Beyond The Plate – A Podcast by Food For The Poor
Food isn't just delicious... it can also change your life! Tune into Beyond the Plate, a new podcast presented by International Charity: Food For The Poor. Get inspired with conversations that nourish the soul. Hear amazing stories of transformation from faith influencers, leaders in the nonprofit sector, and the individuals receiving aid in the 15 countries of Latin America that Food For The Poor serves.
Beyond The Plate – A Podcast by Food For The Poor
Ep.11 - World Central Kitchen's Mission in Crisis, Comfort & Humanity
Join us as we uncover the extraordinary power of food to forge deep connections and bring communities together during the most challenging times, restoring dignity and hope in the midst of disaster. Our guest, Monica Majors from Chef Jose Andres’ relief organization, World Central Kitchen, takes us behind the scenes of their emergency food relief operations, sharing her inspiring experiences from disaster zones like the Surfside Condo Collapse and hurricanes Dorian, Ida and Idalia. Her stories illustrate how food transcends sustenance, becoming a beacon of comfort and humanity for those affected by crisis, which began in the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake.
Explore the fascinating logistics and heartwarming tales that define Chef Jose Andres’ passion and World Central Kitchen's mission as we discuss their ability to rapidly mobilize and provide tens of thousands of meals in the wake of global disasters. We unravel how local partnerships, culinary expertise, and innovative solutions like mobile kitchens are at the heart of their success. You'll hear about the cultural relevance of meals prepared during these efforts, highlighting the crucial role local chefs play in ensuring that the food served not only nourishes but also respects cultural preferences and traditions.
Finally, we reflect on the poignant moments that unfold during disaster response efforts, emphasizing the power of comfort food to provide solace and a sense of normalcy. From the touching stories of resilience at the Ukraine-Poland border to the nostalgic tastes of dishes like the Haitian-Bahamian dish ‘Fire Engine’, this episode celebrates the communal spirit inspired by food. With humor and genuine dialogue, we invite you to connect with the heartwarming stories that showcase the incredible impact of food on humanity in its hour of need.
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Beyond The Plate is a podcast by international charity, Food For The Poor
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We're all inspired by our human connection that arises when we share food with others. So what's on your heart becomes a hub for truly heartfelt conversation.
Speaker 2:Tertulia, as they say in Spanish, fostering genuine bonds between individuals, creating that sense of community and connection.
Speaker 1:I'm Paul Jacobs, your podcast co-host, ready to inspire you by conversations that nourish the soul as we go beyond the plate.
Speaker 2:I'm Daniel Patino, welcoming you to join us for some truly inspiring tertulia. Get ready to satisfy that craving for connection and inspiration as we dive into topics that aren't only broaden your perspective but also deepen your understanding of lives of families in Latin America, the Caribbean or even in your own backyard. So, wherever our conversations take us, come along for the ride and let's go Beyond the Plate together. All right? So I've seen a little list here that I want to share with you guys. People talk about the most common jobs in America, the industries that are most in demand and the gigs that pay the most. So I'm going to share this with you. So here's a list of the least common jobs in America, the industries that are most in demand and the gigs that pay the most. So I'm going to share this with you. Here's a list of the least common jobs in America, and, of course, it's a list, so I shortened the list just for time purposes, right, because we don't have all day. I want to get to our guests. This episode is like three hours.
Speaker 1:It is, we got time to spare.
Speaker 2:So here's a list, along with the number of people employed in them and the average salaries that come with it. So, number one wood pattern makers, wood patterns, wood pattern makers. You've seen it the live, laugh, love signs that all come in one.
Speaker 3:I was thinking pallets. I'm thinking there's somebody out there saying it has to be exactly this measurement.
Speaker 2:I'm thinking carpenter, don't they just call them carpenters? That's a fancy way to say carpenter, right? I mean wood pattern maker. So there's 260 people employed in the US. Like that, average salary 52K.
Speaker 1:Okay, what about that? What about that? There you go.
Speaker 2:Interesting. Here's another one Clock and timer precision technicians what Sounds like they're in charge of the time-space continuum. I am the clock and timer precision technician. I would work with those people, just for the record Right. I would absolutely they go back in time, just in case something happens right. 400 people are employed in that position right now 400 people are paid to change the time on a clock.
Speaker 2:That's right. That's the most important. I mean, if you're looking at the clock of the microwave, the VCR, your watch, your phone, one of those things has got to be on time right, that's high pressure.
Speaker 1:I want my money back from college.
Speaker 2:I'm early If I look at the microwave. I'm late If I look at my VCR. And one more Furnace and kiln repair technicians, Okay, Okay yeah, they're worth that's right 540 people are a part of that initiative. 49k a year, right, the one, I think, job that's not listed on here and it's the least common job and you want to take a stab at it, Paul, I think it would be the title of response corps member.
Speaker 1:Response corps member is correct. 100 points for you, paul. 100 points for you, 100 points. All right, so we have one of those response core members here with us today, all right. So, first of all, you've been. You got a little sneak peek at the voice. You're wondering, okay, why? Why is danny and paul throwing their voice into a, you know, like a little higher pitch? No, that doesn't sound. No, it's not that there's danny and paul doing, uh, imitations. We actually have a guest, monica Majors, welcome to Beyond the Plate.
Speaker 3:Hello, thank you, sorry, cannot be contained. Apparently You'll find that that comes in handy in certain high-stress situations.
Speaker 1:Yes, I assure you, there are no standard operating procedures on this podcast, as you can see, so far, so okay. First of all, let's go over. I really want to just share some of your highlights, your resume. Really. You've worked with World Central Kitchen now since Hurricane Dorian hit the Bahamas in 2019. You've been on 13 responses. Has that number grown since I?
Speaker 3:It is 14 now and, yeah, probably likely to continue.
Speaker 1:yes, this is what really stood out to me Five international, eight domestic, but there were five here in South Florida, namely, and what really hits home for all of us here in South Florida, the Surfside Condo Collapse, champlain Towers, hurricanes, ida and Idalia I mean, that is to us, us very close to home and very personal. You worked in what you call distribution, which is the fulfillment of food needs into distressed or affected communities after natural and climate or humanitarian related disasters. Danny, would you like me to say that in English.
Speaker 2:I think Monica just says that to everybody she walks up to In. English I am part of the fulfillment of food needs and to distress or affect the communities after unnatural climate or humanitarian related disasters. Yeah, if somebody eats food and they don't get it.
Speaker 3:It's my fault.
Speaker 2:Because you're still describing that whole thing to them. Yes, exactly, they're waiting for it, sorry. Yes, let me finish, sir. We have a process in place for this.
Speaker 3:She trends.
