Brad Volunteers at a Food Bank | It's Alive | Bon Appétit

just put me to work i'm gonna be done by the time i get this second doorbell i was i was observing that hey guys saying it's live we're up here in beautiful harlem and we're gonna be meeting up with the folks from food bank for new york city and now we're gonna be teaming up with chef sherry to go inside and see how they cook on a larger scale for up to a thousand people and then chef sharon and i are gonna head back to our kitchen and just really dig in and have her show me what it takes to meet the needs of a diverse community we're cooking for family at the end of the day here you know and and that's just really what it's all about helping people and i'm really excited to see that process and what it takes to to pull off such a beautiful stunt so let's get inside get suited up let's go to work huh i lost the shrimp bud you want to start chopping some onion yeah absolutely i didn't bring an apron on gonna throw some cabbage in there too yeah and you're gonna put some of our house seasoning in there you got it [Music] you've done this before three times it's like cooking for family even though it's not people and that's what we're doing here this family that's it how's your cabbage looking push up okay here we go all right guys i'm here with chef sherry again i learned about your program through some friends and it's just you know got really interested in your work and what you guys do so wanted to work with you in your kitchen for a little bit and then invite you to come and cook in one of ours what we're trying to do today guys is really just mimic what chef sherry does every day cooking as a head chef for a food bank in a city like new york city just like cooking recipes that come from the heart and just being able to use the resources that you have to make a healthy nutritious meal for a community all right so chef you know i got you some chicken thighs over there bone in i figured you could sear those off just get a little base for that soup going and also got some stock you know add that if you want to add a little water to it too as well you know whatever you know how to cook i don't need to teach you how to make chicken noodle soup but uh in the meantime i'm going to start boiling some barley if you want to just you know put a little color on uh on those chicken thighs all right and uh and then yeah tell me again like what exactly do you guys do at the food bank we started oh god hold up one second oh this thing's a little tricky sure i got to tell you it's a little too fancy for its own good uh we have a soup kitchen okay and also a pantry oh beautiful at the kitchen we serve over a thousand meals a day thousand meals a thousand meals a day and that's all just and whoever shows up whoever whoever shows you're hungry we got you we got you a thousand meals a day so i mean that's like you're cooking volumes that are the best biggest restaurants in the in the city head chefs are high fiving for and you know you're cranking that you know you're doing those numbers daily daily daily before the cameras turned on you saw i had a couple chicken thighs laid out and you said something that was beautiful i need exactly 447 more chicken bags i like the idea that i'm able to go in there daily and create with donations that are donated to the kitchen to me whether it's a thousand people or or just you and i you know it's cooking for people just from the heart and i guess that's it seems like you know after working with you in your kitchen that's basically what you and everyone there does i mean you're you're cooking for a thousand strangers you know the same way i cook for my family at home we are the only difference is it's our family and we do consider them to be our family right are in the hundreds what was awesome and what i think you know when you when a lot of folks and you know in me in the past when you think of a soup kitchen or you think of you know a food pantry it's donated food you're taking raw ingredients and you're cooking you're chefing back there you guys are are making from scratch just delicious nutritious homemade meal we take it up a little further than that didn't just soup i'd say so you know that that chicken curry that you guys work on but the daily ritual is to walk into one of the walk-ins right and just stand there and see what comes out so like you know at home like i was saying i'm always cooking for i got two young boys and you know a little family going and um you know i'm cooking for them and they got they got their own little needs and and requirements and and likes and desires you know in a meal cooking for such a large number in such a just as large and diverse community i would imagine there's some some challenges that come into how you cook and prepare meals for for that many people it's actually fairly simple we know what they like right we have some kosher meals that are donated to us we're also thinking about how we can incorporate a lot of halal having all of these different meals so that when these diversities are we're faced with it we're able to feed them as well i think that's a really smart and beautiful way to approach that so what are some of your like biggest your biggest proteins chicken i'm guessing chicken chicken beef lamb lamb yeah lamb lamb we have a few donors that actually donate lambs to us we have some that donate steers okay oh cool and when that happens we make it happen so lamb chops very popular when we get it oh beautiful they love it right now i'm going to be toasting up a little spices and we're going to cook up some shrimp so i'm just going to give it a little dry rub kind of charred up cast iron shrimp and i got some cucumbers and radishes that are sitting on a little salt i'm going to add some fermented goodness to them that i think would go really well with this chef sherry yes brad how you feel about that i'm fine brad so chef sherry did you grow up here in new york yes i did yes i did my parents are from charleston south carolina so deep down i'm a country girl at heart okay growing up my parents did a lot of volunteering but i've always wanted to volunteer at a soup kitchen okay never did it all right what do you know where am i now well someone call it destiny chef sherry they wanted to ask yeah like coping must have really just the whole pandemic must have really affected how you cook and serve food for people so normally the clients will come in and they would have dinner they would sit down and eat now it's grab and go we still prepare the same type meals but just package it for them to go okay i mean i remember before all of this you know standing in front of the you know in the back watching the dining room and watching the clients eat and it's just the best feeling in the world i mean to see people walking in and out and yeah i mean it's literally putting life in people you know and through them they're putting life in me it just gives me that extra energy one story i'll tell you real quick is this gentleman will come in every night dress suit tie he had he was looking for work so he was doing interviews so the choice was okay the money that i do have how do i do this he had his rent to pay so you know what we're here to help you so you you worry about paying that rent trying to get you know those those interviews and you know your meals are here right he came in one day and said chef you know what because of you all and and just having you during all of this he got the job and it was through khan edison wow so i mean it's like yeah you never know what you're doing and who you're doing it for so chef how can people get involved and help out in someone in an organization like the new york you know food bank for new york city or like in their own cities i'm sure a lot of places hopefully have things going on like this right brad like anything most things money money one dollar right actually fee is five meals wow oh no kidding huh no so yeah donations so i got this barley going here and um you like barley i love barley too i'll let it hang out you know you know once we strain it just let it kind of be room temperature even a little warm and then i'll fold it into i got some some some torn up some feta cheese and some green olives and some radishes and cucumbers and we'll hit it i got a little fermented garlic chili that we were kind of sniffing at before and there and we'll drizzle that in there maybe a little olive oil did a video about it a while back if you're interested to learn not much more about the process because that was about it the pantry is basically a little mini supermarket what ever is not used in the kitchen is served to the pantry clients so they get to take fresh produce home as well oh nice beautiful normally they would come into the pantry they would do their own shopping they get a card by their family sizes and they're able to choose between grains proteins oh wow fruits but since covet we've been pre-packaging all of these meals so you just come pick up a bundle yeah oh amazing what's your new chef stock please let me just pour it in thank you very much i love soup i don't know about you me too three times a day me too all day i find it to be crazy that you pick chicken soup today because there are occasions we get whole chickens and if we don't have time to cut up the chickens right that's what that becomes it's a home run right everyone yeah definitely yeah they love it when we have soup with the kitchen i bet you put any uh i got some habaneros and some spicy stuff i got some in there you did it yeah oh i love it see i'm just going to fold this in kind of hot how do you feel about hot cucumbers i'm i'm going to try it today i'm interested in your barley because we get sometimes donations with uh different grains and our clients aren't familiar with them right but i like the idea that you just showed how something as simple as barley right look at it a staple right yeah it's just like beef stew beef and barley soup or something but keeping it somewhere it's a vegetarian light i mean you could do this in the middle of winter or the summer like you're saying you know and you can throw it around it don't have to be cucumbers no it could be that would have been nice with quinoa too exactly you guys showed up with a bag full or whatever you can start folding it in you know and it's just a great way to layer in really healthy food on a very low right and this right you can feed a whole group of people in this you know exactly i'm gonna cook off the shrimp real quick okay we'll have that for a little lunch all right [Music] do you guys get much fish donated at all recently we were able to get a whole lot of porgies and whitings filleted what'd you do with them well you know when you have that like that right and you're cooking for 500 people yep what else do you do but you have a friday fish fry that's it and that's so easy that's exactly what i would have done you'd be crazy not to right we had a fish fry and the clients appreciated it who doesn't like fried fish i'm telling you how often are you looking for new people to to help out since covert 19 prior to that we should have volunteers all right about 15 to 20 volunteers in the kitchen on shifts no kidding no kidding so um this is very different from what we're accustomed to okay when things get better we welcome volunteer help [Music] we're doing all right here we got homemade chicken soup we added stock but you can easily do that just with water right you know and like that you know it's just for me a perfect meal that's why it's a classic and then we just got something simple like shrimp a little vegetarian kind of grain cucumber salad everything we're cooking and everything that we cooked together back at your kitchen was relatively easy and mostly just really nutritious and actually really healthy good food like when people aren't coming in and just getting big sodium and sugar bombs like this is food and like what you were serving is food that i would serve to my family which is basically what you were doing that's the goal at food bank one of the key elements at full bank is remembering and understanding people letting them know that dignity is very important treating them with dignity and that we're just that we're there once upon a time we used to have the clients they used to stand on the line and wait for their meals on the wall and one particular day i'm like you know let's try something different we have the volunteers line each table and chair with a tray took a little longer but sometimes it doesn't matter you know you came in you sat down dignity i mean that's as important if not more than than the nutrients that's in the food right so thank you again chef sherry for cooking with me for for eating with me you know and and then just talking about things like this you know and how food is so much more than what we were saying just a full belly if you live in new york folks can donate and volunteer you know at the food bank for new york city but you know no matter where you live you can look into different organizations like this one like chef sherry's running to help people in your area thank you again chef and before this meal that we did cook it's cold we should eat it ourselves yeah thank you for having me thank you i can't find a spoon in this place to save my life i don't know about you don't even try opening the cabinets

