devastated the western part of Japan.

At the moment, obviously we've been feeding in the Middle East with operations in different countries that included, at the beginning, in Israel when it was attacked, obviously, Gaza because also the situation. We were in places also, obviously, like in Egypt. We are in places like Armeniam. We are in places like Lebanon. We believe that food and water is a universal human right. We cannot go to every moment an emergency happen, but in the major ones, every day, more and more World Central Kitchen always is present.

Brian Lehrer: About Gaza, Chef Andrés, Can you describe in more detail than I gave him the intro what World Central Kitchen has now sent to Gaza and been able to actually get in there?

José Andrés: The important number is that World Central Kitchen has done 37 million meals. We have more than 66 kitchens with around 250,000 hot meals. For a total of around 350,000 meals a day. The difference between the hot meals and the bigger number is what we call right now, for example, the Ramadan boxes, which we give families food. The families that they are in a place that they can somehow cook themselves, we give them the dry goods, or we give a type of meal ready to eat of very good quality where, again, the families without cooking, they can be feeding themselves.

What you mentioned was 200 tons. We're bringing right now around 10 to 30 trucks a day, which is used on the edge of being good from around 100 trucks that reach inside Gaza every day. Sometimes, it's more. Quite frankly, it doesn't happen in the quantity or with the continuation or the humanitarian organizations need. More is more. That's why we began pushing for airdrops. World Central Kitchen has been pushing from the first day, thanks to the Kingdom of Jordan and the leadership of King Abdullah. I was in one of those planes delivering aid and learning how we could only do it for the hospitals in a very small drops with GPS, very expensive way to do, but could be use the same planes.

We've seen that before in history where we could be landing parachutes in the northern part of Gaza that is where the true hunger is, even is [unintelligible 00:06:48] across, but the true hunger is. Where we can once and for all make sure that everybody is fed in the north.

Also, we try to open the maritime route. World Central Kitchen, it's almost in 20 years, we were the first organization that we try building a [unintelligible 00:07:04] to say, "Can we bring more food through the sea?" We were successful with it, almost 200 tons, but that was simply a pilot. The answer was, can we bring thousands of tons also by the sea, again, increasing the input of food and humanitarian aid reaching the people of Gaza? Better is to do it by road. Better is not having to do these crazy missions by the air and by the sea. This year, we'll be increasing the inflow of humanitarian aid through the south, but why not also from the north?

Brian Lehrer: Well, Israel says it places no limits on food going into Gaza by road and that hunger there is because Hamas fighters take the food or other distribution issues once it's in Gaza. Do you have any experience with your shipments or your community kitchens there that indicate one or the other is more true?

José Andrés: All of the above is true. The humanitarian arm of Israel is called COGAT, and I can tell you, those are men and women, they try their best every day to allow the different NGOs to be bringing the most quantity of food we can, but the situation is very complicated. It's an active conflict. A very complicated active conflict with different people. Obviously, it plays a role. The people also in Palestine play a role. Also, the UN in the border plays a role. Obviously, Israel plays a role. It's a very complicated process to bring food into Gaza, where the food and the humanitarian aid keeps changing tracks, and then has to be checked by Israel. Then, again, changes trucks again.

Then once you're inside, it's secure, really. People are hungry. When people are hungry, are desperate, means that they will stop the trucks to try to get the food. I don't blame them. If my children were hungry, I will do anything I can to feed them. Sometimes, it's some gangs that I don't have experience to say who, but these gangs, they are also stopping sometimes some trucks in some parts that they get them. They use it in any conflict, use to make a profit. They will maybe sell it in the streets.

Yes, you see in some parts humanitarian aid being sold. This happens in every conflict unfortunately in the world. I will say the vast majority of people are just people of goodness, that they want to do the best they can to make sure that the people of Gaza are fed. Then, again, when the convoys are trying to reach the north, it's the same. There can be blockades in the middle where people are hungry. Even when you are succeeding because you are feeding people, the issue is that you are not succeeding in reaching the hospitals or the communities very, very north, all the way to Jabalia, that they are having a hard time finding food.

