Graduation Dinner

Congratulations to everybody who contributed to the Koori Kitchen Graduation Dinner. Though I couldn't be there to see the inaugural class of 2006 graduate, from what I have heard the evening was a fantastic success. The students in particular did themselves and the Koori Kitchen organisers proud, and demonstrated what the program is all about by having fun whilst creating beautiful food and developing very valuable life and work skills. The students will shortly be receiving their graduation certificates along with a personal refernce from me, as the director of the program. They will also be invited to return to the program as team leaders, when we begin again this semester!

Week 8

Another amazing session. This week's menu consisted of delicious pasta with salami,onion, tomatoes and chees; garden salad and bruschetta...yum: )

Week 7

This week kids were making absolutely delicious wontons with chicken, nutricious Kangaroo burgers, pancakes with wild peaches and sour cream, and a fruit salad.
Excitement: 10/10
Food: 10/10
Fun: 10/10

Great session: )

My First Koori Kitchen session

Although, I've always been very comfortable when it came to dealing with kids, I realized that I was a bit too concerned about the possible differences in reactions/ perceptions between kids I've dealt with before and the aboriginal kids I was about to meet. When I realized that I actually knew next to nothing about their culture, traditions, way of life, it made me even more aware of my actions towards them. However, when I actually met them, I realized that they were not that much different from the rest of the kids. Throughout an entire session everybody was having fun preparing all kinds of food: from chicken and veal to a fruit salad.

I felt like it was a truly unique experience for kids- one of those moments when they were really enjoying what they were doing. At some point I realized that it is not just a project about the benefits of healthy nutrition. It is a set of amazing team building and leadership activities that will definitely help these kids to become more confident about themselves. Just wanted to thank everyone who was involved in organizing the project- you have done an absolutely amazing job.

What has Koori Kitchen given me?

Before I leave on my trip, Tina asked me to write up a few points on what I've gained out of being involved in the Koori Kitchen program.

Firstly, the program has exposed me to the indigenous Australian culture. Prior to my involvement, I knew very little about the culture (let alone having met an Aboriginal person). It's taught me that people can be indigenous, no matter what their background, location or skin colour is.

Being involved has also shown me how generous people can be. All of those involved in the program volunteered their weekends (and more!) to provide the kids with a fun and constructive learning environment. It's absolutely wonderful to see it all coming together and to see the kids gain something out of the program, and I think everyone who has been involved (from Tina to the PBoX team to the supervisors to the chefs and sportspeople) has contributed to this. I think they can be proud of what they've done.

I have immensely enjoyed my time in the programme, and I hope the remaining sessions and the gala dinner are a great success! Thanks for letting me be a part of it.

Jeremy

Recommendations for the program

So... Tina has asked me to give feedback on the program so we can improve it in the next round. Here goes!

* Flow of kitchen sessions

It would be good to organise the kitchen sessions a bit better. That's not to say that they should be totally rigid, but I found that in some cases there were people that were left without something to do. As a result, some of the kids got bored, which isn't good for retention. It's something that's hard to do, but we need to do it better in the upcoming sessions (and in the next round of Koori Kitchen)

* Bottlenecks

I found that there is a big bottleneck with Nic. We usually had two groups going, with Nic organising one group and someone else with another group. This causes some problems, in that whoever's in charge of the second group of kids (and supervisors) needs to talk to Nic to find out what to do next. If there was a documented set of steps ( 1) cut up tomatoes, 2) wash lettuce, 3) cut meat), then we wouldn't have to annoy Nic to get info (when he's running around madly trying to make sure everything's working anyway!).

So... telling the supervisors what is required and the steps they need to take would be beneficial, I think. It also makes it look like we know what we're doing (even if we don't!). Another option would be to have the chef taking one group, and Nic the other. That might work, too.

* Celebrities

I thought having the celebrities there was good for the kids. They seemed to talk to them a little bit. I'm not sure how much of an incentive it was to come, though. Considering that we didn't advertise to the kids that they'd be there, it was also difficult. We really need some way of letting the kids know well in advance (earlier in the week) about who's going to be there, what we're cooking, etc. This might be someone going to the school during the week and talking for 5 minutes to the class, or an email, something...

* Involvement

I thought the results in recent weeks have been great. It's wonderful to see the kids grasping the concepts in the kitchen and wanting to get involved. I guess the hard part is getting them to trust you and making it fun so they come. The Zoo was a good introduction, but it would've been great to spend some more time there and perhaps get a better sense of how food is integral to the zoo.

