74 Time April 6–13, 2020out in the barber’s chair, shaving cream smeared
across his neck.
What looks like a scatterbrained approach can
work in managing a crisis: while visiting the Ba-
hamas, Andrés was in constant contact with his
team in Puerto Rico, where another 6.0-magnitude
earthquake hit after he left. But human relations
are something else. If he’s idling on Twitter when
you ask for his attention, it can be grating. “He’s the
salt to my life because he really brings the color and
the flavor,” says Andrés’ wife Patricia, who also hails
from Spain; she met him in D.C. in the 1990s. “But
sometimes I want to kill him, O.K.? Don’t misunder-
stand me. Or throw him out the window.”
Andrés is sometimes so in his head and on mis-
sion, he’s oblivious to his sur-
roundings. He’ll open a car
door before the vehicle comes
to a complete stop. He has a
habit of walking in circles,
staring straight ahead, while
on important cell-phone calls:
in Marsh Harbour, a car pull-
ing into a takeout shop nearly
hit him. In Ponce, while show-
ing someone the proper angle
at which he wanted to take a picture of lettuce grow-
ing in a greenhouse, he leaned against a rail and
nearly took out a portion of the crop.
But a tendency to distraction belies his intense
focus on whatever he’s trying to accomplish. An-
drés plays to win. The day before the NBA’s All-
Star Celebrity Game in February, I joined him for
a training session at the National Basketball Play-
ers Association gym in New York City. His friend
José Calderón, a former NBA player from Spain,
works as a special assistant to the union’s executive
director. During a game of 3-on-3, Andrés fouled
me with his shoulders, barely attempting to move
his feet. He employed similar tactics, it turns out,
while playing with his daughters in the driveway of
their Bethesda, Md., home. “We were 10, 12 years
old, and he didn’t care,” says his eldest daughter
Carlota, 21. “We were on the floor.” He wasn’t much
nicer to the officials at their youth hoops contests.
“He would get kicked out of my games multiple
times,” Carlota says. “I think it started when I was
in second grade.”
He brings both temper and tenderness. “I am
getting very anxious,” he said in a raised voice at
one of his relief workers over the phone in Puerto
Rico. “Can we for once f-cking show up at the same
time and the same place... Are we in control, or are
we not in control?” But he’ll later tell his crew how
proud he is of them, or how much he loves them.
When he got wind that classmates were telling
the 9-year-old daughter of one of his workers thatshe might get coronavirus because her father was
working near the cruise ship, Andrés grabbed his
colleague’s phone and recorded a video message
for her and two younger siblings. “Your daddy is a
hero, period,” Andrés said, choking up slightly. “So
don’t worry, your daddy is going to be home soon
and he is going to be taking care of all of you. And I
only want you to be super proud of your dad.”
In the Bahamas, a woman yelled out to Andrés
from her car and simply put her hands together, as
if she were in church; it was her way of telling him
he’s a blessing. On his way to his office in D.C. in
February, a woman from Japan stopped to thank
him for feeding the cruise-ship passengers docked
in Yokohama. And as he walked through downtown
San Francisco, puffing on a
cigar, a woman approached
him gingerly to tell him that
she’s donated to World Cen-
tral Kitchen and that it was
an honor to meet him. She
then tiptoed away, as if she’d
just disturbed rare air.His decision to Head to
San Francisco—where one of
his workers wore a hazmat suit as he drove the fork-
lift of food to the cruise ship—didn’t make much
sense to me. The World Central Kitchen team was
handling the feeding just fine. The mission was
winding down. D.C. was going to serve as the Chefs
for America command center to address hunger
caused by COVID-19 disruptions. So why would
the man who says he “wants to take the lead in feed-
ing America” after the outbreak risk getting sick, or
grounded, 2,500 miles away from home base?
This line of inquiry annoys him. “Sh-t, I want to
be with the guys to see it and give thanks,” says An-
drés on the flight west. “What a question to ask. Like,
why the f-ck do you get married?” At the University
of San Francisco kitchen, a chef who has worked on
prior World Central Kitchen missions lights up when
she spots Andrés. They exchange a hug. Andrés turns my way. “You ask me
why I come,” he says. “What the f-ck? What’s wrong with you?”
Andrés has something in common with his buddy Clinton: he craves
connecting with people. His public face—yukking it up on The Late
Show with Stephen Colbert, pumping up World Central Kitchen on social
media, giving booming speeches to audiences that hang on every word—
has earned him a reputation as a tireless advocate for humanity. But he
doesn’t always feel so fresh himself. On the flight from Florida to the Ba-
hamas in January, Andrés finally set aside his phone, reclined and admit-
ted that the expectations of feeding the world, and running some 30 res-
taurants, weigh on him. Over the past few years, both his parents have
died. His good friend Anthony Bourdain committed suicide. Two of his
daughters left for college. “You wake up in the morning, and you’re like,
oooof,” says Andrés. Sometimes he feels like staying in bed. “All of this is
happening in front of you and you feel like you’re losing control.”Andrés ‘wants
to take the lead
in feeding
America’ after the
COVID-19 outbreakCHRISTOPHER GREGORY-RIVERA FOR TIME
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