Ending Hunger in America
there is a painting here
at 11 madison park it’s a chalkboard
painting
that has mostly been wiped clean the
painting was a collaboration with my
dear friend
the renowned artist rita ackerman during
our renovation
we wanted to create something to
symbolize a new beginning
the concept of a chalkboard was perfect
it showed our willingness to erase
and redraw to start anew to rethink
and there is a lot we need to rethink
today
and now more than ever the way we eat
i’ve lived in new york for more than a
decade
restaurants are such an important part
of the fabric of this city
but right now with so many of them
closed
and with so many more at risk of closing
the loss is profound
restaurants are the cornerstones of our
communities
they celebrate our differences what
makes our cultures distinct
they can transport us across oceans and
borders
that can bring us home in a time of
distancing and division that seems more
and more like a miracle
but what restaurants mean what
restaurants do
is evolving too there’s no other choice
so in our own current state of crisis we
need to use this opportunity
to wipe the chalkboard clean and rethink
the role
of a restaurant in our society by we
i don’t just mean a chef like me i mean
all of us
we all have a stake in the answer
but first we need to reframe the
question
it’s not just how will restaurants
survive
but who do we serve my own answer
to that is evolving too when you walk
down the streets of new york today
you come across long lines i mean
seriously long lines
stretching for blocks and blocks and the
thing you notice
about the men and women and the children
in these lines
is they’re holding empty bags pushing
empty cards
backs and cards they hope to fill at
food pantries
these people our neighbors are
experiencing food
insecurity this was a crisis before the
pandemic
one that especially affected households
of color
adults with disabilities and families
and kids but the pandemic has made
things dramatically worse
in new york it has pushed tens of
thousands of people to food pantries
often for the first time today
1.5 million new yorkers are unable
to afford food and across the nation
one in six americans are expected to
face food insecurity this year
that includes almost 17 million children
at the same time the pandemic has driven
my industry to the brink of extinction
covet 19 threatens up to 85 percent of
restaurants in new york
and as restaurants close farm suppliers
are forced to get rid
of tens of millions of pounds of excess
foods
for me the collision of these two crises
people going hungry restaurants and
suppliers sitting idle
and dumping food brought the issue into
focus
in a way that little else has
but that forced me to take a step back
to do some soul searching
and to rethink my goals one of our chefs
matt joseak began to do exactly that
he saw how much excess food we had at
the restaurant
he had the idea and it was a great idea
that he could use the food to create
meals
and give them to people in need he
started a non-for-profit organization
called rethink food over the next few
years
i worked with matt to recruit other
restaurants to join
the idea seemed to be catching on
building momentum
then the pandemic it took only a few
days
until 11 madison park was closed and it
took only
a couple of weeks before we had to lay
off our entire team
people who had been here for years some
who had moved here from
asia south america australia
europe who had to return home
a restaurant was a community but more
than that it was our family
that family was gone and might never
come back
and for a while it seemed that new york
wouldn’t either
overnight the busiest streets in the
world just emptied out
emptied of cars bikes people
suddenly i could hear birds i never
heard before
but i also heard the ambulances at every
hour of the day
i saw central park turned into a field
hospital
for weeks i mourned to tens of thousands
of deaths
including my old friend floyd cardoz
whose restaurant tabla was right next to
mine
and across the city i saw the lines at
the food pantries
grow and grow all the while
my restaurant was sitting empty unused
my staff was out of work i was talking
to farmers who were destroying food
while more and more people were going
hungry
suddenly i saw that i was in a position
to help
i’m certainly no doctor i’m not a first
responder
but as a chef i know how to mass produce
healthy delicious meals
chefs have the skill the space the
connections that soup kitchens don’t
so we made a decision to reorient 11
madison park
re-imagine it for the pandemic
we started doing research visiting the
soup kitchens these commissaries all
over new york
to learn more about cooking and
distributing these free meals
and i brought back members of my team to
reopen our kitchen
in april we turned the lights back on
there were only 10 of us all wearing
masks
all a little bit afraid and uncertain
all wondering if we should have just
stayed home
but after a few days the kitchen felt
like the safest and most important place