* Opportunities

Given how young the program is, this has been hard, but it would be great to stress the opportunities that the kids can have by taking part in this program. Establishing some links with TAFE or Aunty Beryl's program would be an excellent way of doing this, so that kids can move into those programs if they want a future in cooking (or restaurant management, etc).

I think that's about it! Hopefully this will help make the program better in the remaining sessions and next year! Thanks for letting me be a part of it. :)

Jem

Roast Chicken is sssssoooooo easy!

I can't believe how easy it is to cook roast chicken... this week went unbelieveable smoothly despite the fact that Nic was sitting an exam for the first half of the class and had me in charge of the Kitchen, setting up, shopping and starting the class. Thanks to Lorr, the chef who turned up early, we were well organised for when the students arrived. Though they didn't think much of my attempt at iced tea (not sure what went wrong..) the students were ready to go from the moment they walked in the door. First up we got one student up the front to help Lorr demonstrate how to prepare the chicken for roasting, she gloved up and quickly got into rubbing the il and herbs onto the chicken, so that we could get it into the oven in time t eat by the end of class...aparently a whole chicken takes an hour and a half to cook, and the chef was very surprised that we got it done on time. The chicken was then sealed in a pan (by a student) before roasting. For the rest of the class the girls "fought" over who "made" the chicken and which was more important. sealing or oiling! Either way it was perfectly moist and very tasty.

Next up we got everyone up to crumb up their own piece of veal snitzel, could have been incredably messy but due to an awesome tip from Lorr about "one hand for dry stuff and one for wet" we didnt end up with too many crumed fingers. In the mean time we had the students chopping up tonnes of cool incredients for a very funky greek salad, with crumbed fetta, yellow tomatoes, yellow capsicum, red onion, red tomatoes, cucumber and marinated olives which we pitted ourselves. We also had some salmon to add at the table, to cater for our peeps that don't eat fish.

We also had a col fruit salad with mango, honey dew melon, ruby red greatfruit and apple. Yummy.

All in all the meal was fantastic, I was really impressed by the snitzel, which i was actually expecting to be a little dodgy (though by the price of the meat you'd hope not). It was golden and crispy. Totally awesome, especially withthe salad and roast chicken to boot.

The best thing is that student numbers are growing and the kids skills are improving unbelievably. I feel like not only are they really enjoying eating the food, but really getting into the preparation part of the meal too. No problems finding someone to demonstrate in front of the class, everyone wants to have a go at everything! Now the only problem is finding enough stuff for them to fill the whole two hours, though it was great to have a little extra time to chat about the menu for the gala dinner and all the other things that are coming up.

I'm so proud of all the students, and so sad that I wont be able to see them graduate, having put a year into developing this program I'm also so relieved to have it up and runing and to have students actually enjoying it.

The coolest thing is that i cooked roast chicken for dinner tonight and didnt set the kitchen on fire! Amazing huh...

Whats in the works?

Hey hey everybody.. just lettin y'all know about some of the exciting things in the works... at the moment I'm finalising the dates for sports personalities visits... the visits will include wicked people like Beua De la Cruz, Shane Fredericksen, Adam Goodes and this Saturday we have Josh Ross comin to the Koori K session! Sooner or later we'll be having another celebrity guest... Leon Burchill from Taronga Zoo and the Botanical Gardens. The session he visits should be wicked fun as he's the bush foods expert from the gardens, and an indigenous man from north queensland, hes an awesome role model and extremely friendly and knowledgeable. We are currently working out how to integrate his usual talks and activities into one of the Saturday cooking classes. Any ideas about what people would like to hear about or check out would be greatly apprecviated, this will be an unbelievable experience for any one who attends.. I only hope I'm not in Ecuador by that time! Though that'll be fun too...

Someof the interns mentioned on Saturday mentioneda little culture shock form the experience... totally natural response! Most Australians would feel culture shock in the Koori Kitchen as in some ways the students are a little diferent to what we would have been like at the stage, though in many ways many of them are also similar... but in addition to some of the slight cultural differences, the kitchen space for many of us is a totally new ellement .... I know i feel a slight twinge of culture shock when people say strange things like "behind" everytime they walk behind you! For me this somewhat starnge and sureal aspect of the program is what makes it so fun... taes you out of study mode and into some kind of "reality" that is totally different to your own.... pretty cool if I do say so my self. I think uts also really special experiencing it with the other facilitiators, the debrief at the end of session is always really facinating... Last weeks was particularly facinating with with the interns comparing the cultural and socioeconomic issues of the local community with communities i their home countries. This feeling of an unbelievably small world was heightened when two south African dudes rocked up looking for a plate (after the session) and we started sharing the leftovers with them, and Mark started talking to them in Zulu (or something.. actually i suspect it wasnt Zulu.. but it may as well have been coz i had no idea what they were talking about). But South Africa stories are perhaps for a nother blog another time... though i'd be fscinated to hear more about Mars experiences over there.

