hello all,
hello Peter, an honour meeting you! shame i won't meet you personally in july! ... concerning your words about Garma and the food... i think i actually made this menu options in my mind while lining up for lunch at the "yellow pass" kitchen at Garma, wishing i could find that there, ha, ha... i dunno how the "red pass" menus were, but i can tell u our food will be much, much, much better than what i ate at Garma!!!!!!!
however, serving food to so many more people makes it really hard, but there's something we call "love" that, when put into whatever one does, makes a difference... i learnt that at the Jabiluka blockade's kitchen, where food variety was scarce and keeping conditions poor... but it turned to be the most interesting kitchen, cuisine and kitchen boss ever! first thing she'd tell us was "do u feel like doing this? can u put your time-love in it?"... second thing was "ok, wash your hands and start!"... top, top vegetarian food, with even a vegan option, for up to 500 people!!!! Food was considered most important in such a hard environment, hard living conditions... in a context of much anger, meals were like an oasis... proper food, but varied menus as well, are very important to keep people's mood up! armies know that... so creativity was a must... well, excuse me, i can't help being nostalgic, but definitely the Jabiluka experience was one of my first contacts ever with top end aboriginal people and with the conditions and circumstances of living with little means in such a beautiful land...
back to food, i appreciate very much the job DemMob, the "bush catering" group, does... definitely much better than SodexHo, which was in charge of the "yellow pass" kitchen at Garma and which i'd say is in charge of the kitchens at Alcan mine... i might be wrong, i just tend to think like that from my own experience... again, scale is a handicap, but DemMob food tastes much nicer and their people seem to be knowing very well what they're doing and why they're doing it... they're usually very nice too...
If we had to look for advice or consultancy from the really experienced in this field, and i can't see why not, I'd definitely ask DemMob... I know someone there, but hard for me to find him from here... perhaps i could make some chain phonecalls and get the right number...
and still talking about food and addressing my words to those of you who are still thinking whether attending or not, don't think much about what we could be cooking for you, but rather about what you could be eating from the hunts of yolngu or yourselve's!!!! that is really something that has impressed me, the taste of things i never tasted before, the process of cooking that, the excitement of yolngu when there's been a good or yummy hunt, the sharing... oysters, turtle eggs, stingray, mudcrabs, crayfish, dugong... i'm not saying there's going to be all of that, that's hunting, one can't predict, but there are many chances for you to experience that...
and assuming that the people attending the masterclass aren't going to be there for just 10 days, you should all know that during the months of august and september there are loads of things going on in the top end... so the masterclass won't be the only thing you might be able of experiencing: the weekend after the masterclass, in Beswick, you have the Walking with Spirits Festival, a very charming and familiar festival, addressed to the locals from Beswick and to a limited audience of 300 hundred people at the most beautiful site around there, also sacred, Malkgulumbu, known as Beswick Falls, with performances of Wagilak/Ritharrngu, Myalli, Rembarrnga, Dalabon and even Murrungun/Nunggubuyu from Numbulwar, among others. Very unique, very inexpensive (around 50$, but not sure now), being able to spend the night camping in front of the waterfall and the stunning scarpment... Directed by the famous aboriginal actor and singer Tom E. Lewis/Djilpin Arts and with the collaboration of the Australian Shakespeare Company.
after that weekend, there's Garma Festival, at Gulkula/Gove, which most of you already know about.
and right after Garma, being as well the opening event of Darwin's Festival, there's the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award (NATSIAA), commonly known as the Telstra Awards, the most important aboriginal art awards nationwide (actually worldwide considering australian aboriginal art), the main event for the contemporary aboriginal art scene in Australia. The exhibition goes on for more than a month, i believe, but the night of the awards there are many performances besides the awards ceremony.
hat same night and all the following nights for the next 2 weeks or so, there are loads of different concerts and performances in Darwin, it being the Darwin Festival...
so yeah, you won't get bored if you finally decide to come!
cheers to all!
m
Home
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