Speaker 1:Let me finish sir, we have a process in place for this. We need an acronym.
Speaker 2:We need an acronym for this, guys, oh that would be. We'll get to it. We'll get to it soon.
Speaker 1:It's like that scene from Shield right.
Speaker 3:Listen, we call it distro. You can come at. You know, with our colloquialisms.
Speaker 2:I'm distro, you're distro. I'm not the villain from'm distro Chromedome.
Speaker 1:Okay, but you said it in English. Yeah, we get chef-prepared meals into awaiting bellies. Yes, I love that. Yeah absolutely, I love that. But you know, Monica, tell us a little bit about just kind of your day-to-day role. I mean, when you are entered into the field, you get into the field and you start day one.
Speaker 3:What's that like for you? Absolutely Well, I think that to go back a step and just in terms of, there's really four main tracks that happen with World Central Kitchen in emergency response, and so that is a community outreach, that is the assessment of who is hungry, who is displaced, who do we need to reach and make sure that we're giving them hot food, hot nourishment. Then we have our culinary team, of course, cooking the meals A lot of the time. Sometimes we employ a restaurant model where we use food truck partners in lieu of that, depending on if the damage is pocketed, for example, and then we have distribution that connects those two. And so, in real time, you know, is making sure that we have an ability to grow the numbers of output, of what our kitchen might be making, whether we need to grow from a couple thousand to 10,000, to 35,000 meals per day, to 55,000 meals per day or more per day. Right, 55,000 meals per day is what we were putting out of the Atlantis kitchen in Nassau for Hurricane Dorian, for example 55,000 meals.
Speaker 3:Correct.
Speaker 1:How many?
Speaker 3:people in the kitchen In addition to a pretty good workforce of several dozens of volunteers, consistent culinary team experts and chef stewards and then loading that into an array of helicopters or local delivery on Nassau Island. That's also not in addition to the 25,000 to 30,000 meals being put out of the kitchen on Abaco and then also in Freeport. So there were other fuel kitchens that were set up to address those pocketed needs.
Speaker 1:That's like a stadium of people per day coming to get a meal.
Speaker 2:At our height, yes, 50,000.
Speaker 1:And when I think of okay, so all right, so we think of like a football game, professional football game, and all of those vendors feeding those tens of thousands of people in one game yeah. It's one unit, right, but they're hot dogs and nachos and burgers.
Speaker 3:I'm not. I mean, and those are go-tos. You can't mess up a burger. You can't mess up a burger.
Speaker 1:You can't mess up a hot dog. You can't mess up a nacho.
Speaker 3:We're talking chef prepared, chef prepared.
Speaker 2:And this is like a mobile restaurant, fancy restaurant on wheels, right, and it's almost. There's a chef, there's a sous chef, where everybody probably is equal right, because we're all, we're part of a mission, right.
Speaker 3:To feed a hungry belly, and so you know so, to go back to in early days, right, there's really there's a couple of different types of responses. So let's talk about one where, like a hurricane, really where we were born out of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, you've seen us here. For Hurricane Ian in Fort Myers, especially Ida in New Orleans, adalia here, the list goes on Hurricane Michael as well. In the case of a hurricane, we are often pre-positioning our team in advance of that storm and riding it out. Sometimes we get caught off guard. Beryl caught us off guard. We did not have a team so much pre-positioned in St Vincent, grenada, or in Jamaica, so we responded in hindsight to that. But so in that case, where we have the liberty of time, we're going into an area and we're setting up where we think is going to be the epicenter of the most damage, but also, let's say, in a place that needs to be our center for providing those meals outwards. Right, we can't be cut off. So, for example, with Hurricane Ian, we wanted to make sure that we were not per se on St Pete Island, but that we had the provisions if needed, if it was originally following that track, that we would get meals out there. So we're often taking up a partnership with a culinary institute, a hotel, a catering center, something large facility Right. Institute, a hotel, a catering center, something large facility right On the back heels of that we may be also bringing in our own food trucks that have large scale tilt kitchens that can cook, and or if we then see that damage is pocketed in the case of Adalia, where you have more sort of just rural centers that were affected, or in the case of tornadoes that really sort of they jump then we may be employing a restaurant partner or a food truck model that we call so, whereby we're calling out onto our long-term partners of South Florida.
Speaker 3:We have dozens to and then, throughout Florida and the state, hundreds of food trucks that we've worked with previously, whereby we were coaching them up on the right menu and then paying them for the food that goes out there as opposed to cooking it ourselves. So the early days is really understanding where people are pulling in relationships that our community outreach has created, whether that's with other agencies, with other NGOs and nonprofits, or if that's with community centers, churches on the ground or people that we just know in that community, and we don't wait for anybody to tell us where to go. We are happy to play well with others and we do play well with others, but we get in there and we get hot food into hungry bellies.
Speaker 1:Now you mentioned about Hurricane Beryl in Jamaica and some of the key areas that you were in is very near and dear to Food for the Poor's Heart.
Speaker 1:We'll talk a little bit about that Rocky Point and Portland Cottage and South Clarendon but there's a term you used and I want to kind of take us back a little bit early days. In the early days and it was interesting when we were talking about having you here and sharing your story and sharing some of the things that you've done and experienced with World Central Kitchen story and sharing some of the things that you've done and experienced with World Central Kitchen I thought about the early days of World Central Kitchen, which basically began in the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Now so it's January 2010. I'm sitting in an office working an office job and a number of my friends and family members were or are Haitian right Extended family members, and so I'm watching this play out and I'm just my mouth is dropped because it was at the end of a workday and we're seeing this on the news and I'm saying this is not real. Nine months later, here I am working at Food for the Poor.
Speaker 1:It's just surreal that I'm here and experiencing, but I want to read something. I want to know if you recognize this quote from Instagram. This was September 2019. Last week I grabbed some colleagues, headed over to volunteer at WC Kitchen and was transformed this is my favorite at WC Kitchen and was transformed this is my favorite. I'm not cut out for human humanitarian relief, but for sure I'll be back in the kitchen next week. You recognize that quote.
Speaker 3:I do, I sure do. Who wrote that yeah, that was me. Yeah, that was me walking back from that first day.
Speaker 1:What happened in September 2019 that changed you seeing the devastation in Hurricane Dorian, seeing the work of World Central Kitchen and it completely changed the whole trajectory of your life. I mean, mine was seeing it firsthand and then, nine months later, I'm here at Food for the Poor, but for you, you were on the ground in the Bahamas.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I was working on Paradise Island at the time and so had a close connection with Atlantis and actually had spoken with some members from World Central Kitchen just to understand what their needs were in that kitchen. And then, yes, grabbed many of the managers from the hotel that I worked at and we went over and I was transformed by the power of food. I think first and foremost by how high quality and how delicious and flavored and truly like really good food. We're not talking, and there's a time and a place for MREs meal ready right. And there's a time and a place for a quick ration style food and you know and no disrespect to agencies that excel at that kind of hot dog or, you know, quick turnaround there is a time and a place for that.
