Stephanie Herrington, Austin Community College District Department Chair of Culinary Pastry, Baking Arts with Fonda San Miguel Owner Tom Gilliland
Thomas Gilliland, co-founder of Fonda San Miguel restaurant in Austin, enjoyed a long friendship with famed cookbook author Diana Kennedy, who passed away last July at age 99. He is honoring Kennedy and late Chef Miguel Ravago, who co-founded the restaurant, with a scholarship and internship program at Austin Community College.
“Miguel and I opened our first restaurant in 1972,” Gilliland recalls. “One Saturday afternoon two ladies walked up and knocked on the door…One was Diana Kennedy. She said ‘I know what you’re trying to do, and I would like to lend you a hand.’”
That led to a decades-long relationship that helped establish Fonda San Miguel’s reputation as a leading proponent of “interior” Mexican cuisine.
The program with Austin Community College provides two $5,000 scholarships that will repeat annually, and will allow culinary students to learn the fundamentals of regional Mexican cuisine in the restaurant’s kitchen under the tutelage of chefs Carlos Monroy and Blanca Zesati. The students will work up to 20 hours per week and be paid about $17 per hour, Gilliland says. In the future, Gilliland says he hopes to take students to Mexico for further instruction.
Students submitted applications for the program in April, and Gilliland predicts the first group will begin their internships this spring.