'Food Is Love And We Needed Both' Chef Anna Maria's 9/11 Task

HUDSON VALLEY, NY — When the planes hit the World Trade Towers, the executive chef to the man who would one day be known as "America's Mayor" was asked to take on a new and daunting role.

If you ask the regulars at Anna Maria’s Wine Bar in Rye how they met Anna Maria, chances are they will start by talking about the food she served them, because when you meet her for the first time, she will very likely insist on feeding you. The next thing everyone from casual acquaintances to patrons and close friends will tell you is how much they love her.

For the celebrity restaurateur and former chef at Gracie Mansion, food is a way of expressing love and that belief served her and a devastated city well on September 11, 2001. Santorelli said she developed this outlook at an early age from her mother, Maria Santorelli.

“My mom taught not just a passion for food, but that food can mean so much more,” Santorelli said. “She taught me that food is love and we needed both when the towers fell.”

Access to Ground Zero was tightly controlled, but Santorelli thrust into a role that saw her at the very center of the response. (Anna Maria Santorelli)

Santorelli charms with stories about her turn on the cooking competition “Chopped” and anecdotes about the celebrities, from former-Presidents to Judge Judy who knows her simply as “Anna Maria.” Every photograph on the walls of her restaurant, from the signed picture of Bette Midler to the photos of her with a smiling Hillary Clinton has a story, but she rarely speaks about 9/11, even if she had a rare perspective to the tragedy as it unfolded.

Santorelli’s voice quiets when she speaks about being asked to face the other direction when bodies were being removed from the rubble at Ground Zero and wrapped in American flags. Her words slow when she describes the sights, sounds and acrid smells at the site of so much devastation.

She brightens, however, when she talks about the September 23, remembrance ceremony for families of the victims at Yankee Stadium. She recalls the event as a time of healing after two of the nation’s toughest weeks.

"Eat Beautiful," a tribute to Santorelli's mother, who she credits with teaching her that food can be more than just food, hangs on the wall of her wine bar in Rye.

Santorelli is humble about her essential role on 9/11 and the days and weeks that followed.

“The Red Cross, the guys in the command center, the first responders, they are heroes,” Santorelli said of her contributions. “I can read, I can follow directions and I can cook. The protocols were already in place.”

Former-President Bill Clinton wrote a note on a 9/11 remembrance program thanking Santorelli for her hard work.

Santorelli is decidedly non-partisan, having worked for political figures on both sides of the aisle, including Michael Bloomberg, Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani. She counts both Republican and Democrat politicians among her close friends and celebrated the night the first female Vice-President was elected, but Giuliani won a special place in her heart in the days following the terror attacks.

“Nobody else could have done what he did,” Santorelli said. “He never slept. He made America feel secure. In my mind, he will always be the best mayor New York ever had. He really was America’s mayor at a time when we needed leadership."

The walls of Anna Maria's Wine Bar in Rye are filled with signed photographs and press clippings, but these keepsakes from home represent more personal memories.

If Santorelli learned that food can mean love from her mother, she also learned a toughness from her mother that served her well both at Ground Zero, in her chosen profession in a male-dominated workplace and eventually as a business owner. She said she used to have her mom help teach her staff the art of making pasta.

“I would hear her yelling in the kitchen and I would say ‘Ma, you can’t do that, somebody's going to sue me,’” Santorelli recounted. “I told her it’s a different world now. She just said ‘I like my world better.’”

A gift from former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani to thank Santorelli for going above and beyond her duties. The inscription reads "America's Mayor."

Most of us shared the sorrow of the events of September 11, 2001 through our television screens. We were reminded that day, in the words of Fred Rogers, to “look for the helpers.” In the meantime, Santorelli was behind the scenes helping to feed the helpers in the way that was handed down from one generation to the next.

In the interest of full disclosure, it should be noted that this reporter has worked for Santorelli in various capacities in the past and perhaps more importantly, loses all journalistic objectivity in the presence of her turkey, broccoli rabe, goat cheese meatballs.