Speaker 3:First of all, watching Chef Jose Andres actually walk into the kitchen there and addressing everyone and just this sense of urgency that, despite not necessarily knowing the geography of the islands or understanding where we needed to go with Key and speaking to people on the ground and then getting up in the air again and then transplanting to another key or another island, that was right. So I was truly blown away by this process and the system in place, but also knowing that it was all just us, with a passion and going heads down and doing that work. Doing the work, either, cooking great food, sandwiches that are a little bit more temperature controlled, and we're also just getting up in the air getting food out into the islands and then returning Wow, because essentially you cannot do anything if you're hungry. You can't rebuild, you can't grieve, and so it's really a first, just sort of reestablishment into being human and returning that dignity to anybody after an inclement event or a disaster.
Speaker 1:Chef Jose Andres was quoted and I read this in the book and we'll talk a little bit about the World Central Kitchen cookbook Feeding Humanity and Feeding Hope. He said cooks like me can show up and start feeding anybody. I love that. First of all, the humility in that statement. Second of all, the readiness to do whatever it takes. What was it like to see him come in and just his personality? What was he like?
Speaker 3:Yeah, is he?
Speaker 1:like.
Speaker 3:I actually didn't recognize him the very first time he came into the kitchen because he had his beard and you know, at that time 2019, he was still all this outward facing. That's a lovely beard, might even call majestic. I'm looking at it.
Speaker 2:I just focus on that beard every time I see him. I watch his podcast once in a while and I just look at it. It's just this fancy silver fox looking beard. That's a nice looking beard.
Speaker 1:You just called one of the most recognizable chefs in the world silver fox. I love that.
Speaker 2:He likes it.
Speaker 3:It fits him very well, I understood that he had this demeanor and this command and confidence to him. But it sort of took me a second initially to understand that he was, you know, sort of chef in charge. But there is a humility to it that it carries to local chefs most of the time that we bring on to then adjust the menu, make it relevant, because that understanding of what tastes good, what tastes you know is seasoned well, what is going to allow us to continue to come back and nourish these. You know, some of these areas. I have seen other agencies chased out of towns, rural areas, because they just simply haven't had the wherewithal or the ability to understand and every single response in every single country that we are in we hear that the food is great and if we don't get that response initially, then we bring on as many neighbors, local chefs that we can to make sure that it is that way.
Speaker 1:I remember reading about the response in Ukraine. You were there.
Speaker 3:I was to be clear. I in poland, on the on the border, yes, yes, yes, thank you, and the borscht yeah, I, I was surprised, honestly, that I enjoy hot beet stew um I think it's the pickles winter afternoon.
Speaker 1:I think calling is so much more eclectic than hot meat stew. It really is.
Speaker 3:And it's different from soup.
Speaker 2:So again very early days.
Speaker 3:I mean on those borders the Medica borders is one of the larger crossings, also heavily pictured in the media, but also Khrushchenko and a number of the other borders that we had between Poland and Ukraine. We had team members on site the day after Putin's events had invaded Ukraine and so those very early days we were cooking hot chocolate and borscht and soup, so more like consomme or bouillon type style, but yes, borscht is delicious.
Speaker 3:I highly encourage you to try it. And so we have these massive. We call them paella pans, but to be fair, they're actually deeper than that. They can cook about 250 meals per batch, Wow. And so it is pretty fun to get on the big paddle and stir that up and scrape up the fond on the bottom of those pans and stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Before I kick it to Danny, I just got to ask what probably is your most memorable moment, humanity. The most memorable moment of humanity Because we talked a little bit about the work, we talked a lot about the food and you know we're all getting excited about hot beet stew, got it but it boils down to that humanity, that one human story, that for you, whether it was Dorian, whether it was on the border with Poland and Borscht, wherever you've been in West Central Florida.
Speaker 1:what's that one human story that resonates for you? Sure, All of this.
Speaker 3:Yeah, what's that one human story that resonates for you in all of this? Yeah, I think, when back to sort of where my quote, if you will, on my Instagram post I'm not cut out for humanitarian work At the end of the day, most I don't know if it's nine out of 10, but most of us in the response corps are civilians in our day to day, and we found World Central kitchen through organic or forced, you know, means. Something happened to our area, and so I think that for any of us, on any response, there are snapshots of, of a particular moment, something that carries with you, something that you may have to work through later, something that just warms, warms your heart. Um and so, um, a couple came to mind, but I'll share one that's close to here.
Speaker 3:It was in Surfside, and so the Surfside condo building collapsed, and so we were there same day, we being myself and a teammate, and we had three food trucks that were providing meals to the people who were displaced from the adjacent building and also the family members of those at that time that we were hoping to rescue, that the task force was hoping to rescue.
Speaker 3:We were inside the media event, so we were working very closely with the Benevolent Association.
Speaker 3:So both the police made me date and also fire rescue, and I was speaking with the president of the Fire Rescue Benevolent Association and out of the corner of my eye I was sort of able to see half of the building, the pile of rubble, and I see a member of one of the Florida task force units coming down from the back Obviously there's a safety protocol and so he's coming around the side and coming out sort of towards in our direction and he has a stuffed animal in his hand and he has a stuffed animal in his hand and he walks past us to at that time, on whatever is adjacent to Collins it escapes me, but there was a memorial set up on the chain link fence with photos and belongings and he just with you know, with tears in his eyes, through the dust on his face, put that moment, that memento and that memory, just down on the wall and that I had to excuse myself for a moment after that.
Speaker 3:And then you take these moments to, you know, provide, you hope that the food provides and it just allows, in that case, emergency responders to focus on the job ahead of them, to clear the rubble, to to work on search and rescue, or search and recovery um, in the case of the ukraine border, um just families bringing their pets across. I was astounded by the sheer number of people carrying their dogs and their cats and so this sort of like re.
Speaker 3:you know, this hope of humanity that they have at home with them, despite having been displaced. So there's snapshots that stick with you, but also just at the very core of it, that we all come together and you're trying to provide comfort food. A lot of times.
Speaker 2:I think one of us has a comfort food to go to. If it's a cloudy day, I usually probably go for a bowl of soup or something like that and what I also sense about the Chef Jose Andres initiative, World Central Kitchen Initiative, is not only response, it's also respect. Like you just mentioned, we'll make a soup that tastes something close to something familiar to your own family.
