Look who's cooking at Analy
The former owner of Fork Roadhouse is now teaching culinary arts at Analy High School. What's it like to go from a restaurant kitchen to a high school kitchen classroom?
From opening her own food catering truck in 2010 to running the popular West County restaurant Fork Roadhouse, Sarah Piccolo isn’t new to the culinary scene.
But teaching over 150 students and winning teacher of the year? For Piccolo—that is new.
“It’s cool because I teach soft skills. They’re not at desks with me; they’re running around a kitchen,” said Piccolo, culinary arts teacher at Analy High School.
Piccolo, who’s only been teaching for two years, was one of four winners of the 2025 “Teacher of the Year” awards from the Sebastopol Rotary Education Foundation.
“I tell them right away, ‘If you’re here just to eat, you should take another class; you’re going to learn how to clean,’” she said.
Piccolo noted that, at first, classroom management was hard and different from the kind of kitchen management required in a restaurant.
“My first week, I think I went and cried,” said Piccolo.
But eventually, they got the groove—both Piccolo and the students.
The class allows students to get paid internships and catering jobs while in high school, an experience that many might not otherwise get.
“These kids want jobs…The restaurant business is kind of a group of renegades sometimes, right? And so I have some of those kids in my classes who might not be doing well in math or English or a regular class, but they love my class. They show up there. They’re great students,” said Piccolo. “They might not have as good grades as others, but, in mine, I’m like, ‘Wow, you guys are great!’ They want to go to culinary school, they have questions, and they’re motivated.”
Piccolo also began to receive compliments from local business owners who hired some of her former students. One business thanked Piccolo for teaching her students not to keep the water running while doing dishes.
“So that made me feel good. They’re getting jobs, and I have some industry people thanking me for some things they’ve learned in my class. That’s the goal, right?” she said.
Piccolo also noted that traditional education is changing.
“We're trying really hard at Analy to start bringing career and technical education into school,” said Piccolo. “Rather than going and getting college debt, try to get some career and technical education skills, whether it be culinary or construction management or nursing.”
One of the challenges of teaching high schoolers is that some don’t have very adventurous palates.
“Our country doesn’t really appreciate food like they do in Europe. So I try to get them to try new things…like ‘You don’t like fish? Try this, try the Calamari.’ [and then they’re like] ‘Actually, this tastes pretty good,’” said Piccolo. “Yeah, it’s like fried chicken.”
“My thing for them is, ‘I want you guys to try stuff. I want you to be curious and take a ‘No, thank you’ bite.”
Piccolo doesn’t use TikTok or much social media, but a lot of her students do.
“A lot of them, I'm finding, get their recipes on TikTok, and that's kind of a misconception, too. Like, these recipes aren’t necessarily tried and true. I have a bunch of cookbooks; I try to encourage them to look at books,” she said.
The students aren’t the only ones learning something in the classroom.
For the students’ final, Piccolo is having them create short videos on social media.
“I'm challenging myself because I don’t do social media much. For their final, I’m actually going to have them come up with a video…where they do a cooking lesson of something meaningful—a family recipe or something cool—and then they’re gonna play it, for the class. I know nothing about doing videos for food videos. I feel like they’re my mentors too.”
“We do so much. A cool one we just did—because we’re trying to do a lot of things that go with other classes—they dissected squid and learned all about squid and biology, and then we took ink in my class and made homemade pasta with the squid ink,” said Piccolo. “So we learned about squid. They dissected it there, and then we also made fried calamari.”
One of the challenges of running the class? Cost.
“The hardest part was because it’s food, and food is so expensive. Butter is one—last year I did cake decorating, and it took so much butter that I’m not going to do it this year...it’s just too expensive.”
However, the program has support. Every Thursday, the Costco in Rohnert Park donates ingredients to the class: shrimp, eggs and tri-tip are some examples.
“So every Thursday, I drive to Costco, and I pick up ingredients, and it has been instrumental in our program, being able to be as cool as it is,” Piccolo said.
One thing that bothers her is the attitude that some adults have toward the younger generation.
“I think the kids are awesome,” she said. “What I don’t like hearing is that ‘They’re lazy,’ or, you know, that ‘Kids these days…’ Any of that really gets under my skin.”
“I think that’s a big misconception because I would say that that's not true about most of the kids…The kids these days are pretty rad. They're curious and they’re brave…they’re able to say what they want, compared to when I was younger…They’re very motivated and smart, and, to me, that just really gives me hope for the future.”
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For a fan of Sarah's, and a former teacher, it is no surprise that her skills and down to earth curiosity make her a successful educator. Programs like these make students want to show up. Go Sarah! (.... but I still miss Fork.)
Great story! I've passed it to my son and his wife, who are graduates of the Culinary Institute of New York. Currently, they are running a food truck with their 5 daughters, in North Carolina.