Best of: From Nowra to ARIAs: Music, Culture, and the Path to Blak Excellence Part 1

I’m coming to you from the Australian Native Food Festival at Carriageworks on Gadigal Country, and I finally sat down with my brother Zach Green. He’s a proud Gunditjmara and Palawa man you might know as the Storyteller Chef. Zach has built his career on sharing the culture behind our foods, from Elijah’s Kitchen in Darwin to Iluka’s Kitchen in Port Hedland. Now living on Larrakia Country, he’s backing young mob coming up through the kitchen and asking hard questions about who really benefits from the native food industry. But when I asked him who he is without the titles, his answer had nothing to do with food. We yarn about family, the strong women who shaped him, the dish that keeps his sons’ spirit close, and the legacy he wants to leave. Pull up a chair, this one’s a good feed. Resources and links Zach Green This chef is telling our stories through food (SBS NITV): https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/this-chef-is-telling-our-stories-through-food/mgd1hmmhj Cooking and storytelling: crocodile is our culture (SBS Food, Zach on cooking crocodile): https://www.sbs.com.au/food/the-cook-up-with-adam-liaw/article/cooking-with-crocodile/g2riaadx6 Australian Native Food Festival Carriageworks event page: https://carriageworks.com.au/events/australian-native-food-festival/ IndigiEarth Aboriginal-owned native food business founded by Weilwan woman Sharon Winsor, who leads the festival. https://indigiearth.com.au Gather Foods Majority Aboriginal-owned and led food business in Perth, where Zach helped a young chef land an apprenticeship. https://www.gatherfoods.com.au Who owns the native food industry Master chef urges Indigenous native food businesses to get slice of $80m pie (NIT): https://nit.com.au/10-11-2023/8571/master-chef-urges-indigenous-native-food-businesses-to-get-slice-of-80m-pie Support Zach speaks about losing his children. If anything in this episode brings up something for you, support is there: 13YARN on 13 92 76 (First Nations crisis support, 24/7) or Lifeline on 13 11 14. Website: www.blackmagicwoman.com.au Follow us on Instagram - @blackmagicwomanpodcast If you enjoyed this episode, please 'Subscribe' on Apple Podcasts or 'Follow' on your Spotify app and tell your friends and family about us! If you'd like to contact us, please email, [email protected] Black Magic Woman is produced by BlakCast. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I spent the weekend at the second annual Australian Native Food Festival at Carriageworks on Gadigal Country in Redfern, presented by Sharon Winsor and IndigiEarth, and I brought you with me. I moved stall to stall, yarning with the mob who grow, make and lead this native food and botanical industry. Tara Croker from Yaala Sparkling, Aunty Pat Torres, relaunching the First Nations Bushfood and Botanical Alliance and doing beautiful things on Country in Broome. The crews at Kakadu Organics, The Unexpected Guest, Wild Foods, Jala Jala Treats and Native Botanical Brewery. Bush food growers Kate and Pete on their new book. And my deadly sister Mindy Woods. One truth ran through every yarn. Our mob make up less than 2% of a native food industry worth more than a billion dollars. Not because we don't want to lead it, but because of the barriers put in our way. Every business you hear today is one of ours. Meet them, learn who they are, and get behind them long after the festival packs down. Every business is linked in the show notes. Support Blak. Buy from mob! Businesses in this episode: IndigiEarth (Sharon Winsor): https://indigiearth.com.au Yaala Sparkling (Tara Croker): https://yaalasparkling.com Mayi Harvests (Aunty Pat Torres): https://www.mayiharvests.com.au First Nations Bushfood & Botanical Alliance Australia: https://www.fnbbaa.org.au The Unexpected Guest: https://theunexpectedguest.com Kakadu Organics: https://www.instagram.com/kakaduorgnics Jala Jala Treats: https://www.jalajala.com.au Native Botanical Brewery: https://nativebotanicalbrewery.org Karkalla / Mindy Woods: https://www.karkalla.com.au Website: www.blackmagicwoman.com.au Follow us on Instagram - @blackmagicwomanpodcast If you enjoyed this episode, please 'Subscribe' on Apple Podcasts or 'Follow' on your Spotify app and tell your friends and family about us! If you'd like to contact us, please email, [email protected] Black Magic Woman is produced by BlakCast.

