RANCHO CIELO

Chef Estevan Jimenez reaches up into a mature fruit tree in Rancho Cielo’s organic garden and pulls down a Santa Rosa plum, dark red, round and ripe. He bites into it and it takes him back to his childhood.

“It’s one of the first tastes I remember,” says Jimenez, who grew up in the Central Valley to immigrant parents. His mother worked in a packing shed and brought fruit home for the family. For Jimenez, the memories are as sweet and poignant as that plum.

Now, Jimenez—whom everyone calls EJ—works with at-risk young people at Rancho Cielo’s Drummond Culinary Academy, teaching them about preparing and serving food, and helping train them for jobs in the hospitality industry.

Read the full story in Edible.