Where Does Chef Jose Andres Find His Empathy?

This week I am Chef and humanitarian Jose Andres! Watch the full episode below to see his bagel order, plus see all episodes HERE, but below with Chef we talk about empathy, the importance of immigrants to our country, the American Dream, and so much more.

https://youtu.be/T7xSJ_W0fws?si=IrO8hcfJ9xDd96om

New Cookbook

Jeremy: Tell me about the new cookbook?

José Andrés: It’s Spain My Way. My third Spanish book, my seventh book.

José Andrés: The book is very much stories, moments, stops, families, celebrations, people I know and people I don’t know, telling the stories behind those people. Every dish is a story, and this book is recipes with the stories.

What is the NYC Restaurant Scene Missing?

Jeremy: You have restaurants all over, a ton in New York City. We’re sitting here at one of your many places. What do you think is missing in the New York City restaurant scene right now?

José Andrés: Oh my god, this is a very nice, very good, very beautiful, powerful question. I come highly unprepared. Listen, I’ve been walking the streets of New York for what… I came in ’89, first time.

José Andrés: And I docked down there, downtown, with the tall ship Juan Sebastián de Elcano. I was in the Spanish Navy for months in ’89, so many years ago, 26, 27 years ago. This is crazy. And I remember my first hot dog: 99 cents. And I remember my first lobster. Now I remember having my first chapulines, the grasshopper tacos, at Rosa Mexicano on 59th and 9th. I think New York very much has everything. New York didn’t have the paella made in a wood‑burning oven, and now we got it.

But I think New York, for me, has been, as a young cook when I came, the biggest university, because moving away from Manhattan, obviously New York is so much more than Manhattan,I think every cooking around the world is here.

But then you realize there are as many recipes in the world as there are stars and techniques. So when I go to China and you see techniques of making pasta that you are like, “Really?” Mind‑blowing. But then those are only a few of many more. So I’m guessing there are things missing in New York, but the good news is that that’s why you can travel anywhere in the world from New York.

“When others see mayhem, I only see goodness”

Jeremy: Everyone knows you for your food, amazing chef, but then I think also what comes to mind is your empathy for the world and for everyone and for people in need. Where does your empathy come from, and how can we spread that to other people? You know what I mean? I look around the world and I’m like, we need to be more like you.

José Andrés: I don’t know. When I see the world, I see a lot of goodness. When others see mayhem, I only see goodness. Things, for the most part, function. The hospitals are saving lives every day. Maternity nurses are bringing new babies to the world every day. The airports are running ,I don’t know how, planes keep taking off and landing. Smiles are given right and left. People help older people cross the street or bring their shopping into their car in the local supermarket. It’s a lot of goodness out there. It’s a lot of value.

Me, my mom was a nurse, my father was a nurse. I think we saw it during COVID. I grew up in this kind of nurse‑doctor environment. And I always thought that they were super‑humans.

Clara Barton’s living quarters were discovered across the street from where I opened my first restaurant in DC. The woman that created the Missing Soldiers Hospital, the woman that created the Red Cross — with the talent she had, she took care of the few, but then she created organizations to take care of the many. To do even more, with the same talent. No more, no less.

So I always say we all have a talent within us to do what we do for the few, but if you believe in yourself, that same talent can have an impact you never even imagined.

Me, I don’t know. I like to… maybe my wife says it’s my perfect excuse because I like to cook big pots. And almost it was very selfish: where am I going to cook big pots every day? In a humanitarian response. So for me, watching that sometimes in emergencies my profession could do more.

We were doing, randomly, restaurants opening the doors to feed people in September 11th, putting a grill outside in New Orleans to feed anybody escaping the levees breaking and the water raising. Those things were happening anyway, but if you organize them a little bit more, then the response is just astonishing.

And that’s what happened. I saw in New Orleans the lack of response in an organized way, but the empathy all across, we saw it in September 11th. The response was the one it was, was a total disaster, but the empathy was in every corner of Manhattan.

So imagine if you bring out that empathy plus coordination into an organization that brings all that into any emergency. And that was the idea. I began in Haiti, 2010. I went alone with two friends: “Hey, this works. Doesn’t need much, willingness to cook and willingness to be there.” Then things began getting bigger, and before you knew it, now sometimes we are the biggest organization in some responses. Nobody calls us, we just go.

“We the people” is not easy.

Jeremy: So you came here in 1989. To me, you’ve achieved and are living the American dream. Does it bother you that we now have an administration that is actively trying to stop that from happening?

José Andrés: Ultimately in life, everything happens for a reason. I think especially in this 250‑year anniversary, the good things of life we take them so for granted.

Not everybody is living the American dream, and some people look for a scapegoat, a way to blame others for not everybody living the American dream, including one, two, three, four, five‑generation Americans. And it’s very easy to blame others, but very difficult to look yourself in the mirror and say, “Well, maybe I’m the one responsible.”

So I think what we are living is this moment that certain people feel the American dream is not achievable for them because these other people are making it difficult for them. And quite frankly, you cannot blame undocumented and immigrants from other Americans not living the American dream to its fullest. You could, but you’re lying to yourself.

So when we have leaders that instead of coming with solutions come with excuses, when we have leaders that don’t bring the best angels we all have but bring the demons we all have, when you have leaders that find that breaking us apart is easier than creating the “we the people.”

“We the people” is not easy. “We the people” was not achieved easy. “We the people” is not something that just happened. “We the people” happened because it was a group of people that said, in this moment, we want to control our destiny. And “we the people” made that destiny possible.

And we forget that. And “we the people” that made the dream of an America possible were people from different backgrounds and different religions. And still today, we are fighting for the very simple premise of what the “we the people” is.

So I think that this is probably happening in the 250th anniversary of the creation of America, with Lady Liberty not too far away and Ellis Island not too far away, where millions of undocumented are an important part of why America is actually functioning. That we even have Dreamers that now we have some leaders that don’t want to give them the opportunity to simply belong.

Hopefully we’ll get on the other side of the fence stronger, because you only miss the things you had the day you don’t have them anymore. I think we need to believe in leaders that want to bring the best engines we have. And I think people will realize that those that only want to bring disrespect to others, blame to others, mayhem with words of nastiness versus words of pragmatic dignity to everyone.

I think in the end, pragmatism and “we the people” will always win. And if anything, will make America better and stronger. That’s my hope.