Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
There are those who deliver passion to every shared table when the best produce is seasoned
with discipline and devotion, and where their food becomes a celebration of life.
Stephanie Alexander "Enjoying lovely food has been a part of my
life for as long as I can remember. And it is pretty infectious enthusiasm; my mother
and my grandpa were both very enthusiastic about feeling proud of what had come out of
the garden, I grew up knowing that when you gathered around the table good things were
going to happen."
Maggie Beer "I'd never stopped being in awe of her vision and she is a planner, she can see things right
through."
Stephanie Alexander "I piece of chicken, a piece of carrot, a piece of zucchini..."
"I had to learn how to manage a restaurant because I didn't know and I had nobody working
with me at that stage who had any experience in a professional kitchen. So we learnt on
the job, but what we knew was that we were going to cook beautiful food. We weren't going
to compromise on quality of ingredients or the time it took to do things so I think I
just progressed as I had to." Neil Perry
"You really got a sense that yes it was called Stephanie's but it really was her restaurant,
and that might sound strange to say that, but there's are a lot of people that you know
the restaurant's called them but you don't get a sense of them in it. It was very much
a personal experience of what Stephanie wanted to happen."
Stephanie Alexander "Have you used the big knife before?"
Child "Yes."
Stephanie Alexander "Well OK show me how you chop."
Kylie Kwong "Is this not the greatest contribution you
could make to generations to come? And when you go out to Stephanie's stalls and you see
the delight on these tiny little children it completely warms your heart."
Stephanie Alexander "Communities realise that unless we do something,
we are going to raise generations of children who have not got the faintest idea of how
food is grown, therefore they don't care how it is grown and who are then relegated really
to buying convenience food."
Kylie Kwong "What I loved about Neil's mentorship was his ability to continually push me over the
cliff, you can do it, you can do it, no I can't, you can do it, no I can't, he would
push me over that cliff once a month into new territory and I'd fly."
Neil Perry "Well I think the most important lesson that
I have learnt is to learn from my mistakes, I learnt ten times more from a mistake than
from a triumph and I think successful people do that."
"The one flavour that I want is that really deep strong flavour of mushroom, you know
because these mushrooms are awesome." "If you don't take away great lessons and
you don't build on that learning then I think you are really setting yourself up to fail
in the future."
Stephanie Alexander "I think Neil is extraordinary. I don't know how anyone that keeps that many balls in the
air, as Neil does, but I know Neil is a bit of a workaholic."
Maggie Beer "He is driven by the very qualities that are
most important about food and flavour and service - about the sum of the parts."
Neil Perry "I am dreaming it, I'm working or I'm eating
and drinking or I'm travelling and bringing new ideas home, but all of that doesn't' t
work unless I've got great staff." Staff member
"I'm blanching chips and chopping garlic at the moment. I've got to do some roasted hazelnuts
and beer batter."
Neil Perry "In the last 30 years the wonderful multiculturalism
that's come to Australia of course is not just about nationality, it's about culture
and food is such an important part of culture. It's a great place to cook but it's also a
great place to eat and we sort of cook so beautifully because the Australian public
demand it."
Maggie Beer "Kylie Kwong! Kyles, I adore her. She's such a beautiful, beautiful cook but she has absolutely
amazing ideals that she follows through to the very last."
Kylie Kwong "I want meaning in my life; I don't like mediocrity
that's why when you come to my restaurant I want to give you the best chickens in Australia.
I want to serve you the most amazing bok choy. I want to give you the most incredible homemade
chilli sauce, what else would I do? There's no time to waste!"
"And this red cabbage dish, its braised red cabbage with green apples."
Neil Perry "She took her great love of what her mother
did and what it means to her, her heritage of Australian born Chinese, and I sort of
think about her as almost like a daughter to me because I've overseen so much of her
life and I've been incredibly proud of her." Kylie Kwong
"Mum from a very early aged she basically taught us two very important messages, food
makes people happy, food connects people. And I guess it's no surprise that as an adult
I have become a restaurateur because the energy of my business is very similar to the energy
of my childhood and it's a positive energy, it's about sharing and opening your heart
to others."
Neil Perry "My whole life has been filled with Margaret Fulton; really, I mean my first memories of
it are my Mum cooking out of her cook book."
Maggie Beer "She was so important at that time in Australians life to show Australians that there was another
path other than the meat and three veg."
Margaret Fulton ad "Its pure cooking ingredients are cholesterol free, no fatty oils to cowl the natural taste
of your cooking."
Margaret Fulton "It is more interesting doing something new
than something you've have done every day for twenty years and that's what cooking does,
you can see -- Oh I might try that, you know it's something you can do."
"Apricot chicken that busy housewives dream..." "And I used to go for conferences in London
practically every year, but I always made sure I stopped in Italy for a couple of weeks
and I began to meet people; and talk to people about how good I knew how delicious the food
was. Also I was able to come back from wherever I was with genuine recipes so that when I
had to write a little thing for the magazine '101 ways with mincemeat' I could do something
a bit different to shepherd's pie and rissoles." Kylie Kwong
"In terms of Buddhism, Maggie Beer is just like for me this living, walking budda, as
in this ray of sunshine; every cell in her body just smiles."
Maggie Beer "I live in this beautiful Barossa, I am surrounded
by amazing produce; we have a true Mediterranean climate. I have come from a family where food
was really important but I am so excited by the potential of food, the flavour of food,
but also as not just a cook but as a producer making the most of the food that I have to
hand." "I have taken Kylie Kwong , I've taken one
of the recipes she came back with on her first trip to China to explore her roots, I've just
altered it to my palette, sorry Kylie." "You never stop learning and you never stop
growing and you never stop finding new ways." Stephanie Alexander
"Maggie Beer is a very dear friend of mine and we cook together a lot and we are good
for each other."
Maggie Beer "If you are doing what you love then it just, you have so much energy and its, if I say
it's not work that's that to demean the fact that you work bloody hard, but it just becomes
a life force and I think how lucky it was that I found it."
"There is such a thing as instinct and many people have it, but it doesn't always get
opened and it did for me and so the journey, I have to pinch myself, I totally have to
pinch myself."
Stephanie Alexander "I think being on a stamp is an amazing idea, um, just I don't know how I feel seeing my
face on, I wonder if will get a letter here with my face on it."
Neil Perry "It's incredibly humbling actually and I think
from my perspective, I mean I can't even imagine I am worthy to be on a stamp, that's just
such an amazing honour."
Kylie Kwong "I'm absolutely chuffed; I am gobsmacked I don't think it's even sunk in. I mean I was
told several months ago and I still, I'm still digesting the enormity and the significance
of it I am so touched, I am just so touched."
Margaret Fulton "I was terribly pleased when I saw those beautiful little puppy dogs on the stamp, I thought
they were good, no I think your just another puppy dog really."
Maggie Beer "Being on a stamp where everyone is going
to see for whatever period of time it is, I am going to send so many overseas letters
you wouldn't believe and I don't care how many stamps are on the front. I am so proud!"
V/O Today we celebrate these legends of cooking,
Stephanie Alexander, Neil Perry, Kylie Kwong, Margaret Fulton and Maggie Beer with the Australia
Post Australian Legends Awards for 2014.