Speaker 2:It's not like we make one meal and if you don't like it, sorry, come back tomorrow, or something like that. No, it's actually respect about your culture or the place that you're in, and I think World Central Kitchen is the very heart of Chef Jose Andres and the life and the mission and his passion, his dedication. It shines through you, it shines through everyone who's in that kitchen providing the meals. And it's not just that it doesn't, it's not a job.
Speaker 3:Right, it's not a job.
Speaker 2:It's literally just like I know this is going to fill a belly, that's going to help somebody recover an item. Keep, keep the. You know, like you said, it was a small little stuffed animal, that's going to keep the life of somebody who passed away. Keep going on the the memory right. And we were also looking at the book and I had a sense of that because Paul and I were going through the book and I was reading the book to my daughter last night instead of our regular book.
Speaker 2:I was reading the book and I go honey, you better look at this one, because this is something very interesting, and most of it that stood out to me was about it all started with the earthquake in Haiti and back in 2010. And the first chapter we tagged on was urgency Right and the urgency of now, which was a quote from Dr Martin Luther King, and the urgency of now is one of the driving forces right of responding to disasters and the people who are displaced because of these disasters. Can you tell us a little bit more about?
Speaker 3:that? Yes, I think it's certainly at the foundation of our model of just how we work and how you'll find us there very early and, like I said, sometimes that's just from pre-positioning and sometimes that's also from our network right and so that we're able to get to an area that has been devastated very quickly Because, simply put, when people are hungry, it cannot wait. In the case, earthquakes are very difficult response models. You have horrible air quality, you have a lack of resources available to you, you have several um recovery agencies, hopefully rescue agencies that are in there as well, trying to work right and so and here we are trying to ensure that we've got clean water or cooking, without access to potable water, without power.
Speaker 3:Um, I was on the response for the turkish earthquakes, the earthquakes that happened in turkey and northern syria, um, and so where we, where I was set up with our team in adiamond, far east, we initial days didn't. We had no hot water. We had no, we had very little access to power, and so we have to bring in, through our procurement and logistics team, ways to create that, ways to filter water for ourselves so that we can cook. We can cook without power. We do it a lot after hurricanes. It's hot, it's loud, it's not fun, but you certainly can't cook without, without potable water, right, it's your point we're talking about, um, we comfort food. Uh, a lot of there's. There's a nourishment, nutritional look lens that we put this into, because sometimes it might be you only getting one meal, and so, while I appreciate, um, macaroni and cheese and chicken tenders might be the that's a page six high on demand.
Speaker 3:Can you find it for me? It's page seven and you know you could argue the color, the high cal demand. That's page six in that cookbook.
Speaker 1:Can you find it? For me it's page seven and you can argue the high caloric intake on that one. Wait, tamales, First of all. My wife is from Guatemala. Okay, Tamales, at Christmas time there is no better comfort food. Page 83 for those who are getting the book. Okay, listen to this. I'm talking about, if anything unites latin america and connects modern modernity I haven't ever heard of this word modernity to ancient tradition. It's the tamal, and it's true, I'm talking about tamal. It's everywhere and tamal is like the kinder toy of comfort food.
Speaker 2:Right, because you get to that little meat, and that's oh, it's so good, and there's a couple places in Latin America that have their own version of it. Like I mentioned to you earlier, I have a Colombian background. We have our own tamale, guatemala has their own tamale, mexico has their own tamale.
Speaker 3:And the list goes on and on and on.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, you find a little bit of comfort food because it becomes a staple in your house year after year, during Christmas time or Thanksgiving or what have you. And, yeah, it becomes that like, ah, this feels like home before this disaster hit my house you know, or before this all happened, bringing back the memories.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and we've been known to do that. In addition, it might not be the very first couple of days that go out there, but although a lot of the times when we're first going I say going out there we're understanding where people are pocketed or cut off. We really specialize in last mile meal sort of delivery, if you will. So people who are shut, people who are shut ins, people who were truly cut off, who either didn't choose, they chose not to evacuate, they couldn't evacuate, for whatever reason, so perhaps a non-government shelter or a government shelter isn't able to provide for them, wow, in early, in, immediate response, we're feeding everybody and anybody. Of course People are hungry. That can include linemen, you know. It can include first responders. It can include your churches, your community centers, but through those inroads that we make with those community members, we're looking for people that are hard to reach, that are particularly disenfranchised, are marginalized, and so and that's where we want to we want to get in Again.
Speaker 3:The power of food allows us to do that and that humility allows us to do that. But we oftentimes are scouting, as we call it, with sandwiches or hot patties. You know as it might be, you know, jamaican patties might be the more appropriate route. Wow, in Turkey, once we were sort of in Adyman, at least once, we were sort of set up with a cadence of coming back to a lot of these tented communities that had to pop up. As you know, as the city was leveled right, we're able to come back with more comfort food items was leveled right, we're able to come back with more comfort food items. So, like a sandwich that is, you know, really local, with like pickled onions and sort of like a donor kebab, right, that wouldn't nutritionally count for us and especially for our data recollection, as a full meal we're really looking for, you know, particular 10 to 12 ounces of protein. You know 16 ounce meal, for example, right, some starch and you know, veggies in there.
Speaker 1:But we're also yeah, we're also very. We're not above, um, you know, ice cream on the 4th of July, so I love it. So I used to work in the catering business right Matter of fact, just like minutes away from here where we're recording and I remember passing hors d'oeuvres was my favorite. Like if they, if they gave me any other assignment besides passing hors d'oeuvres, I'd be bummed out. But when I got to pass hors d'oeuvres my favorite comfort food, quiche, no Pegs in a blanket.
Speaker 3:Pegs in a blanket. Yes, was it a give one take, one sort of situation?
Speaker 1:I would get. So the statute of limitations is gone now, okay, so no one can come after me for any money or take any money out of my old paycheck yet.
Speaker 2:So I would, I would, I'd pop one in on the way to the dining room. Or or the cocktail.
Speaker 1:Quality assurance right, yes, and I'd always guarantee I'd start turning back to the kitchen when I had three left. Why? Because I'd always encounter one or two guests who always wanted to grab the last one before I had back to the kitchen, which made sure at least I had one pig in a blanket before I got back to the kitchen. You'd dodge them.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Favorite comfort food. 14 responses. Favorite comfort food what was the one if you had it?
Speaker 3:Right here, yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Out of all those places.
