Karen Sheldon

Karen Sheldon is the queen of the Northern Territory’s hospitality and training scene

She started working at the remote Barrow Creek Hotel 46 years ago and with her fellow women directors (the other two are former staffers) now operates a home-grown Territory success story in business and innovation. Karen Sheldon Catering operates diverse enterprises across the NT and employs around one hundred Territorians, more than half of whom are Indigenous Australians. Karen Sheldon Catering is the current Gold Plate holders for Catering, now in their third consecutive year of winning this Award.

Karen Sheldon Training and Employment Services divisions provide job ready training, employment skills development, job matching and on the job mentoring, placing jobseekers into many industries, including construction, agriculture, automotive, health, human services, hospitality and administration etc.

The vision of the business is working towards “closing the gap” on Indigenous employment disadvantage in this generation. The company understands that just like learning to ride a bike, basic employability skills such as reliability and self-esteem require practice time, and the ability to fall off, then get right back up to try again as often as is needed until regular commitment to employment becomes part of the jobseeker’s lifestyle. This is the true benefit of so many of the incubator-type paid employment opportunities that are now provided through the Karen Sheldon Group of businesses, despite the cost to business inevitably entailed.

As an NT Vocational Training and Employment Centre with the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, and a Registered Training Organisation KSC also partners with other training and industry organisations, to deliver wide ranging opportunities.

An example is the partnership with HIA (The Housing Industry Association of NT), that delivers Construction Basics Skillset courses, and equips Indigenous trainees to enter construction roles throughout the Territory. Many successful careers are being launched in this way – small steps at a time.

From their base at TIO Stadium, Marrara, and as hospitality providers and café operators at Parliament House, Karen operates the diverse divisions of the Karen Sheldon Group with fellow directors Sarah Hickey and Amanda Swift, and many long-term dedicated managers and fellow team members.

Karen is passionate about Australian Native Produce and discussed the iconic Kakadu Plum, or Billy Goat Plum (terminalia ferdinandiana), highlighting some of its Territory history, qualities and uses at 2016 Territory Taste Festival on April 16&17.

This year at the Taste Festival

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It’s coffee time

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Roast pork with rosemary spiced potatoes

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Athol Wark lucky to be working as a chef

 

“Cooking in the Red Centre is about the confluence of Western cuisine and 65,000 years of culture – the merging of the two flavours and with that I’ve taken it to the rest of the world,” he says.

Athol, the head chef at Lasseters Hotel Casino in Alice Springs, will give a demonstration of his cooking skills at the Territory Taste Festival at the Darwin Convention Centre on April 16-17.

He was born in the mid-1960s in colonial Rhodesia.

Athol grew up on a tobacco and cotton farm in Salisbury until 1980 when political turbulence forced the family to migrate to his mother’s homeland, South Africa.

“My parents said to me, ‘why don’t you become a chef – you’ll alwaystravel, never go hungry and you’re good with people. Give it a go’.”

So he moved to England to train – and graduated as best student two years running at college.

His mum was right – he did travel. After graduating, Athol got a job on the QE2 and cruised to South Africa, Singapore, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka and Alaska.

Athol has travelled the world sampling local flavours and working with regional cuisines – from Chamonix in the French Alps to Moulin De L’Abbaye, a medieval monastery in Brantôme, island resorts in Fiji to the bright lights of Miami and New York.

Not surprisingly, his cooking is an interesting blend.

“It’s all about fusing a little Asian, a little Italian, European, South American and without recreating the food wheel – it’s value adding with native spices and proteins to create something new.”

Australia was a destination on Athol’s bucket list and he was delighted when the opportunity to open the Beaufort Hotel on the Darwin Esplanade arose in 1987.

Living and working in the Territory gave Athol the inspiration and desire to make Australia his home. Working with regional produce and local spices led Athol to his work with “wild foods”.

“Wild foods are the native spices and proteins of Australia. To me bushtucker is limiting because wild foods also encompasses everything from the rivers, estuaries from barramundi to the wattle seed in Central Australia.

“Wild foods also creates a marketability – it sparks that imagination and uniqueness that we can offer.”

In 2001, Athol moved to Alice Springs to work as Executive Chef for the opening of the Convention Centre.

“I love cooking in the Red Centre because our local flavours are so unique and I love the colours of the bush tomatoes, the ochres, the warrigal greens, the sea parsley and samphires.”

In 2005, Athol won a fellowship from the International Specialised Skills Institute, which gave him the opportunity to take wild foods overseas.

“I tested the wild foods in the U.S. and the response was overwhelming,” he says.

He even ended up catering for then president George Bush.

Central Australia’s unique dining experiences are also a factor in Athol’s quest to champion food in the Red Centre.

“Our climate lends itself so much to our dining experiences – we have a beautiful skyline and horizon.

We have that ability to combine our beautiful landscape and culture into our dining experience.