Today, World Central Kitchen was able to have a mission fairly successful with the help of the World Food Programme, OCHA, who very much helps a lot of coordination in a lot of events around the world. OCHA has been doing great work coordinating a lot of the different NGOs inside Gaza, helping us in different ways. World Food Programme helped us with a couple of cars. OCHA helped us with a couple of trucks, plus the trucks we had. All together, and with the knowledge we have of the situation, today, World Central Kitchen was able to reach the north with eight trucks around. We will guess it's equivalent to 500,000 meals.

Again, this is just one day. This is great if we are able to do the same every single day. Not only World Central Kitchen but World Food Programme and the many other sometimes big NGOs, sometimes small NGOs, NGOs of other countries, sometimes independent group of citizens that they care of the people and they try to send food. Again, more organized, the better. If OCHA and World Food Programme somehow are behind or now organizations like World Central Kitchen, in this organization, food has more chances to go north.

Again, in the moment a ceasefire is achieved, the hostages are released, hopefully, we could get to a moment that everybody can be eating and can be having access to water. Again, water and food is a humanitarian right. It's a universal human right. Everybody will agree with this very simple message. I know it's a lot of people working hard to make sure that every person in Palestine is being fed.

Brian Lehrer: You gave us a long list of places around the world where World Central Kitchen has delivered food during emergencies, and you heard the clip of Secretary of State Blinken saying this is the first time an entire population of a place has been suffering severe levels of acute food insecurity, as he put it. Is there a way you would describe the situation in Gaza compared to anything else that World Food Kitchen has been involved with?

José Andrés: One of the things that we see with hunger is that in the same way, we have a number to describe an earthquake. Richter scale, if you say 7, everybody understand the severity. If you say hurricane category 5, everybody understands in a very simple way the severity of that hurricane. Even if you are not aware of the winds and you are no expert on the speed, people have a notion. I have a feeling with hunger itself, while experts on food and hunger issues, scholars, they have their own way to communicate what that means.

I think we need to come up with a way, a simple number or a simple letter, or a simple color that describes hunger, because situations are very different. Haiti, with Chad, or Sudan, or Ukraine are different. It's not the same hunger in a hurricane or hunger in a war zone. There's places like Ukraine that they had plenty of food, but the issue with Ukraine is not like they didn't have food, it's on the infrastructure broke.

We could argue that there's enough food in Gaza because there's enough food waiting outside Kerem Shalom or the southern Rafah entry. There's plenty of trucks that if all go in, the humanitarian hunger crisis stops overnight, but there is the challenges of a war zone. What Secretary Blinken, whatever information, obviously, he's getting, we know that we are

doing between 200 and 350,000 meals a day. We know those populations we are feeding. If I show you the photos, those are children that they are with a smile on their face because they know they can rely on that food coming in every day to their tents, to their villages, to the place we're feeding them.

I know other organizations are doing the same, obviously, what World Food Program is doing, et cetera, et cetera, what Anera is doing. I don't have the clarity of the exact number of meals, and this is something-- information is there, but then this is still complicated of how many people receive, at the very least, one meal a day. I would say that, obviously, southern Rafah is in much better situation that, obviously, in the moment you move north Khan Yunis, and you get to Gaza City, and you even move north.

The true north, that is what we all have a hard time to reach. There, you can be imagining the situation. You don't need to be an expert. When food don't reaches people, and they are in a war zone, people are naturally going to be hungry. No infrastructure, no stores, no money, no mag. It's total destruction. Again, nothing better than to have to say that we all need to always aim for peace times where children are not under the threat of missiles anywhere, everywhere, everywhere in the Middle East, everywhere in the world.

Humans, we need to be working towards longer tables, not towards trying to bring the wars out of each one of us. This book I have, Zaytinya, at the end has hummus and has falafel. I know this may seem a very strange comparison, but when I spend time in Israel with amazing, great people, and when I spend time in Palestine with amazing, great people, they all love their families. They only want a future of peace. They only want the best for themselves. Many people will tell you, "I want the best for the others."