Speaker 3:Oh, that is a good question. So Chef Jose's ham and cheese sandwich is when we say we're making sandwiches, that's a staple, and I have to say I've. I don't ever crave one outside of response, but I absolutely go on to that. You know the volunteer sort of assembly line and we'll snag one for myself. I'm not going to lie, because we have the secret sauce that goes on it's white bread, it's white bread, it's American cheese, it's white bread, it's white bread, it's American cheese, it's sliced ham. Oh, and it's. You know, our secret sauce, which is not unlike, you know, Big Mac, sort of like secret sauce, right, or whatever, especially, yeah, there's that, and then the borscht was probably it's actually the perot, the borscht, it was cold.
Speaker 3:It was very cold in those days. We're talking, snow falling outside. The hot chocolate Chef, carla Hoyos, is also Miami 305 here. She was responsible for the hot chocolate, wow. And then sometimes you also try and see, because we were also in Poland, the pierogies A dumpling for me.
Speaker 1:Just any dough folded over.
Speaker 3:Yeah, steamed those are. Yeah, do you want all 14? Because now I see.
Speaker 2:Sure, please Number 12. That's good, that's good, excellent.
Speaker 3:And then we're also looking to provide fruit too. So Chef always, chef Jose always talks about bananas are like his favorite because they're, you know, wrapped right. But same thing, oranges work great, and so we're generally also trying to provide. We'll come out with crates and crates of fruit. Apples can be difficult, because not everybody can eat an apple well, so, yeah, oranges or, you know, plums or something like that, but yeah, Hispanic Group.
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Speaker 2:Hispanic group. Lleva tu marca al corazón de la comunidad hispana. Take your brand to the heart of the Hispanic community. Hispanic group.
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Speaker 1:All right, monica, I got a question. There's a scripture in the Bible, I think it's in Proverbs 13,. It says hope deferred makes the heart sick. And in the World central kitchen cookbook there was a quote we're introduced to uh hope by and it says of all the things you can lose, the saddest may be hope. You've been in the Bahamas, you've been on the border of Poland responding after Ukraine was invaded. There have been a number of places. Ironically, as we go through the list of places that World Central Kitchen has been, it's almost like a list of where food for the poor through our partnerships or we ourselves have been. But you've witnessed firsthand our neighbors on the West coast of Florida I mean, you're a Floridian, so it's our neighbors spend days, weeks recovering and trying to figure out a reason to get back up and to get back with their life again. So I guess my question is what is it like to demonstrate this hope? With this warm, wholesome meal, right? What have you seen?
Speaker 1:What has it been for you on the ground and you're trying to renew this hope so that they don't lose the one thing that's going to get them to tomorrow.
Speaker 3:Right. So we, you know, sort of mentioned that you can't really do anything if you're hungry, and so not only is the you know, chef-prepared meal that we're providing enabling someone to have that literal nourishment, to be able to turn around and take care of their family or sort of put one foot in front of the other just to understand what comes next, a lot of the times it is also what is allowing them simply the time to rehabilitate their house. In the case of last year, the Vermont flooding was once in a thousand year flooding Kentucky as well. The year before that had once in a thousand year flooding.
Speaker 3:So we have people that are mucking and gutting their homes, that are cut off from the electricity grid. They don't have the time, they don't have the propane, the power to cook for themselves either, and so our meals are providing them with some semblance of stability so that they can turn to the next page of what does it look like to get back to home? What does it look like to get back to, you know, a fun family night or experience? But it can be hard for people to take charity. I found it's particularly hard for Americans to take charity, and I'm just also finding, as the years continue, I'm running into and I'm encountering more and more people who are individual donors, who have given and sponsored meals through a financial donation to world central kitchen, um, because they've seen the effects of the earthquakes in haiti, they've seen the damage in turkey, they've seen, um, seen the need for humanitarian aid around the world, but then they themselves, all of a sudden, are affected by, you know, climate-related disaster, a hurricane.
Speaker 1:I overheard a conversation earlier before we started talking here. You know exactly how many meals were served in Jamaica. Don't say it, yeah, because I think I overheard you say the exact number of meals.
Speaker 2:Okay, all right, and I think you have to, because it's not like I'm making a couple sandwiches. No, you know a loaf of bread Right, I'm making tens and thousands. That's a cliffhanger. I'll leave you for a little later.
Speaker 3:Stick around folks, but I'll leave you for a little later.
Speaker 2:Stick around folks. But going back to what you said, a village, it's more like a community, absolutely Right. So a quote from Chef Jose Andres from the World Central Kitchen cookbook which, by the way, if you sign up for our Best Bite, you can actually get a chance to win this same cookbook that Paul is holding. Paul, can you show us what you got in your hand?
Speaker 1:I'll be Vanna. Yeah, you'll be Vanna James Beard Award winning cookbook.
Speaker 2:We've been talking about the cookbook for a while now.
Speaker 1:You see it's earmarked. Yeah, because it's like all over the place.
Speaker 2:And we put some of those pages We've creased the corners so that way, just to show you our favorites. We'll put them back for you once you get it back Again beyond the plate. So one of the quotes Chef Jose Andres says is we the people, not I the person. Right, we the people, not I the person. And, for example, once again I forget to mention, and, Paul, I forget to tell you we're speaking with Monica Majors. That's me Response.
Speaker 3:Corps.
Speaker 2:That's right Response Corps member of World Central Kitchen and of course we'll come back Food for the Port as well has some guiding principles and the acronym is CRUISE right and the C stands for collaboration, and at World Central Kitchen you have a community right. And what makes communities so important? Once these disasters hit, how important is community?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's so important and it's ingrained into the four sort of tenets of our response team. Right, we have a community outreach team that is ahead of a pre-planned event, like a hurricane, or immediately after we've heard something a tornado, touchdown or an earthquake happens is calling upon already established relationships that we have with those and quite simply that looks like any from anywhere, from other agencies or other nonprofits, but also friends and family. One of and we're going to talk a little bit more about the Jamaican response for Hurricane Beryl but one of the locations that ended up turning into what we call Social kitchen was actually a referral from a well-respected and well-partnered food truck here and actually in Coral Springs. So it really is about that connection and you'll see on any number of our beacons and our signs and we say food is hope, food is community and there's also the understanding that's always served with that level of dignity. But community is so intrinsic to what we do that it's baked into our actual response model.
Speaker 2:And I think you probably have a name for them, right? I've heard of the band the Foo Fighters some of my favorite songs. The best, simply the best yeah.
Speaker 3:Learning to fly.
Speaker 1:Learn to fly. That's your favorite, your favorite, right yeah? Because I love the video, oh my that's the other food fighters.
Speaker 2:But uh, monica, what or who are the food fighters?
