Bear Hugs In Asheville, Chef Katie Button ’05 Serves Up Hope After Helene Her popular restaurant reopened just weeks after devastating floods in the region—and now, she’s helping her community rebuild “Bear Hugs” celebrates heartwarming stories of Cornellians on the Hill and around the world. Have an idea? Email us at cornellians@cornell.edu! By Beth Saulnier How do you run a restaurant kitchen without potable water? That was the challenge—one among many—that Katie Button ’05 faced in fall 2024. The Engineering alum is a James Beard-nominated chef and cookbook author who owns a popular tapas place in downtown Asheville, NC, a picturesque tourist town nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains. As many Americans saw in horrifying images and video in the national media in late September, Asheville and its environs suffered devastating damage from Hurricane Helene. “The storm turned every creek into a massive, raging river that ripped out everything in its path—and then the rivers turned into what felt like tsunami-level explosions of water that rose over 24 feet and took out buildings, trees, and homes,” Button recalls. “It was just unfathomable.” And as though that weren’t enough damage: the flooding disabled the municipal water system. While service was restored fairly quickly, the water wasn’t safe to drink—a situation that would stretch into mid-November. Parts of Asheville suffered devastating flood damage. Already a leader in Asheville’s vibrant dining scene, Button has since become a resonant voice in the community’s recovery efforts. Just days after the hurricane, her restaurant, Cúrate, began supplying free meals to local residents—part of a relief effort by World Central Kitchen (WCK), the nonprofit founded by one of Button’s mentors, celebrity chef José Andrés. “It’s an incredible program; it’s created so smartly,” says Button, whom the state’s governor-elect has named to his advisory committee on rebuilding Western North Carolina. “When a disaster happens, they can just activate. There’s no red tape, no government approval, no decision-making. The storm hit on Friday—and on Saturday, they were already moving people into our area and trying to connect with us.” The rivers turned into what felt like tsunami-level explosions of water that rose over 24 feet and took out buildings, trees, and homes. The nonprofit’s model is to hire local restaurants to provide meals in the midst of disasters and even wars—not only feeding people in need, but providing an essential revenue stream to establishments that might otherwise have to lay off staff. Using food donated from other local eateries as well as supplies from WCK, Cúrate made some 27,000 meals—from breakfast sandwiches to chili, pasta, stew, and more. Staff prepare meals for WCK in the Cúrate kitchen. The restaurant cooked and washed dishes using tanks of potable water that had been trucked in—then repurposed the dirty water to flush toilets. “In the beginning, we only had one open highway in and out of Asheville,” Button recalls. “They were helicoptering meals to families and communities whose road access had been wiped away. These were people who had no power, no water, and no way of getting their own food.” On October 25, 2023, Button had cooked a state dinner at the White House to celebrate a visit by the prime minister of Australia. Exactly a year later, First Lady Jill Biden gave her a hug during a trip to Asheville to view the hurricane damage and the relief efforts by WCK and others. “I watched as the food gave people hope, and, even amid the devastation, they had a reason to feel a little less alone,” Biden said later, “to know that their community was there for them because they had a meal made with love.” They were helicoptering meals to families and communities whose road access had been wiped away. A chemical and biomolecular engineering major on the Hill, Button earned a master’s degree in biomedical engineering from a university in Paris. She was about to start a doctoral program at the National Institutes of Health when she realized the career path she’d long been on wasn’t making her happy. With a love of food dating back to when she’d helped with her mom’s catering business growing up, Button dipped a toe into the Washington, DC, restaurant scene—and wound up as a server at one of Andrés’s restaurants. A hug from visiting First Lady Jill Biden. After spending time living in Spain, Button eventually gained experience in fine-dining kitchens in New York and L.A.; she settled in Asheville in 2010 and opened Cúrate (whose name translates as “cure yourself”) the following year. In 2016, Button co-authored a cookbook of the same name, comprising 125 recipes for—in the words of the subtitle—“authentic Spanish food from an American kitchen.” I watched as the food gave people hope, and, even amid the devastation, they had a reason to feel a little less alone. First Lady Jill Biden A few weeks after Helene struck, Cúrate reopened for limited dinner service. “People need restaurants,” Button observes. “They need spaces to gather and have fun, to laugh and enjoy and connect with their community and neighbors. That was really, really beautiful to see.” A typically bustling night at Cúrate, before the storm. But as Asheville works to reconnect and rebuild, it faces dual challenges: one logistical, the other economic. As Button notes, October is traditionally Asheville’s strongest month for tourism—as visitors descend on the region to hike, shop, dine, and view the autumnal foliage. With its popular River Arts District largely destroyed by flooding and no potable water flowing through pipes until mid-November, fall 2024 was a tourism disaster. People need restaurants. They need spaces to gather and have fun, to laugh and enjoy and connect with their community and neighbors. Many in the service industry have had trouble paying their rent; in late November, the Washington Post did a feature on the community’s eviction crisis. Cúrate, which had hosted numerous fundraisers over the years, found itself the beneficiary of a GoFundMe campaign. (The effort also supported workers at Button’s Spanish market and bakery, La Bodega by Cúrate, which has yet to reopen.) And Button, who has cooked for world leaders, has found herself in an unexpected position: navigating a labyrinth of insurance denials. As she explains: while she and others in the Asheville hospitality industry expected their business interruption policies to cover their monetary losses—and allow them to keep workers on the payroll—it has proved an uphill battle. “My next big fight is, how do we get businesses the funding they need to survive?” she says. “I’m talking to attorneys and trying to figure out what information we need to supply, so the insurance companies can’t get out of paying by pinning it on some technical detail.” For Button, it’s a wrenching flashback to the financial crisis that struck the hospitality sector during the COVID pandemic—and it’s spurring her to advocate for national regulation on how such policies are written. “A lot of people move to Asheville because they want this wonderful balance of culture and nature—and then they have to figure out what they’re going to do in order to be able to live here,” Button observes. “It’s a community of makers—small businesses, entrepreneurs, and creatives, whether it’s craft beer, honey, cheese, a tiny farm, charcuterie, pottery, art, or music. When you look at the population size and at all that Asheville has to offer, it doesn’t add up—because it’s a bunch of passionate, driven people who live here by creating what they love.” (All images provided.) Published December 4, 2024 Comments Camille White, Class of 2008 17 Dec, 2024 Wow! Kudos to Katie and her team. I live in Sarasota, FL and between Helene and Milton, a large part of our city’s culinary scene was decimated too. I will be near Asheville over the holidays and can’t wait to visit Curate. Reply DeeDee Stovel, Class of 1962 17 Dec, 2024 So impressed with Katie Button and applaud her efforts to make insurance companies meet the needs of people not their bottom line. I love and am not surprised that WCK stepped in to help her and the community. Reply Leave a Comment Cancel replyOnce your comment is approved, your email address will not be published. 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