James' World 2

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This story, like many immigrants’ success stories, starts with a young man arriving in New York with a set of cooking knives and $50, which he would parlay into a nationwide empire of award-winning restaurants. Not content with personal success, he then founded the World Central Kitchen, a nonprofit that, since 2010, has served more than 200 million hot meals to people affected by natural disasters and other crises around the globe.

José Andrés, 53, is a burly man with a booming Spanish-accented voice, an ebullient personality, and a fondness for wearing utility vests, baggy cargo pants, and baseball caps. “Let’s go” is a favorite expression, seeming to reflect his boundless energy and drive. Yet, Andrés is a modest man who prefers talking about anything other than himself and dislikes being called a celebrity chef. “I am not a celebrity. I’m a cook,” he says simply. “I’ve been given the opportunity to feed the few, but that same know-how allows me to sometimes feed the many.”

Yes, he uses the simple word cook to describe himself, but he is also an internationally recognized culinary innovator, author of several cookbooks, a television personality (Iron Chef America), and the only chef in the world who has both a two-star Michelin restaurant (the reserved-months-in-advance Minibar by José Andrés) and four Bib Gourmands. Chef Éric Ripert, of New York’s acclaimed restaurant Le Bernardin, describes Andrés as “probably the most creative chef in the world today.”

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Flying into action: When catastrophe strikes, chef José Andrés and the World Central Kitchen move in to help. “We put our boots on the ground next to people in need.”(World Central Kitchen/WCK.org)

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