Speaker 3:food fighters yes, as chef jose is named. I think that that monica really came out of, especially the work that's being done in ukraine, and so ukraine is our, is our um only resiliency program that we have currently going at the time, and so, to be clear, is most of where you'll find us, and almost exclusively, is in that emergency response model, and so that can look like days to weeks to months, depending on the size and the scale of a disaster event. Beyond that, there are normally programs or agencies or partners that come in specialize in resiliency, meaning that there is, especially if we're in areas where it's a food desert to begin with or there's food insecurity, regardless of an inclement event, right, and so again initiate like we're feeding everybody and anybody, but then there are usually longer-term programs to take that over.
Speaker 3:So Ukraine has we have a resiliency program there, and that is where really Chef Jose came up with the adage of food.
Speaker 2:The food fighters, the food fighters exactly. Yeah, once I heard food fighters, I think it's like a medieval fight Everybody's dressed as knights. And then they got to fight this big dragon, which is hunger, you know right, yeah exactly.
Speaker 3:Chef Jose Andres is sitting on the white horse in the front leading the army with everybody. Yeah, we've worked with a lot of celebrities With forks and spoons or sporks. Right, You're not wrong? That sounds like an awkward dream I probably had on one of his responses. To be honest, You're not entirely wrong. Hunger is really our only enemy. Hen and hench.
Speaker 1:You know it's interesting. In the time I've been with Food for the Poor, I've seen this personally myself and I specifically remember one particular community just outside of Port-au-Prince, by about. I mean, you know, anything is two or three hours away from Port-au-Prince, even if it's across the street. I mean, it's just so difficult to get anywhere. And that's not an insult, it's just. That's just the reality of Haiti and the communication, excuse me, the transportation and whatnot, but anyway, I'm in a community called Cadua. You couldn't find it on a map, I mean, it's just such a small place, but it was a community of real people with real needs and we happen upon this village, this community, and we happen upon this home and this mom. I'll never forget her, fida, two small children. You know you get emotional, just.
Speaker 2:I mean, I'm there again, right.
Speaker 1:Just thinking about Fida, two-year-old, kenya, and her little brother sharing from this metal bowl with a few grains of rice bowl with a few grains of rice. And I remember her saying to me that the only other thing I have came from my neighbor and she was boiling this little breadfruit because if anything else didn't come in, that's all that she had. But it was the thing that stuck out to me the most was that neighbor. Yeah, what have you seen in that, your 14 responses? You've seen the neighbor response. You've seen the families come together. You've seen community come together. What's been your experience?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think, especially when we're even just looking here domestically whether it's Kentucky, it's the panhandle in Florida, it's parts of Texas, it's out West with wildfires like Navajo Nation or you know, or California, for a country that at any given time can seem so divided, none of that matters when you just distill yourself down to what's right in front of you and so, yeah, you have neighbors helping neighbors, regardless of where around you know the nation that we are and then, when you're looking at all of you encounter such beautiful cultures. You're really, you know, a visitor in these communities. In the case of Morocco, or Turkey, or Poland or the Bahamas, it's a matter of we do have to take a moment to so, as you can tell, we're ready to come in, we're ready to go, we're ready to go Urgency now. We'll get the donkeys lined up, let's get the. You know, we've gotten airboats in Florida, everything at our disposal, and it just takes us a particular moment to sort of stop and make sure that you're being culturally relevant, right, we're working a lot of the times across cultures.
Speaker 3:In the case of Turkey, we worked into Ramadan, the holy month of Ramadan, and so adjusting, making sure that we're being respectful about how much we can expect of our teams, because we also endeavor as quickly as possible to bring on local, independent or workforce, train them up again, get them really helping themselves and helping neighbors. But regardless of where we are in the world, there I've never come across someone who is unwilling to extend their hand to the person that's next to them. And it's a little bit easier to extend their hand to the person that's next to them, and it's a little bit easier when you've got a delicious meal in your hand, I suppose. But you still have to be respectful and humble.
Speaker 2:Who wouldn't do anything for a bowl of borscht. Oh, I'm telling you, the line starts behind Monica, I guess I repeat it's the pickles, it's the pickles that make it Polarizing, polarizing, I can taste that.
Speaker 1:So all right, so let's fast forward. We're back to this unexpected, early, once in a hundred year hurricane barrel. I mean the alphabet goes. Hundred year hurricane barrel. I mean the alphabet goes from A to Z. Obviously we're in the second letter of the alphabet, early in the hurricane season, and this storm just literally tears through four of the southern parishes in Jamaica, communities that are very near and dear to Food for the Poor Rocky Point, portland Cottage.
Speaker 1:I met a woman that came to volunteer here at Food for the Poor from Portland Cottage. She showed me a photo of her father's. Basically, he has a house which had no roof, and then he has a business, and that business was a small little building, but when she showed me the picture that day of what it looked like, it was three walls left in a foundation. That's it. What it was so impressive for us as an organization is we encountered World Central Kitchen working in the same communities in the same direction, not overlapping, not getting in each other's way In fact it was I believe it was Global Medic from Canada, out of Canada, that provided a lot of the water filtration that was needed in some of those kitchens with World Central Kitchen.
Speaker 1:And I love that we ended up working in unison and that's what we're going for, right? If we're going to scale, we've got to basically do what food for the poor does well, and then work with partnerships are going to help us scale and what they excel in, and so I, we. I overheard you talking about the number of meals that were provided in jamaica in this particular area and and I have to know how and really tell our audience how many meals did you kick out in that just that response in Jamaica alone.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we're still there to be to be clear. At the time, so at that time and this morning and this morning it was 38,193 meals plus 5,200 patties. Wow, and really across those right, all the way from Manchester and Clarendon over, and so all the way over the four parishes, but so stretching from Treasure Beach down to Alligator Pond to Portland Cottage and Rocky Point, and so we have 12 what we call recipient, basically 12 spots where we're either dropping meals at a common community center for pickup to feed a neighborhood there where we also have social kitchens whereby they were where there's, they're feeding the community there on sort of through our sponsorship there.
Speaker 2:Wow, you've had anybody follow you through all this. I know it's kind of hard to follow the services that you provide throughout, you know, because I'm thinking all right, in a disaster you might want to stick close to home, but I'm imagining somebody following you throughout Jamaica going hey, it's me again and you helped me out in, you know, one of the parishes. Back, you know, two days ago I'm still here, your food is delicious.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You ever had somebody just go around and eventually become a volunteer?
Speaker 3:No, I was going to say that then we'll bring those people on as volunteers. We often need to. So with what with the Jamaican response, we didn't end up setting up a kitchen ourselves and we're not cooking any meals ourselves. It was a combination of the size of of the response and how many meals were needed daily, and also the fact that it was so spread out Right. So to have a centralized location and then a network of delivery drivers to send them out, it didn't make sense, and so we were working with local restaurants and a couple of catering companies to provide those meals. Right, and then already your menu is appropriate. But so a lot of the time, we need an armada of volunteers. Go to our website and sign up and when something, hopefully you never see us and you never have to hear from us, but if something does and there are opportunities for volunteers, we absolutely send out that all call.
