Jorge Flores is one of Healdsburg’s most celebrated chefs — a local success story for the ages. He immigrated from Mexico to the U.S. at 14 years old; quickly learned English; graduated from Healdsburg High School while working nights and weekends to support his family; and ended up running the kitchen at Campo Fina under Ari Rosen, another legendary local restaurant guy. Jorge, 38, is now head chef at the historic Costeaux French Bakery one block north. And in his spare time, he’s teaching what he knows to kids at juvenile hall in Santa Rosa, according to a new piece in Sonoma Magazine — because, as the magazine writes, “Cooking isn’t always about food. Sometimes it’s about hope.”
I guess Jorge spent some time at juvie himself as a kid, and “knows firsthand that restaurant kitchens can be a pathway from trouble to triumph.” More from Sonoma Mag:
Later this month, Flores will reprise his role as a cooking mentor to a small cohort of 14- to 25-year-olds at Sonoma County Juvenile Hall in Santa Rosa.
Flores previously ran a pilot of the cooking program from August to October together with Corrin Messing, a group facilitator and prevention specialist at Verity. (The Santa Rosa-based nonprofit offers a variety of aid services, including life skills programs for juvenile hall.)
The 10-week cooking class teaches basic culinary skills, from chopping vegetables to making pizza. For two hours a week, attendees become culinary students. They share a meal after class and are encouraged to talk about their challenges.
Jorge, who also used to work at the Bear Republic brewpub here in town and helped launch the Corazón Healdsburg nonprofit with his Campo mentor Ari, tells the magazine: “Cooking a meal, breaking bread with them gives them an opportunity to share. That’s important for healing.” He adds that he wants to “share knowledge they can use when they come out” and “give them the right tools to keep themselves fed and fueled.”
Costeaux owners hired Jorge as their executive chef two years ago, at the start of the bakery’s 100th anniversary year. At the time, the Press Democrat reported on Jorge’s triumphant come-up in Healdsburg:
He was considered an at-risk student and occasionally ran with the wrong crowd, he said. Even so, there were plenty of people who saw potential in him, including teachers and the school resource officer.
“A good friend of mine now is the chief of police [Matt Jenkins], but back then he was the campus cop. I used to get arrested by him all the time,” Flores said.
He got his act together his senior year and graduated in 2005, the only one of his friends to do so.
“I included myself in this community and I made a big change in my life,” Flores said.
