A chef lost his dream home in the Palisades Fire. He keeps his spirits up by feeding others

PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. (AP) — The Pacific Palisades home where chef Daniel Shemtob and his wife dreamed of raising a family is now nothing more than a cratered 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 yard.

But even as the Los Angeles-area wildfires continue to burn, Shemtob has been soothing his soul by dishing 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 home, which he and his wife, Elyse, moved into about eight months ago, leasing with an option to buy. Yet he smiles, thinking about the people he has met through the food giveaways.

One man was so happy with his sweet and spicy steak taco that he declared it the first time he smiled since his home burned. Another person loved the simple cheese quesadilla the chef made for him so much, he came back for more and brought six family members.

Then there was the National Guardsman who lent a sympathetic ear one 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 Jan. 7 in Los Angeles County and forced tens of thousands to flee their homes, killing at least 28 people and destroying nearly 16,000 structures. Wiping out entire neighborhoods, the two blazes rank among the most destructive in the state's history.

Shemtob never dreamed the Palisades Fire would reach his neighborhood. When he evacuated around noon on Jan. 7, he took only a laptop, to be able to work, and homemade meatballs and pasta, because he was hungry.

But that night a remote home sensor alerted the couple to smoke in the master bedroom. Then there was fire. Then window after window started shattering.

Two days later he sneaked back to the neighborhood by bicycle to see the ruins for himself.

“That was our garage. That’s our basement,” he said in a video, addressing his wife as he panned the camera across the scene, still hot with embers and rising smoke. “Everything is gone.”

He sank into a deep depression. Then he remembered he had something to give.

The Saturday after evacuating, Shemtob took The Lime Truck to a donation center in Pasadena.

He has 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 ready to make tacos by his side.

At the center, people were sad and stressed. But there were also signs of community: One woman brought a pot of homemade stew and bowls for anyone who wanted some.

“People were coming there with whatever they had to give,” Shemtob said.

Since then, thousands of people have gotten meals from his trucks.

At another donation site in Pasadena last week, Shemtob whooped as he handed out the final two foil-wrapped meals of the night. “Great job, team,” he said, pumping both fists in the air.

Shemtob estimated that they handed out 750 meals that night alone, along with 200 pairs of shoes from the nonslip shoe company he owns, Snibbs.

He shares the story of his own loss with others, when he thinks it can help.

The voracious Palisades Fire consumed clothes that Shemtob designed himself, kitchen tools he collected and culinary awards he won. Half 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 home nearby, which also burned.

The couple loved the house in part because it was close not only to his brother’s place but also to her brother and to a home that her parents were building to be near their grandchildren.

On Sunday, Shemtob returned to the neighborhood with an AP photographer, driving past lot after lot of flattened devastation before stopping at what used to be his home.

Among the spiky metal and charred rubble, he spotted a blackened muffin tin, a shard of an Hermès platter that was a wedding gift, the outline of an refrigerator and a piece of a car.

For now he and Elyse, who is expecting their first child in April, are staying at her aunt’s place. They did not have insurance.

But Shemtob has bounced back before: Just before the coronavirus pandemic, he purchased two businesses that wound up failing.

“And then I decided to take my food truck out and feed front-line workers,” he said, “and the moment I did that, I started feeling better again.”