Australian Training Awards

Just got in from attending the Australian Training Awards at HGC. These are the Logies of the training world of Australia.

Tassie, being the host state this year, got a few gongs - we had a winner with the School Based Apprentice of the Year as well as the Auatralian Apprentice (Trainee) of the Year.

But the most interesting highlight for me was chatting with Australia's top Cookery Apprentice for this year - the Australian Worldskills champion - a beautiful girl called Suwanna, or Sue for short.

Along with 25 other of our toppest apprentices in all trade areas, they are heading off to Japan for 2 weeks tomorrow to compete as a team in their separate trade areas against the rest of the world.

Young Sue is an inspiration. Her mum and dad are both chefs. She has grown up with Asian food and flavours being the main focus in her house, and says she uses those experiences and memories to combine with her current ideas on food and cooking to produce her own individual interpretation of food.

She has served her full apprenticeship at the Four Seasons Hotel in George St, Sydney, and intends travelling overseas with her boyfriend (also a chef at Four Seasons) to gain more experience before they head back here to start up their own restaurant.

Full marks to this determined and committed young lady. Listening to young people like Sue reinforces many things for me - that all hope for the future generations is definitely not lost; that sheerly for having the conversation I had tonight with Sue was reason enough to be eternally grateful that I survived my cancer 13 years ago; that the world of food will still continue to evolve with people like Sue in the industry coming up to replace all the current wave of chefs who are getting jaded (and selling me that food I moaned about in the previous post!).

A long, tedious night made so much more enjoyable by Sue. Good luck to the whole team, and Sue in particular.