Stephanie Alexander joins pupils from Majura Primary School. Photo: Lucy Ridge.
Renowned Australian chef and educator Stephanie Alexander is celebrating 20 years of her eponymous Kitchen Garden Foundation with the unveiling of her portrait at the National Portrait Gallery (NPG).
Ms Alexander also announced the winners of the first National Kitchen Garden Awards at a ceremony at Parliament House last week.
The Kitchen Garden Program started at Collingwood Primary School as inspirational and informative food education for pupils in 2001. The foundation, subsequently established in 2004, rolled out the program to schools and early learning centres nationally. More than 10 per cent of primary school students in Australia are now participating in the program.
“I truly believe if young children from toddlerhood get this understanding of food being important and joyful and a way of connecting with people, they will grow up to be different people,” Ms Alexander told Region.
“The best thing I can do is to advocate, constantly, that this program should be in every school in Australia as part of the educational experience. In the same way as we want children to learn to read, I think we need them to get that understanding about the growing world and sustainability.”
The Stephanie Alexander portrait was commissioned by the NPG and painted by Tsering Hannaford. Photo: Lucy Ridge.
Year four students from Majura Primary School attended the unveiling of Tsering Hannaford’s portrait of Ms Alexander and quizzed the culinary icon. Some asked about how it felt to have a portrait in the gallery, the process of sitting for a portrait, and why she chose to wear purple.
Ms Alexander explained she and the artist chose the purple backdrop together, and she wanted to pay tribute to the Jenny Joseph poem Warning. It begins with the line: ‘When I am old I shall wear purple.’
ACT finalists for the Kitchen Garden awards included Majura Primary for the Level Up Your Veg award, aimed at encouraging students to try new vegetables, and Namadgi School for the Showcasing STEM award. Brindabella Christian College Norwest Campus was a finalist for the Art of Kitchen Gardening award and Emmaus Christian Extended Day Preschool was up for the First Nations Food award for incorporating Indigenous food knowledge into its kitchen garden program.
Namadgi won the STEM award thanks to its work bringing science to life in the kitchen garden. The school was congratulated on the Kitchen Garden website:
“Namadgi School students dig into soil testing, compost analysis, plant anatomy and garden habitats, turning their garden into a dynamic learning lab and gaining hands-on experience with all aspects of STEM.”
NPG staff talk to Majura Primary School pupils about the artwork. Photo: Lucy Ridge.
Cathy Wilkinson, CEO of the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program, said the awards were a way to celebrate the program’s participants.
“The different award categories are kind of whimsical, they’re not about being ‘the best’. It’s a celebration of what children have been doing,” Ms Wilkinson told Region.
Ms Alexander said a big part of the program’s success focussed on bringing joy and enthusiasm to gardening and cooking. She said by focussing on the positives, rather than the negatives, children were excited to be involved.
“I like to use the word `pleasure’ [because other people might say] ‘don’t eat this, don’t eat that, no fat, no sugar, no salt’. But that’s not the way to change anyone’s behaviour; put a child in the garden, teach them to grow their own salad… and you’ve changed them! And they will go home and talk about it.”
The National Portrait Gallery commissioned Tsering Hannaford’s portrait of Stephanie Alexander with funds provided by Marilyn Darling AC.
Find out more about the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation and Awards.
Original Article published by Lucy Ridge on Riotact.
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