2004 ISS Institute Overseas Fellow, Supported by the Commonwealth Government, Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST)
Athol Wark, Chef/Consultant, was invited to share his Fellowship experiences at the 15th Annual ISS Institute Fellowship Awards, December 2005 at Melbourne Town Hall.
Journeys and Persistence
I welcome you all to this the 15th ISS Institute Fellowship awards ceremony. I wish to pay tribute to all new inducted Fellows, class of 2005, on a fantastic job and standard set. You have all been chosen for your passion and dedication to you chosen skills and fields of expertise to raise the bar of excellence even higher.
The journey has just begun for you all to achieve self-excellence and knowledge, and to put into place what you have committed yourselves to in your chosen fields.
In gaining these Fellowships the journey will be rewarding and very fulfilling, mixed with a lot of emotion and passion as you continue to grapple with questions and answers that challenge your minds.
There will be moments of frustration as you stumble with ideas and directions, but may I assure you the rewards and the support of the ISS Institute management and Board are enormous in both technical expertise and solutions to your questions. There are no problems only solutions. The rewards are great …
You will find you will gain in stature, strength and knowledge that you never knew you had, together with experiences and people you meet abroad, these will be life changing times and will change how you look on things again in the future.
The best advice is to enjoy yourself and have fun, you have done the hard work, the rest will follow, as the Fellowship is designed to fall into place with what you have done so far and questions you have put in place.
This class of 2005 ISS Institute Fellowship winners is your new network circle to draw strength from each other and to help each other in your journeys and will be a great part of your support mechanism. You will also have access to past Fellows to draw on their experiences and how they managed their outcomes, so you will not be alone on this fantastic journey of education, and will be called on to mentor the 2006 Fellows and beyond.
I wish to share briefly my experience with you all as a ISS Institute Fellowship winner, as to what can be achieved through your chosen ISS Institute Fellowship.
I won the ‘ISS Institute/DEST Overseas Fellowship’ for the Northern Territory in 2004 to undertake an overseas study program to gain a comprehensive understanding in value adding to regional produce. In adapting regional products into a culinary uniqueness and a fusion of flavour using ancient produce with today’s cookery methods and how to make native ingredients, viable and sustainable in today’s marketplace as specified in my Fellowship agreement.
My journey started in Alice Springs where I am based as an Executive Chef, Culinary Ambassador, for the past 4 years.
The food I am creating has been a synthesis of my surroundings and my mentors teaching in this wonderful Industry of mine. Motivating me to experiment, with the myriad of gastronomic flavours, the use of freshest and best quality ingredients all play a pivotal role in my creations of ‘Wild Foods of Australia’, living in Central Australia has hardened my resolve to succeed in my chosen field.
To find my outcomes to my Fellowship, the journey took me to Miami, Johnson and Wales Culinary Academy in Florida, North Campus for 5 weeks where I introduced my recipes and experimented with grass roots culinary students. I was able to showcase my skills to these young, hungry for knowledge and uniqueness in food, group of students who wanted to leave no stone unturned. My findings where superseded as the result showed an unequivocal need for those skills and flavours to go global.
Washington DC beckoned next, with a visit to the Embassy of Australia, to do a showcase culinary demonstration to the US Botanical Society. It was their 100th year and I gave a lecture to a packed audience that was to take 1.5 hours but ran to 3 hours, with so much interest and enthusiasm shown and so many questions asked then answered.
A dinner at the Australian Embassy Homestead, of Deputy Chief of Staff, Peter Baxter, to host both sides of the US Congress members was held to again showcase the unique flavours of Australia and to help promote the Australian USA free trade agreement. An outstanding ovation was noted.
A Johnson and Wales F and B Summit was held in Providence, Rhode Island, where again these unique flavours were showcased.
The culmination of my USA taste down under was held at the Hotel Conrad Miami Hotel, whereby 250 invited guests dined on Blackened Wakha Pukha Dukha crusted
Royal Tasmanian salmon with lemon myrtle hollandaise, pink grapefruit, Australian wild lime, coriander and gin sorbet. Culminating with wattleseed espresso ice-cream with sticky wattle seed balsamic syrup served with a shot of sambuca jelly, to mention a few items of the menu.
A TV show of South Florida today with Colin Hay (Men At Work) was another highlight and a proud moment to be an Australian and on an ISS Institute Fellowship winner, being beamed live into people’s lounge rooms.
On return to Central Australia, the NT awarded me a joint culinary Ambassador together with a great mentor, Chef and friend Jimmy Shu.
World Expo Japan 2005 was to be my next stop to showcase my ‘Wildfoods’ selection reoperate on a world Asian stage, this was awesome and again so much learnt and motivation gained.
Hawaii the 25th Louis Vuitton Food, Wine and Film Festival was to be my most recent stage in October to showcase and capture the imagination of a tough culinary audience – 8 events in 10 days, a gruelling schedule but very rewarding.
The future looks bright and lots of work still to do.
These are just some of my experiences I have the pleasure to have shared with you and what commitment and passion can do for you.
ISS Institute is in this to build an economically strong Australia through delegates of its citizens – you and I are on this journey together.
May I leave you with two sayings that have summed it up for me in 2005:
- “Leadership requires courage, do not follow where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail”.
- “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence, talent will not, nothing is more common then unsuccessful men/women with talent. Genius will not. Un-rewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not. The world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent all powerful”.
Good luck and a job well done to all of you. From behind the stove and years of cooking.