On Jan. 13, the morning after the earthquake struck Port-au-Prince, Haiti, the chatter among the Boston food community began: "What should we do?" A week's worth of phone calls and e-mails were exchanged before the first cup of coffee. This loosely knit yet tightly connected group of friends, foodies and chefs -- people with good hearts -- seemed to be primed to help.
Boston is a restaurant town uniquely blessed by two generations of remarkably supportive, affectionate and community-spirited chefs. Almost by reflex, when something heartrending happens, chefs are among the first responders. They raise money, create awareness and give the community a place to come together to share its shock and grief. In those first days after the earthquake, e-mails poured in with subject lines trumpeting local relief efforts: "Ten chefs cooking in a concert benefit." "Drinks at the bar on Tuesday from 5-10 for Haiti." "A silent auction." "All-day brunch." In the month since the earthquake, more than 200 Boston-area restaurants have held some sort of fundraiser for Haiti.
 It wasn't in their backyard, but the Haitian community in the Boston and Cambridge area is the third largest in the world outside of Haiti, and Boston's chefs were motivated to lend a hand.
"Does anyone know what Jody's going to do?" several of the earliest foodie e-mailers asked. "Jody" is Jody Adams (pictured at left), chef-owner of Rialto restaurant in Cambridge. Adams is reliably among the first to mobilize when the need arises. She raises funds for hunger, for literacy, for AIDS, for local hospitals and community groups. Most Boston foodies know that Adams has been fundraising for the Boston-based organization Partners In Health for years (she traveled to Rwanda with the group in 2009). Partners In Health helps poor communities combat disease and poverty. The instant local buzz after the quake was that if donations for Haitian relief went to the nonprofit, the group would put the money to good and immediate use.
What was Jody going to do? Adams had to think about it. Something immediate? Or stay tuned for the long run? An event that would involve organizing the larger food community, or skew more intimate, focused within the confines of her own restaurant? "It's so hard," she says, recalling her thoughts as she turned the alternatives over in her mind. "Of course I have to help. I can only imagine the devastation in Haiti. But what's the right way, the right time? And how do I balance this with all the other causes I already support?"
That is a tough question for chefs: How to manage the demands of their businesses with the endless requests for help? Chris Schlesinger, chef-owner of the East Coast Grill, says that every year, he establishes a budget for charitable giving—donations, gift certificates, cooking for fundraisers. Inevitably, by May at the latest, he's run through his allotted funds. "But the giving doesn't stop," Schlesinger says. "I just get more disciplined about the things we say yes to."
In the end, Adams decided to defer a big event, instead directing her own emergency funds to Partners in Health and channeling donations made by diners at Rialto. She allocated all the revenue from the restaurant's side dishes to the nonprofit organization, and held a small event in support of the Cambridge-Boston Haitian community.
Boston chefs have always been quick to step up. Anyone's top-of-mind list for generosity would include Mary-Catherine Deibel and Deborah Hughes (Upstairs on the Square), Schlesinger (East Coast Grill), Steve DiFillippo (Davio's), Michela Larson (Rocca), Jasper White (Summer Shack), Roger Berkowitz (Legal Sea Foods) and Andy Husbands (Tremont 647). These big-hearted chefs model the behavior for the rest of the cooking community, ensuring that philanthropy prevails in the kitchen for the generations to come.
They respond to not only to crises, but are perpetually generous, supporting local charities like Hunger Brunch, the Greater Boston Food Bank, Community Servings and Second Helping in addition to many medical and social causes. Of course, other businesses sectors pitch in too, but few industries have the ability to be as nimble or react as quickly as the food community does. How many other businesses can invent and manufacture a new product overnight based on what's in the fridge? Name it, and these chefs are there, cooking on portable burners under a tent, auctioning off dinners for four, or catering private parties for 18 chez-vous. Why are they so willing to help? "Giving back is what we do here," says Deibel.
Chefs don't sit at desks. They stand either inside or just outside the kitchen's swinging doors, connecting with real people -- not by phone or pixel, but by the stories they hear. The Brazilian dishwasher whose kid went to the emergency room last night; the diner who just came back from a gut-wrenching trip to Rwanda or New Orleans; the chef who can't reach his mother and brothers for six days after the earthquake in Port-au-Prince. And in the case of Haiti, the Boston connection is direct. "Yes, chefs are always the first to respond," says Jacky Robert (pictured at top), chef and co-owner of Petit Robert Bistros. "But this one is different. We all employ Haitians. We know Haitians. My chef's husband is a Haitian. I spent time in Haiti. I saw how poor the people were, people with pretty much nothing, and then they lose everything." Ten days after the earthquake, Robert held a very successful one-night fundraiser at his restaurant, with a full-on French-Haitian dinner menu. All of the proceeds were earmarked for Haiti.
Boston is a town of few transplants. In the food world, the shoots took root and became shade trees. They are referred to as "the first name chefs": Jasper (White), Lydia (Shire), Todd (English), Gordon (Hamersley), Chris (Schlesinger) and Jody (Adams) — to name a few. The heroes of this first successful Boston food generation were colleagues on the line, and remained buddies as they rose up the ladder. As a cluster of friends, they were and are about community.
 Husbands (pictured left), chef-owner of Tremont 647, is the unofficial leader of the newest generation of generous Boston chefs. He got his lesson in local philanthropy while working for Schlesinger at the East Coast Grill. "As a young cook, I was the schlepper at all these events that Chris had volunteered to do. I saw how the chefs were friends and how well they all got along, and how much they gave back to the community. I knew that when I had a restaurant of my own, I had to put the same high value on giving back," he says in a rare contemplative moment. "Boston was really lucky that these first chefs were so networked and had such a strong sense of community. They wrote the road map for all the rest of us."
It isn't only in Boston that chefs give back. After 9/11, the response from the food community in New York was swift and sustaining. Chefs are compassionate, people pleasers by nature. It's part of the draw of the profession. Can you think of a single chef who doesn't want to watch you eat their food and enjoy it? Berkowitz, the CEO of Legal Sea Foods, says, "It's a visceral response. We went into the hospitality business by choice. Our job is taking care of people, responding to people in need is an innate part of what we do. It's that simple."
Generosity is also good marketing. Being present at a charity event is a good way for a chef to enlarge his or her circle of friends. That aspect is obvious. But for most chefs, the drive to generosity goes deeper. "Why does somebody do an event?" asks Husbands. "It's a win-win. People want to spend money in support of a charity and if they like us, they will become friends of the restaurant. Fantastic. It feels right and it's good business. Nothing wrong with that," he says. "It costs me at least $500 to do a charity event. Often it's more. But what does $500 mean to me, compared with what it could do for a Haitian? I step up because it reminds me just how lucky I am." The cost of a charity event: $500. The value of a big heart: priceless.
Louisa Kasdon is a Boston-based food writer and former restaurant owner. She is a columnist for the Boston Phoenix, the food editor for Stuff Magazine and has contributed to Fortune, MORE, Cooking Light, the Boston Globe, Boston Magazine and The Christian Science Monitor, among others.
Photos from top: Jacky Robert, chef Jody Adams and Andy Husbands.
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