Speaker 3:So, yes, we have people sort of like you know come up to us and in the case of sometimes we even bring them on in more, so many permanent relationship or positions for a response that we have, especially if we're there, if we're going to be there for weeks or months.
Speaker 2:And you should put that in the description. Perks are you get paid in Jamaican patties. I would sign up right away Out of those 5,000, I think 4,900 would be all the way for me for helping. Please. No cash, no cash. Oh, jamaican patty, yes please. My parents always know at least. I'll be fed when I'm on response right, yeah, jamaican patty in the morning, jamaican patty at night, right before a workout. Jamaican patty, it's my thing.
Speaker 3:Get that curry beef.
Speaker 1:I love it. I love this quote because it really encapsulates everything you just said, especially whether it's the work in Jamaica, or anywhere else in the world, or in the United States. Jose Andres said, chef Jose Andres, in the worst of human excuse me in the worst moments of humanity, the best of humanity shows up. I mean.
Speaker 1:I've seen it firsthand in my time here at Food for the Poor and I've seen it over and over and over again, because it's where, really, where things just it's the darkest moments where people realize when we talk about the inception of World Central Kitchen in the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, we lost a number of employees and many of our employees lost family members in that earthquake. But it was the worst moments and the best of humanity showed up and we look back every year at the amazing stories of resilience and survival and I just love it. But there was some you kind of pointed out. There was one recipe in here that you wanted us. We've earmarked it here.
Speaker 1:You want to take a look and share with us.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, so it's fire engine and we talk about fire engine.
Speaker 1:Fire engine Sounds good, it's hot, it's hot, it has some spice to it?
Speaker 3:We never, I think we, because we are often feeding the masses and, quite frankly, fire engine came up. So this is a Haitian dish, but it's Haitian Bahamian.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:Is sort of the recipe that you have in here, and we cooked much of this in for the some of the shelters that were set up in Nassau, because so many Haitians were displaced from Hurricane Dorian and then had to seek shelter on the island of Nassau.
Speaker 1:What's in it?
Speaker 3:It's.
Speaker 1:I'm hoping we get like a surge in firefighters listening to our Beyond the. Plate podcast as a result of this, not to mention Haitian and Bahamians.
Speaker 3:So it should have spice, but again, we're often feeding elderly or children, right, so we're not spicing it up. But it's corned beef. It's basically a corned beef hash you had me at corned beef. Yeah, over a white rice you had me at white rice. The recipe here calls for a goat pepper. If we're doing it right, if we're doing it Bahamian style.
Speaker 1:Wait, wait, freeze Goat peppers. I've heard of ghost pepper, but what's a goat pepper?
Speaker 3:Oh, no, yeah, and you should. This would be a good good toss back to Chef Jose Andres. Yeah, the goat pepper is. It's about this. It looks similar to a habanero in that it's usually brightly colored and it's kind of squat. Looks almost like a tiny, tiny bell pepper intense. I do not recommend. I want it now.
Speaker 2:She lit it up. So perfect, there's a twist. Wait, wait, hold on see, this is what you did.
Speaker 1:Now my inner 10-year-old said okay, I want it. Now you said you shouldn't, no, you shouldn't want. No, see, now I want it. All right, here's the deal.
Speaker 3:This is like the cinnamon challenge all over again. I'm going out on a limb right now.
Speaker 1:The first ever. See, this is the first. I am making an offer right now for goat pepper Chef Jose Ramon Andres Puerta. Paul Jacobs of Beyond the Plate will cook you a three-course meal of your choosing, as long as it has goat pepper. If you come on this, wow, I will cook this. I'm not kidding you. I don't know how to cook a lick, but I've got a cookbook that's going to help me and I'm going to make, if he comes on this podcast.
Speaker 1:Monica, you get him on this podcast. I will make a three course meal and put goat pepper in that meal. I'm telling you I'm going to do it.
Speaker 2:And he's going to react to it. You know he's going to react to it.
Speaker 3:No, don't say that he has a lot to he's going to. Does he go around some of these when you guys are?
Speaker 2:cooking for the masses. Does he go around and go? No, no, no, no. And he just tosses everything. Start over again. I'm making him out like he's mean. We sure hope not. He's not a Gordon Ramsay type, he's not the actual chef in the kitchen, right?
Speaker 3:You know they're going to keep him far, far far away from the tasting spoon.
Speaker 3:But with this recipe this was really born out of so we had. There were a number of people who were bored in the shelter day in and day out, and we were coming there to feed them two meals a day, and so they were sort of like you know, can I help? And then that turned into them being in the kitchen providing for their neighbors in that situation, right, and then also amending the menu so that as especially as more of the Bahamians went back to their homes or the extended family or left, and we were really feeding just the people that were left in the shelters and making sure that what was there was absolutely relevant, and so Fire Engine was one of those things. It's absolutely comfort food. I think it's delicious, but I don't know that I would have ever stumbled upon it in any other circumstance.
Speaker 2:What's the meetings like? I don't know, if you're a part of them, great. If you're not, let's all just theater of the mind, right? So what kind of what are the meetings like that? We go, all right, guys, we just landed now in jamaica, so we're gonna. We're looking at this board here with five items right.
Speaker 1:I've seen it in the book jamaican patty uh, goat curry.
Speaker 2:And then what are the things that are left out? Because I mean some of these meals that you provide again, like you mentioned, they're not chicken tenders and mac and cheese yeah, no, no dip on chicken tenders, mac and cheese on a rainy day, but but still, these are way, way steps above all that.
Speaker 2:so what's some of the meals that you're like oh, we couldn't do it because of X reason, or we should have done this, but we ended up doing this because of one of our volunteers. Do you remember any of those meals? Yeah, I mean, we could have put it in the book.
Speaker 3:We could have put it in the book. I think there's a lot of recipes that come out where we'll find now. So we're about to launch a rapid response vehicle, which is a behemoth of a truck.
Speaker 3:Calling it a truck requires a Class B CDL to drive this thing. It's 26,000 pounds, but onboard, and so the idea is that it can deploy immediately after an inclement event, a disaster. So perhaps we pre-positioned it ahead of a hurricane. As soon as outer bands are passed, as soon as it's obviously safe for our team to go out, it can go out and clear its path Quite literally. There's chainsaws on board, it's got Starlink, it's got solar panels this thing is like the Millennium Falcon it's a beast.
Speaker 2:It can recover itself.
