Paying It Forward
High School Internships at Anderson Valley Restaurants
by Eden Kellner
In the heart of downtown Boonville is the Boonville Hotel & Restaurant. In business for thirty-five years, it is the legacy of the late Don and Sally Schmitt, founders of the French Laundry. The Schmitt family also owns The Apple Farm in Philo and are involved with Paysanne, Offspring restaurant, and the Farmhouse Mercantile. They are long-time local employers who have had generations of families work in their establishments.
How do businesses last through generations? They are rooted in the community. One of the tendrils of community is mentorship. Chef Perry Hoffman is a third-generation chef who has fond memories of being mentored in the kitchen by his grandmother, Sally Schmitt, whose recipes he still looks to for inspiration. Perry carries forward the practice of mentorship for the students at Anderson Valley High School by participating in an internship program through the Anderson Valley Education Foundation. Other young people find jobs there through the vast network of people who have been part of the Hotel family of employees.
Social anthropologists Jean Lave and Etienne Wegner, founders of the Social Learning Lab, see internships as “legitimate peripheral participation … [which] provides a way to speak about the relations between newcomers and old timers, and about activities, identities, artifacts and communities of knowledge and practice. It concerns the process by which newcomers become part of a community of practice.” They stress the importance of immersion into a community where they learn, emulate, and mature within and into that group. Here, the community is the kitchen and the greater community of Anderson Valley. Anyone who has ever worked in a professional kitchen knows that it has its own culture with norms and practices that guide the relationships and the creation of the food. The chefs at Offspring and The Boonville Hotel cultivate a culture of exquisite delights while preparing the next generation to carry on the culinary traditions. This and other internships allow high school students to gain foundational knowledge that can open doors for future career opportunities.
Sammy Guerrero and Mariana Flores Almanza are two examples of students who flourished into integral employees of the kitchen culture at the Boonville Hotel and Offspring. After years of mentorship through high school, they are now employed as saucier and garde-manger, respectively. This means that Sammy is responsible for preparing the delectable tomato butter on the Gnocchi Alla Romana and the basil crema in the Confit Chicken Cannelloni, while Mariana proudly adds “dramatic touches” to the beet and pluot salad currently served at Offspring. These two budding chefs based their senior final projects on the lessons in the culinary arts that they learned at the Boonville Hotel.
Both Sammy and Mariana cite their moms as the first inspiration for their love of culinary arts. But both recently graduated seniors credit their internships as instrumental in shaping their future, developing their self-confidence and expanding their ideas of what is possible to achieve. Mariana says, “I used to be too shy to call back [a term used to repeat orders during service] or say much in general, but now I am able to call back with a full chest.” Sammy “could go on forever about how grateful” he is for everyone who shared their expertise in the kitchens.
Like Perry, these kids are a testament to mentoring relationships and the power of “absorbing a community’s modes of action and meaning as a part of the process of becoming a community member.” Mariana and Sammy both advise others to pursue internships and, as Sammy says, “listen and work hard.” Boonville is a small town, but the people who live here make a big impact on future generations.
Find out about internships and other student opportunities at andersonvalleyeducation.org.
References:
Klantzis, M., & Cope, B. (n.d.). Lave and Wenger on Situated Learning. New Learning Online. https://newlearningonline.com/new-learning/chapter-6/supporting-material/lave-and-wenger-on-situated-learning
Lave, Jean, and Etienne Wenger. 1991. Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 33, 29, 40.
Photos by Eden Kellner
Eden Kellner has worked in restaurants since she was 13 years old. She has worked at the Boonville Hotel and is currently embarking in a career as a first grade teacher at AV Elementary.