Jose Andres Puerta
Jose Andres Puerta
José Ramón Andrés Puerta, known as José Andrés, is a Spanish American chef often credited for bringing the small plates dining concept to America. He owns restaurants in Washington DC, Beverly Hills, Las Vegas, South Beach, Dorado and Philadelphia. Andrés is chair of the advisory board for LA Kitchen, a social enterprise in Los Angeles, California that works to reduce food waste, provide job training, and increase access to nutritious food...
NationalitySpanish
ProfessionChef
Date of Birth13 July 1969
CountrySpain
The time has come to recognize that food, how we produce it, process it, package it, sell it, cook it and eat it, is as important as any other issue.
It is time to embrace and celebrate ketchup, not be ashamed of it.
In Spain, we mainly use red plum tomatoes, but it is always fun to experiment. Try using a mix of colors or substitute green tomatoes for plum next time you make a tomato dish.
The first time I saw America was from my perch on the mast of a Spanish naval ship, where I could spot the Statue of Liberty reaching proudly into the open, endless American sky.
I started culinary school at a very young age, and really I wanted to be out working, cooking, more than I wanted to be in a classroom. You could say I wasn't a very good student - I wanted to be a student of life and experience.
The right use of food can end hunger.
As immigrants, we understand better than most that to be an American is a privilege that conveys not just rights but responsibilities.
Puerto Rico is the perfect meeting place between Spain, the country I come from, and America, the country where I now belong. The meeting point of two worlds where magic can happen.
People ask me in Europe, when they do interviews... they ask me, 'Well, how does it feel to be a cook in a country that doesn't know how to eat?' It always touches a nerve, because Europe and the world think that America is no more than bad hot dogs and bad burgers.
Even today with the public's growing interest in food and diet issues, politicians rarely include food as part of their political platforms.
I've been a cook all my life, but I am still learning to be a good chef. I'm always learning new techniques and improving beyond my own knowledge because there is always something new to learn and new horizons to discover.
I want e by Jose Andres to be a discovery, to be a journey. I want people to find it and be astonished.
Sometimes you need to give dishes a nap.
Everyone should wake up and have a fresh-squeezed orange every day. By having a fresh glass of orange juice with American oranges, you are supporting the local economy, you have all the vitamin C you need in a day, and you support the environment because you don't use any plastic from bottles or bags.