Speaker 3:It's got winches on board, yeah, on board, yeah it sounds like hurricanes, tornadoes, zombie apocalypse.
Speaker 2:It belongs in.
Speaker 3:Twister. It belongs in the Twister movie.
Speaker 1:Monica Majors, we have had an amazing time with you here on Beyond the Plate, but we're going to start something with you because we've had so much fun, called our lightning round.
Speaker 3:We just came up with that right now. That's how lightning the thoughts are Okay, let's go. It sounds branded.
Speaker 2:It sounds registered.
Speaker 1:Danny, go for it, it's our problem.
Speaker 2:You said paper rock scissors.
Speaker 1:I thought you were going to oh, but I'll go, I'll go, you go, you go, because I got to think a little bit, I got to get ready for the question, all so.
Speaker 2:Monica, think about this You're on a deserted island. Well, it's not deserted anymore, because you're on it. So, a population of one is deserted island right One is the loneliest, yes. And you have one meal that you have to eat for the rest of your life on that island.
Speaker 3:What is it? It's sushi, sushi.
Speaker 2:It's sushi, all right, so a population of two, because now you're going to have a sushi.
Speaker 3:A sous chef, sous chef, that's going to make it for you.
Speaker 2:So the population of two on this deserter line is sushi. Oh, that's good. On an island, you got fresh fish coming up.
Speaker 3:That's what I'm thinking. I feel like I don't have to. Yeah, I'm not stressing too much.
Speaker 2:Seaweed. It's already there, Sea, because the process is supposed to. I think you were supposed to wait a day for that rice. But that's fried rice.
Speaker 3:Is that fried rice? I think that's fried rice. I got to look at that cookbook again. Don't be leaving your rice out too long, yeah, hold on. The food hygiene alerts are going off Right away. You don't want that rice. Don't be leaving your rice out.
Speaker 2:It really brings the flavor out of the sushi it adds to when you leave it off for too long. Mine would actually be something very simple. It's called a bandeja paisa and it's from Colombia. This bandeja paisa typically includes these ingredients.
Speaker 2:This is my one meal on my dessert line and I'll have it forever, because I'm good with it, because the ingredients is as listed. If you want a pen's on paper, I'll bring it for you. It starts off with ground meat, fried pork belly or pork brine. Right here we go Chorizo, black beans, rice, fried egg, plantains, arepas, which is that cornmeal patty this is all in the same meal. This is still a meal. This is still a meal.
Speaker 2:A little sauce to you know, wash that thing down Avocado and a little lemon to is like the coffee region of Colombia, and this is like a farmer's tray, so the farmers usually eat this to tackle a day's worth of work. So I think I can have a variation of meals that might be the whole food pyramid all together. Yeah, it encompasses everything and it's all for one day. I'm going to step it up here. You want to go back again?
Speaker 3:No, no, no, that's fine, I'll keep my sushi. Sushi is good, it's fancy.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:It's so fancy. Fancy to have sushi and somebody pretty sure serves you on a tray. Now we're talking fancy, but watch out with Paul because he'll snag a couple of sushi plates off your tray.
Speaker 1:No, thank you, and real crab or imitation, my thing is tempura.
Speaker 3:The imitation crab is like a weird nostalgic thing. I grew up, I think, and it slaps.
Speaker 2:I just snag at it.
Speaker 3:String cheese in your sushi.
Speaker 2:No, I eat it like string cheese. Oh, you eat it like string cheese.
Speaker 1:I see Do you eat the peeling, the little pink?
Speaker 3:flares off. I see who eats string cheese, just biting it like a piece of celery.
Speaker 2:Me, not me. I'm sorry Me, not me. I don't have time for it, I just bite it off the top. That was really judging.
Speaker 3:I apologize.
Speaker 2:If I'm sharing, I'll then strip it down for you, but if I'm eating it by myself and nobody's looking around.
Speaker 3:I'm not here to yuck your yum.
Speaker 2:Paul, your go-to meal, if you aren't a dessert and I'm in population of one.
Speaker 1:You said it 50 million times during this entire episode Jamaican patties all day. It's my childhood. I get it, both my parents from Kingston, jamaica. Yeah. So growing up, you know some kids go. Mom, can we have McDonald's? No, I want to go to the patty shop. I want to go to the patty shop. I wanted to go to the patty shop. I'm talking about listen, I'm talking about beefy patties, beef and cheese patties, chicken, jerk chicken, lobster, callaloo, veggie patty, you name it, you give me the patty. And then here's the best part about the jamaican patty if you do not know, the best patty has the crust that falls all over your shirt, all over your plate, all over the paper bag, the little paper bag that it's in right and you leave the best for last right.
Speaker 1:Because that's a meal for later. All right, you never throw the little extra flakes away. You eat it for later.
Speaker 1:Jamaican patty all day, every day. That's right. That's the one meal. Well, as always on Beyond the Plate, we end on a positive note. Today's positive note comes from an obvious source, chef Jose Andres, and I think this really sums up everything that we've been talking about. This quote is from the book the World Central Kitchen Cookbook Feeding Humanity, Feeding Hope. Well, we'll get to that a little bit in a second.
Speaker 1:I got to read this quote because when I first read it at the beginning of the book, I had to take a pause and just kind of really let this ruminate. It said the book you are holding in your hands is filled with the heart and soul of the most amazing people you'll ever meet. They're from every corner of the globe and from all walks of life. When they come together in the kitchen, united for one purpose, they do something truly amazing. They show how much they care. It may sound simple, but in our world sometimes the simple act of caring is the most important thing we can do. Monica Majors, thank you for being a guest on Beyond the Plate. We've enjoyed you.
Speaker 3:Thank you. Thank you very much, fist bump.
Speaker 1:Fist bump, all right very much Fist bump, fist bump. All right, you've just been watching Beyond the Plate with our guest Monica Majors from World Central Kitchen, where we featured principles and a lot of cool stuff, including recipes from the World Central Kitchen cookbook.
Speaker 2:But if you want, some of them just text best bite to 51555. Once again, text BESTBITE to 51555 and make sure BESTBITE are together. And if you're watching us on YouTube, it's at the bottom of your screen. Just text BESTBITE to 51555. And we have a surprise for one lucky fan of the podcast. So if you sign up at the BESTBITE right now, you're going to get a little something, something. Hey, everyone, thanks for listening to beyond the plate. We love having you here.
Speaker 2:Keep up with us on instagram and tiktok at beyond the plate dot podcast and if you enjoy the show, don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel and give our videos a like. Just search Food for the Poor.
Speaker 1:Beyond the Plate.
Speaker 2:Your support means the world to us All right folks, we'll see you on the next Beyond the Plate episode. I'm waving.