we could be
i finally felt i was making a difference
i felt connected to my work in a way
that i hadn’t in years
i fell in love again with the craft the
same love
i thought i would feel when 11 madison
park was named the best restaurant in
the world
and it’s not just me my staff felt the
same way
since then we produced over half a
million of meals
at 11 madison park alone we’ve done it
efficiently
as restaurants are designed to do and
the food is delicious
people have told us they had the best
meal of their lives
that’s what they used to say at 11
madison park 2
but this meant more i talked about the
magic of food
but this was a different kind of magic
one i thought we could scale
i had found a way to help my city i had
found a way
to keep my restaurant open could this
work for other restaurants
could it provide a lifeline to help
people
for the first time i began to view a
restaurant as a community
institution this was a new idea for me
but i realized i was late to the game
across new york we found restaurants
making an impact
often at great personal risk we found a
church kitchen in harlem
delivering free food to its neighbors we
met the owner of a soulful restaurant in
brooklyn
who had become a beacon of hope we saw
employees at a family-owned mexican
restaurant in the bronx
workers who risk deportation to come to
work
who can’t be paid because the restaurant
has no money
who are out delivering meals anyway
even in cases where they have very
little
they give everything but running and
sustaining a restaurant is hard
profit margins are thin and we don’t
have much of insulation against the
crisis
11 madison park for all of its success
was a case in point
almost overnight we couldn’t pay rent we
couldn’t pay our staff
and if we couldn’t what was the
restaurant down the
street supposed to do what we’re doing
at 11 madison park
and at restaurants all over the city is
a powerful thing
it doesn’t just address food insecurity
it helps restaurants save jobs
it’s helping our neighborhoods maintain
the places that mean so much
and the power of this model is that the
infrastructure is already in place
we’re using food that otherwise is being
wasted
we’re distributing meals through
networks that already exist
and we’re using chefs who understand the
food system
so the changes we’re making don’t have
to be just
crisis measures they can be permanent
they should be permanent when we’re able
to fully reopen
we should be able to keep serving the
broader community
because we got a system that is cheaper
more efficient
more effective and more delicious than
what we had before
if we’re successful we can actually
ensure
that every american has consistent
access to healthy
meals we can end food and security in
this country
once and for all but to achieve it
all of us have to play a role chefs also
need to push the critics in the awards
organization
james beard’s 50 best michele sagat
to broaden the range of the values we
celebrate
i still believe that cooking is an art
form
and we should continue to honor chefs
who advance the culinary arts
who move us in ways we didn’t expect but
we should also find ways
to celebrate restaurants for other
achievements
for that diversity their inclusivity
their social impact
we need to give restaurants more
incentives to not just create the best
food
but also to do the most good
of course no awards organization however
prestigious
has the power you do i’m asking all of
you
to help create an industry that is truly
worthy
of the communities we serve you can do
that
by becoming more mindful about where you
spend your dollars
you can choose restaurants based not
just on their rankings
but also on their heart
at rethink we had the idea that we could
help people
to do that to help identify restaurants
with a higher purpose
think of lead certification you see on
buildings
that meet standards of going green our
system
rethinks certified works the same way to
communicate
that the restaurant is dedicated to
ending hunger
of course our idea is just one of many
and hopefully others will join us in
this mission
hopefully the private funding we’re
receiving
distributing these meals will show
corporations
and the government how well this model
works
and how much it can scale because we
have to remember
the pandemic didn’t cause food
insecurity it made it worse
and when the pandemic is over the food
crisis will still be with us
there will still be a shocking number an
unacceptable number
of americans who are eating too little
or unhealthy foods but i’m full of hope
more so today than in a long time
because this is not a problem
of not enough food this is a problem
of organization distribution and
communication
these are problems we’ve begun to solve
this is a system
we’ve begun to change i believe
this is a new beginning not just for 11
madison park
but for all of us a clean chalkboard
a clean slate as we redraw the role
of the restaurant yes let us fill it
again with beautiful guests but also
let us infuse it with purpose
thank you so much for listening