Bacvk to the purpose of my post, so I'm also workin on getting Paul Sinclaire from the Zoo to come for a session... problem is he seems to be involved in absolutely everything, and though he really wants to be involved theres only so many hours in the day... for instance he would have liked to attend last saturday... but was dpoing an indigenous dance performance.... so fingers crossed sooner or later we'll catch him at a free moment.

Keep your eyes peeled for articles about Koori K.. as there will be some coming out in various magazines and newspapers....

Cheers guys... have fun...

Brazilian in the Koori Kitchen

Yesterday, I took part in the Koori Kitchen project. My learnings started much before getting there.

In the preparation process I learnt:
- Aboriginal communities still have a strong sense of group; so we should never highlight too much individual accomplishments;
- They are generally very quiet, and just let you interact with them once they trust you;
- They face very important social problems: poverty, drugs addiction, bad nutrition, discrimination, among others. As a result, their life expectation is significantly lower than other Australians;
- In my perception, Australians don' recognise them as legitimate Australians, seeing aboriginal communities as another minority group present in the country.

This Saturday, as part of my role, I was around while the kids were cooking, giving some instructions but mainly taking pictures. It was quite a nice experience to interact with them and realise that people are at the same time very equal and very unique. Very equal in a sense that they just need a inspiration, trust and a little bit of skills to do extraordinary things; and unique in the sense that their actions, dreams and contribution will always be different, once genetics, temperament and previous experiences shape each one of us differently.



Comparing to Brazil, the Australian aboriginal communities can be translated into:
- Our indigenous communities, also extensively disrespected by the colonisers, with less legal rights until recently and facing important social problems nowadays;
- Our poor communities, quite marginalised, with fewer opportunities and not as many role-models. The difference, in this case, is that in Brazil we cannot use an ethnicity as synonymous of poverty, even if black people are statistically poorer and face heaps more discrimination.

Thanks for the opportunity, guys! See you in another Koori Kitchen Saturday!

Gabi, Brazilian, doing an AIESEC internship in Australia.

Success!

Koori Kitchen session was awesome yesterday... for the first time since we started I felt that the possibility of the programs success really showed through. Despite the maxi taxi not turning up to pick up the supervisors and students from the school, thanx to Jem's quick thinking and decisive action, we managed to get the students to the hotel almost on time. By the time the students arrived the kitchen was set up, the chef was there, supervisors had been briefed and Joe Williams for the South Sydney Rabittohs, was ready and rearin to go. Despite his recent shoulder reconstruction Joe integrated himself into the class whole heartedly, demonstrating to the students how to prepare many of the ingredients, while the chef was in the kitchen helping out the students with the hot food prep. Students were guided in their making of pancakes with lots and lots and lots of strawberiies... all very nicely chopped ( excluding the ones which were "ugly") by the the budding chefs. Also we added ice cream, woried by the lmited quantity of ice cream, and the keeness of the students to eat lots andlots of ice cream... we sent poor Mark and Shams off to fetch some more.... all the way down at Broadway. By the time they got back, of course, the pancakes had been well and truly eaten and we were on to the next recipe. An awesomely colourful salad, with oranges, snow peas, avocado and some other apparently starnge items... surprisingly tasty though.... Only problem with making the salad was the general student belief that avocados are "chatty" and also possiby scary.... nonethe less we didmanage to cajole one student to take on the task of mastering the technique of preparing avocado! Next on the menu were baked potatoes... funnily enough cooked in the microwave (due to time constraints)... to the potatos the students added all sports of ingredients including cheese, sour cream, tomatoe, baked beans and salad.... while the health theme seemed to have gone assundry somewhat... the students were there, and they seemed to enjoy themselves very much. We got a rave review from both Fiona, the chef (who offered to fill in for any of the other chefs if they were unable to make it), and from Joe, who offered to be interviewd in one of the Koori Fm visits. All in all I was overjoyed by the partial fruiton of my dream for the project and I only hope that the students will be back next week and the week after.. to learn the skills to be able to pull off the gala dinner! All the supervisors deserve a cheer as well... you rock guys... hopefully we'll see you another time in the Koori Kitchen.