How can small local restaurants increase food access to those in need?

On August 4, 2020, I was with my team in the kitchen

preparing thousands of meals for hospitals in New York City.

And we were playing salsa and hip hop music to make the long days go by quickly.

That day, my phone was ringing more than usual.

Suddenly, Santos, one of my team members, turned off the music and said to me,

“veste que lo pasó en Beirut”

which means “did you see what happened in Beirut?”

Honestly, I didn’t understand what he meant.

I took the phone and saw messages on WhatsApp from our team in Lebanon

saying “did you see what happened? We are under attack.”

I quickly went on Twitter and saw that everyone was talking about

a devastating incident that happened in the port

and that the sky was all red.

Unfortunately, Lebanon is going through its hardest economic time in its history.

People’s money is stuck in banks, corruption

and currency collapse have made food prices very expensive,

and prices for everything else have skyrocketed.

And unfortunately, the most famous Arab kitchen in the world

has become difficult for its people in their own country.

To alleviate this problem, we had a team on the ground

providing hundreds of meals daily

to the affected neighborhoods suffering from food shortages

and also to refugee camps.

But I was fully aware that regardless of the cause of this incident,

the problem will only get worse,

and unfortunately I was right.

I am not a cook or a chef,

and I do not consider myself a cook or a chef or identify myself as one.

I am an immigrant who first worked in a restaurant as a waiter

and then became a restaurant owner,

and by pure coincidence, I ended up working in the food security system.

If you grew up in an Arab family like ours

and didn’t become a doctor, lawyer, or engineer,

you’re not that successful.

And my mother always reminded me that

she didn’t send me to America to make falafel.

But if you grew up in Palestine,

you always see hunger and food insecurity in front of you.

And not just in Palestine, in most parts of the Arab world.

Unfortunately, reliance on foreign aid, wars, climate change,

and lack of support for agriculture has led the region towards disaster.

But unfortunately, the media always tells us that only governments

or non-governmental organizations can solve this problem.

But the question is,

as an individual living in this society,

with a small restaurant that serves hummus, ful, and falafel,

can I make a difference and bring about change?

The answer is yes.

I will tell you how.

The idea began in 2017.

My friend Laila called me and she told me that a refugee from Syria

had arrived in New York and needed a place to stay and work.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have any job openings,

but I had a table that could accommodate 10 people.

Since Palestinian and Syrian cuisine are similar to each other,

the idea was to host a dinner party and sell tickets to my friends.

The proceeds from these tickets would go to the refugee

to help him financially while he cooked Syrian food.

I called my friend Justin and told him that

we should work on the first dinner together.

My friend Justin is a playwright, so he said,

“Nasser, we have to make this dinner theatrical.”

Because Americans love happy endings.

I said, Okay.

We made the dinner, and the first course was about the origin story.

The second course was about the problems and how they arose.

The third course was about displacement from home.

The fourth course tells about his arrival to his new country.

And the fifth course talks about his plans for the future.

Dinner was very successful,

and he was able to find a place to stay and work in the same night

because there were people at the table who helped him.

We took this system that we created

and repeated it with other refugees in several states.

This is what Joanna Forman, who teaches at the American University in Washington

and is a friend and mentor of mine, calls “dinner table diplomacy”.

Dinner table diplomacy then took me to Turkey,

where we built communal kitchens for Syrian

and Yemeni women to work on small food projects.

And then to Morocco, where I met Nora Fitzgerald,

founder of the non-profit restaurant Amal,

Which helps Moroccan women achieve economic empowerment

through cooking delicious Moroccan food in Marrakech.

The idea then evolved further, and I created the Immigrant Kitchen

with my colleague Dan Dorado.

But luck was not on my side as a Palestinian,

because just as we opened our first week, coronavirus hit and we had to close.

On the night of March 16, the day New York City shut down.

A friend from Sloan Kettering Hospital called me and said she needed 20 meals

because all the restaurants were closed and the emergency room was crowded.

New York was the epicenter of the coronavirus at that time.

I had 1000 meals in my refrigerator,

so I told her I could feed every emergency room,

and if there were other hospitals, please let me know, and I did just that.

The news spread quickly.

We also joined forces with other restaurants and food suppliers,

and within a week, we were able to produce 3000 meals a day,

not only for hospitals, but also for neighborhoods affected by food shortages.

Now, if you don’t work in commercial kitchens,

you might think that this is an impossible task.

But commercial kitchens, like factories, have assembly lines.

We have the machines and technologies to make large quantities of food.

And the idea was simple: a dish,

a new meal every day, with carbohydrates, vegetables, and protein.

We wrap them and deliver them to distribution points,

whether they are churches, mosques, or places where people can pick up the food.

There was a story that affected me a lot about an elderly man from Bangladesh.

He told a Washington Post reporter that he was very embarrassed

to say that there was no food at home.

And we were offering him food from his heritage

and from Bangladesh quietly and not in front of everyone,

and he could maintain his dignity.

This made me fully convinced that chefs, cooks, and restaurants

can play a very important role in fighting hunger in their country.

We learned many lessons from this idea.

First, we learned how to cook huge amounts of food.

Second, we discovered that our employees themselves began to enjoy working

because they had become an active part of this community that helps people.

The third thing was that after the city reopened,

we found that our entire community were our customers,

and they were willing to pay a 5-10% increase in price

to cover the cost of the donated food.

So, we took all these lessons and applied them in Lebanon,

but unfortunately, with the incident, the demand has increased.

So, I called the wonderful couple, Rawan Hayek and Mamoun Arafeh,

owners of the TrickerTreat brand.

They were able to move quickly on the ground and produce hundreds of meals

and deliver them to affected areas using motorcycles and cars.

I booked the first flight and went to Beirut.

I landed and joined the team in the field.

The team consisted of two Chrises: Chris Kattanah and Chris Ibrahim,

and honestly,

I couldn’t tell the difference between them, Chris 1 and Chris 2.

But when I arrived in Beirut for the first time, I felt a lot of sadness.

The city was very sad.

But if you know the Lebanese people, they love life,

and I am sure they will be able to overcome all difficulties,

no matter how hard the times are.

Honestly, I felt a lot of optimism when I saw Rawan and Ma’moun

working eagerly to help their fellow countrymen.

I think this important lesson must be known to all:

there is nothing better in life than living in service of others.

And now, this dinner table diplomacy,

uses food and cooking to solve five issues.

First, to eradicate poverty.

Second, to create jobs.

Third, to ensure food security.

Fourth, to create job opportunities, and fifth, to avoid food waste.

We are not the only ones saying this.

In Kuwait, Noor Al-Obaid works through

“Bake and Educate,”

a school where 620 people from low-income families

learn how to cook and become economically self-sufficient.

Qatar Forum

Qatar Forum worked on dinner table diplomacy

with Georgia, Mexico, and Nigeria.

The message is very clear:

we don’t necessarily have to wait for

governments or non-governmental organizations to help us.

We can find the answer ourselves and help ourselves.

If we have the right practical plan, strategy, and will,

we can create wonders, create jobs,

And support our farmers and economy to eradicate hunger

in our neighborhood, region, country,

and in every Arab nation.

Even if we start with a small restaurant that serves hummus, falafel, and beans.