At the end, I learned sharing and breaking bread in Israel and in Palestine and in Egypt and in Jordan that everybody loves falafel and everybody loves hummus. How is this possible people that love the same food? It seemed they'll come together. They don't need to be best friends, but they could and should be learning how to live together. In a way, that's what food does. In a way, food is who we are. I hope that in a way, everybody will have the right to a plate of food, and everybody will have the right to be free, and everybody will have, obviously, the right to look at the future with hope to provide for their children a future where there is plenty of food, plenty of hope and opportunity.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, any questions for Chef José Andrés? We have time for a few on World Central Kitchen relief efforts or his cookbooks, restaurants, or TV shows, including the new one about Dinner Parties, 212-433-WNYC. Anything you always wanted to ask Chef José Andrés but didn't have the nerve to have him over for dinner to taste your food, 212-433-9692. Let's take a phone call right now. Hoda in Manhattan. You're on WNYC. Hello, Hoda.

Hoda: Hello. Thank you, Brian, for taking my call. Chef Andrés José, I just wanted to thank you for all of your work and humanizing people that have been displaced, traumatized, and really not given any recognition for their humanity. I'm of Arab descent, and I've watched closely over the years and supported your organizations with all of your relief efforts. I just wanted to thank you for where our governments have failed, administrations have failed.

You have stepped up and have done so much tremendous work for so many people around the world. I hope you appreciate how grateful we are for everything that you do, especially just talking about the basic fundamental human rights of feeding people and having nutritious meals and access to it. Throughout these recent events, just the degradation of Arabs and the degradation of Palestinians, you have uplifted them and given them so much of a voice. Thank you so much for all of the work that you do, sir.

Brian Lehrer: Hoda, thank you. I'm going to go right on to the next caller, chef, and then you can respond to both. Anwar in North Bergen. You're on WNYC. Hello, Anwar.

Anwar: Hey, Brian. How are you doing? Hola, Chef Andrés [Spanish Language] I am a Palestinian-American kosher chef. I do kosher events all over the place. I apply with you guys. I think you're the best. I think I could help you if you would allow me to help you. I've been to the West Bank. I have a lot of friends and family members. I wish I could only help you, man. I appreciate what you're doing. I can't tell you more than that.

Brian Lehrer: Anwar, thank you. All right. Very rare that you get a job applicant on the radio, chef.

José Andrés: Listen, on the first one, obviously, thank you. It's great that you are a kosher chef expert. This is a great talent to have. World Central Kitchen has done many times around the world kosher meals. Ukraine used to help the population that, in difficult times, will be needing that type of food. I've done myself kosher meals over the years for friends.

At the same time, obviously, right now, we're going through Ramadan, and I think in a few dinners with iftar and breaking bread at the end of the day toward sunset. It's great. Used to be celebrating different people and different cultures and used to see celebrating different cultures and celebrations and traditions that brings us together. I'm a Catholic Christian, and I celebrate plenty of traditions, religious or not, with other friends that they come from different backgrounds than my family and I.

On the volunteer thing, obviously, we are an organization that we work with people in the ground. In Israel, we activated, and we had hundreds of amazing individuals, chefs, where we had many restaurants just helping feed all the communities that we need to remember were massacred on that terrible day of the attack with, unfortunately, many, many perish, and many suffer on top of the hostages that were taken. At the same time, we did the same in Gaza because, at the same time, the situation was terrible, and we used to be on the side of, again, necks of the people. World Central Kitchen feeds people.

Again, I repeat, feeding should be a universal right. What is good for me must be good for others. I think everybody needs to come to agreement that nobody should be bombing anybody, nobody should be killing anybody, nobody should be attacking anybody, that everybody should be having the opportunity for a future of hope. I will be always fighting for that. Obviously, the situation right now in Gaza is terrible. That's why, right now, our main mission and objective, and even we are in other parts, is just making sure that we bring the food and aid relief that these people can. We are always going to be next to humanity. That's what we are always going to do.