Channel: Bon Appétit

Views: 254,809

Rating: 4.9233589 out of 5

Keywords: alive, bon appetit, bon appetit brad, brad, brad bon appetit, brad food bank, brad it's alive, brad leone, brad leone 2021, brad makes, brad soup kitchen, brad volunteers, brad volunteers food bank, brad volunteers soup kitchen, fermentation, fermented, food, food bank, food bank for new york city, how to make, it's alive, it's alive bon appetit, its alive, live food, make, probiotics, soup kitchen, test kitchen, what is

Id: F18w7YoV1jE

Length: 14min 0sec (840 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 24 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/thankwoo]

Always good to focus on volunteering but also very weird programming for It’s Alive

[u/UncreativeTeam]

Bon Appetit continues to try to reform their public image | It's Alive

[u/shaohtsai]

I like Brad, but he should've jumped ship. Having a look at the views from post-implosion BA, and even Brad isn't pulling in the views. Goes to show that it was about ensemble more than just the individuals.

[u/the_perpetual_snort]

Ah yes, bon appétit still trying to pretend like they care while underpaying employees of color

[u/chzplz]

...”Brad and Shari cooked some dishes similar to those you might find at the Food Bank”

I donno, man. I don’t recall seeing much shrimp while I was volunteering at a soup kitchen.