My husband Peace has been telling me for ages, you have to get this bala on your podcast. So when I got to Sydney, I sat down with Leon Filewood on Cammeraygal Country and we had the yarn I had been waiting for. Leon grew up on Waiben, Thursday Island. He went from the courtroom to the comedy club, and there is a story behind why he made that jump that I did not see coming. We yarn about imposter syndrome, about the shame that holds our mob back from their full potential, and about why every joke he tells has a message sitting underneath the laugh. He is a Deadly Funny winner and a Moosehead Award recipient, and he has taken his shows Which Way and Holding Space around the country. Have a listen. Links and Resources Instagram: @laf_comedy Deadly Funny The Melbourne International Comedy Festival's development program for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander performers. Free workshops and community shows around the country, no experience needed. Leon won the national final and now delivers the workshops himself. https://www.deadlyfunny.com.au/ Support 13YARN, 13 92 76, 24 hours, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander crisis support line Lifeline, 13 11 14 Website: www.blackmagicwoman.com.au Follow us on Instagram - @blackmagicwomanpodcast If you enjoyed this episode, please 'Subscribe' on Apple Podcasts or 'Follow' on your Spotify app and tell your friends and family about us! If you'd like to contact us, please email, [email protected] Black Magic Woman is produced by BlakCast. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week I'm joined by my brother James Saunders, a Gunditjmara, Wiradjuri and Wongaibon storyteller, producer and media specialist. James runs Barragi Mawang and has spent more than a decade working alongside our communities. But this yarn goes further back than any of that, to where the creativity started, and it isn't where you'd expect. We yarn about Country from the sky, and what a drone taught him about the stories held in the land. We yarn about the film he worked on in the Pilbara, and the phone call that opened a door nobody else could open. We yarn about his uncle, a Gunditjmara man who walked into an enlistment office at nineteen, and the two years James spent putting that story on the page. And we yarn about fear. What he's overcome, and what it took to step into who he is. There's a lot in this one. Have a listen. Fighting for Country: The Extraordinary Life of Reg Saunders, Australia's First Indigenous Military Officer, Hero of Two Wars, published by Allen & Unwin, out 1 September: Yurlu | Country, directed by Yaara Bou Melhem, co-produced by James Saunders. Written by the late Maitland Parker, Banjima Elder. Watch and support the campaign at yurlucountry.com and cleanupwittenoom.com Barragi Mawang: https://barragimawang.com/ Mob Stock, launching October for Indigenous Business Month: mobstock.com.au Website: www.blackmagicwoman.com.au Follow us on Instagram - @blackmagicwomanpodcast If you enjoyed this episode, please 'Subscribe' on Apple Podcasts or 'Follow' on your Spotify app and tell your friends and family about us! If you'd like to contact us, please email, [email protected] Black Magic Woman is produced by BlakCast. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I've done a lot of yarns on this podcast. This one went somewhere I've never taken a conversation before. Sam Johnson grew up in Glebe, raised by the aunties who made sure he was safe when there wasn't much else. He was 18, living on his own, being aged out of a system that had already taken his sister, when he worked out the only door left to him was one he'd have to open himself. He topped his school in legal studies. Then he graduated and was homeless. Today he runs a 100 per cent Aboriginal-owned agency working on the very systems he came up through, and he's putting money back into our young people. We got into things I wasn't expecting. Where violence in this country actually began. Why our men were taken, and what it means that they're coming back. What his father asked for once and was refused, six months before they came for his daughter on a Friday night. And then Sam asked if he could leave us with a poem. Some of what we talk about in this episode is heavy. If it brings anything up for you, 13YARN is 13 92 76 and Lifeline is 13 11 14. RESOURCES AND LINKS Sam Johnson Impact Policy: https://www.impactpolicy.com.au Impact Policy Podcast: https://shows.acast.com/impact-policy LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-alderton-johnson Amy McQuire Dr Amy McQuire is a Darumbal and South Sea Islander journalist whose work covers the disappearance and killing of Aboriginal women and children, and how media reporting shapes who gets seen as a victim. Black Witness, published by UQP Curtain The Podcast, co-hosted with Martin Hodgson, on the BlakCast Network: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/curtain-the-podcast/id1164804753 Substack: https://amymcquire.substack.com Also mentioned The Drover's Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson, written and directed by Leah Purcell Sherele Moody, Australian Femicide Watch: https://australianfemicidewatch.org Barnardos Australia: https://www.barnardos.org.au Support 13YARN: 13 92 76 Lifeline: 13 11 14 1800RESPECT: 1800 737 732 Website: www.blackmagicwoman.com.au Follow us on Instagram - @blackmagicwomanpodcast If you enjoyed this episode, please 'Subscribe' on Apple Podcasts or 'Follow' on your Spotify app and tell your friends and family about us! If you'd like to contact us, please email, [email protected] Black Magic Woman is produced by BlakCast. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.