La Ventanita: Karla Hoyos, cooking meals for Ukraine evacuees

Karla Hoyos has spent the last six weeks in Poland, on the border with Ukraine, cooking 12,000 meals a day for war evacuees with chef José Andrés’ nonprofit World Central Kitchen.

On the April 14 episode of La Ventanita, the Miami Herald food podcast, Hoyos, a Miami chef with two upcoming South Florida restaurants, will share a first-hand account of feeding the families fleeing the Ukraine-Russian war.

Hoyos has worked with World Central Kitchen since meeting Andrés — a past La Ventanita guest — in Puerto Rico, where his kitchens fed 75,000 meals a day to the victims of Hurricane Maria. Since then, Hoyos has become a regular World Central Kitchen volunteer. But nothing — not an earthquake in Haiti, the condo collapse in Surfside, a hurricane in the Bahamas — prepared her for what she has seen in a country decimated by a Russian invasion.

Tune in Thursdays at 11 a.m. to watch La Ventanita on YouTube and the Miami Herald website. Find every episode of La Ventanita podcast at the show page and on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Megaphone, Stitcher and MiamiHerald.com.

This story was originally published April 13, 2022 6:00 AM.