Brian Lehrer: Is there a way that the second caller can follow up to put in a job application?

José Andrés: Again, we are not the typical organization that hires people. People hire themselves. All the people we work with at the beginning in Israel and all the people we are working, more than 3,000 that we have now in Palestine with more than 66 kitchens, are people that are there, are people that raise their hand and they say, "We're there." It's not like we bring people from the outside as much as that we use the locals, because locals are the most quicker, faster, effective way to deliver humanitarian aid.

Brian Lehrer: I mentioned that the TV special on Amazon, Dinner Party Diaries, drops today in addition to the cookbook. I watched the trailer, and it looks like a lot of fun in people's homes. Am I saying that right?

José Andrés: This was like my home. It was not my home. I don't want to be telling too much story, but the home was beautiful. Could be my home, but was like my home, and their friends began showing up like happens in my home or in the home of anybody almost unannounced, last minute, and where we don't go directly to sit down for dinner, but where the best parties start in the kitchen with ingredients that sometimes you know what you're going to do, and sometimes with ingredients you're going to be adapting.

This show is going to be fun. It's a great show for the families. Celebrates, families, friends, good time, food, the stories that brings us together, that life sometimes we take it too seriously. When things go wrong, it's also okay. You will see plenty of things going wrong in this show, but we go through every moment just laughing and enjoying every single moment.

You're going to see there, Jamie Lee Curtis taking over my kitchen. You're going to see there Bryan Cranston very much taking over the salt. I cannot tell you more. You're going to be seeing their O'Shea Jackson right there being the biggest smile and best team player that you can have in a kitchen, and trying new methods of how you can be drinking that is more fun than using a glass. At the end, we're friends having fun.

Listen, Prime Video has done an amazing work in also making this special. That's why my good friend joined to bring awareness about World Central Kitchen and help raise funds for World Central Kitchen. Even the show is not about World Central Kitchen. It's the reason my friends came to my call. Good friends are your friends because in the moments you need them, they always show up. This is what the show is celebrating. I hope everybody is going to have a great time watching these three friends of mine having a heck of a good time in my kitchen.

Brian Lehrer: Last question, then. I wonder, Chef Andrés, if you experienced something like emotional whiplash on the one hand with your restaurants that delight their customers and cookbooks and a TV special like the new one that you were just describing with such joy at the same time that you're so involved with Gaza and Ukraine and other humanitarian catastrophes. How do you process emotionally the range of things that you currently do?

José Andrés: I'm not so worried about me because, at the end of the day, I have a wife and children and a network of friends that take care of me. At the end, we need to remember we all need to be taking care of each other. Me, I'm more worried about, obviously, the people that don't have that network, that don't have the group of friends or family. Those are the people that I really feel the most for. It's many very stressful events going on in the world.

Obviously, the people, men and women of World Central Kitchen, but then every other humanitarian organization, they are created by people that give their best, that they sometimes even put their family aside just to try to bring wellness and hope to others in very remote parts of the world. This is the people my heart goes to and my thoughts go to, and every one of our thoughts should be going to, because this is people that go through-- they see and they feel sometimes that you are powerless, that you lose hope.

That's why, with World Central Kitchen, we try always to do things fast and quick, not because we want to show off like, "Oh, we're fast and quick," but because we bring hope. We bring hope of people working together where in the worst moments of humanity, the best of humanity shows up. Where people help people not because their religion or the color of their skin or their nationality. It's just always people caring for people.

That's why I believe, in essence, what World Central Kitchen does is building longer tables, is believing that maybe one day, just one plate of food at a time is the simple way that we can start solving problems. That maybe also building these longer tables, we can dream of bringing people together when sometimes those same people seem they are at odds with each other. A table full of love and full of food maybe is the place we can start dreaming of a world where peace and hope is the only thing we talk about.

Brian Lehrer: Chef José Andrés. Always an honor. Always an inspiration to talk to you. Thank you for coming on with us today.

José Andrés: Thank you for having me.

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