World Central Kitchen brings food relief with local touch: City Juice with John Malik

In 2010, Jose Andres’ reputation as a chef was secure.

His restaurants, starting in Washington, D.C., served some of the most intriguing food on the planet. Andres has 31 restaurants across the globe. We’ve been fortunate enough to have dined at three of his restaurants and our meal at Minibar probably sits at the top of our list.

But after a devastating earthquake in Haiti in 2010, which sent some of its citizens to the brink of starvation, Andres founded World Central Kitchen with the goal of providing basic sustenance in disaster-stricken areas. No politics, no religion — just food and water.

While volunteering with Operation Barbecue Relief in Lake Charles, Louisiana, after Hurricane Laura, our group ended up sharing the same Walmart parking lot with World Central Kitchen. After our day was done, I wandered over to the WCK area and saw what its staff was preparing and chatted with some of the team. What WCK does differently than every other relief team is prepare a meal that is relevant to the affected region. In Lake Charles, the team was serving shrimp court bouillon over rice, while the team at Operation Barbecue was serving the same thing we made two years later in Hammond, Louisiana, and two years earlier in Port St. Joe, Florida.

Going that extra mile was important to me. Judging by the smiles on the faces of hungry, exhausted Louisianans who were offered a familiar dish prepared by skilled hands, that extra mile spoke volumes to them.

While working with WCK in Przemysl, Poland, at the start of the war in Ukraine, we prepared a dish familiar to Ukrainians. It was a stew made with beef, bulgur wheat, and a blend of spices and herbs that were a bit foreign to me but familiar to Ukrainians. Once again, World Central Kitchen put a smile on the faces of people that were in dire straits.

Last week I spent some time in Asheville, North Carolina, serving food with World Central Kitchen for our shell-shocked neighbors to the north. Many of them wore those similar expressions of disbelief — emotions I’ve seen in the faces of hurricane survivors. It’s a mixture of gratitude, angst and uncertainty over their next steps. Those steps cannot be accomplished without sustenance and a hot meal is necessary for all to determine and act on those next steps.

By the time you read this, we’ll all have a better understanding of what it’s going to take to restore Asheville and the surrounding lovely mountain towns to anything resembling normal. I’d say the damage is breathtaking, but that word doesn’t accurately convey the challenges ahead. In the meantime, many of us will be volunteering our time and skill to keep those weary souls fed and encouraged.

If you’re curious about what World Central Kitchen served in Asheville, it was barbecue pork with lima beans, macaroni and cheese, and baked beans. How appropriate.

“City Juice” is a colloquial term for a glass of tap water served at a diner. John Malik is a restaurant coach and hospitality consultant. He can be reached at chefjohnmalik@gmail.com.