PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. (AP) — The Pacific Palisades home where chef Daniel Shemtob and his wife dreamed of starting a family is now nothing more than a crater pit of twisted metal and rubble.
Gone are the gourmet kitchen, the nursery with the baby giraffe and elephant wallpaper, the half-century-old olive trees in the garden.
But even now, wildfires are happening in the Los Angeles area stay litShemtob has soothed his soul by handing out free, foil-wrapped breakfast burritos and tacos from his award-winning food truck to first responders and weary evacuees.
It would be easy for the two-time Food Network competition winner to dwell on the loss of the house, which he and his wife Elyse moved into about eight months ago, rented with an option to buy.
Still, he smiles, thinking of the people he has met through the food giveaways.
One man was so happy with his sweet and spicy steak taco that he said it was the first time he smiled since his house burned down. Another person loved the simple cheese quesadilla the chef made for him so much that he came back for more and brought six family members.
Then there was the National Guard who provided a listening ear on a cold morning. “He sat and wanted to hear my story while he ate his breakfast burrito,” said Shemtob, 36. “That was very cathartic.”
The Palisades and Eaton fires broke out in Los Angeles County on January 7 and forced tens of thousands to flee their homes, killing at least 28 people and destroying nearly 16,000 structures. Wiping out entire neighborhoodsrank the two fires one of the most destructive in the history of the state.
Shemtob never dreamed that the Palisades Fire would reach his neighborhood. When he evacuated around noon on January 7, he only took a laptop so he could work and homemade meatballs and pasta because he was hungry.
But that night, a remote home sensor alerted the couple that they were smoking in the bedroom. Then there was a fire. Then window after window began to shatter. Two days later he crept back to the neighborhood on his bicycle to see the ruins with his own eyes.
“That was our garage. That’s our basement,” he said in a video, addressing his wife as he panned the camera over the scene, still hot from embers and rising smoke. “Everything is gone.”
He sank into a deep depression. Then he remembered he had something to give. The Saturday after the evacuation, Shemtob brought The Lime Truck to a donation center in Pasadena. He’s always loved the intimacy of cooking from a food truck, so he volunteered with World Central Kitchen, a nonprofit founded by chef José Andrés that rushes to disaster sites with hot meals. He was surprised to find celebrity chef Tyler Florence at his side willing to make tacos.
In the center people were sad and stressed. But there were also signs of community: a woman brought a pot of homemade stew and bowls for anyone who wanted it.
“People came there with everything they had to give,” Shemtob said.
Since then, thousands of people have gotten meals from his trucks.
Last week at another donation location in Pasadena, Shemtob cheered as he handed out the last two foil-wrapped meals of the evening. “Good job, team,” he said, raising both fists in the air.
Shemtob estimated they handed out 750 meals that night alone, along with 200 pairs of shoes from the non-slip shoe company he owns, Snibbs.
He shares the story of his own loss with others, if he thinks it can help.
The voracious Palisades Fire consumed clothing Shemtob designed himself, kitchenware he collected, and culinary awards he won. Half of his late mother’s photographs and other belongings, stored in his basement, were also destroyed; the other half went up in flames at his brother’s nearby house, which also burned.
The couple loved the house in part because it was close not only to his brother’s home, but also to her brother’s and to a house her parents were building for proximity to their grandchildren.
On Sunday, Shemtob returned to the neighborhood with an AP photographer, driving past the lot after much destruction before stopping at what was once his home.
Among the spiky metal and charred rubble, he saw a blackened muffin tin, a shard of an Hermès bowl that was a wedding gift, the outline of a refrigerator and part of a car.
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For now, he and Elyse, who is expecting their first child in April, are staying with her aunt. They had no insurance. But Shemtob has recovered before: just before the coronavirus pandemic, he bought two companies that ultimately went bankrupt. “And then I decided to take my food truck and feed the frontline workers,” he said, “and the moment I did that, I started feeling better again.”