THE St Michaels Association is encouraging program participants to cook up a storm with the help of new chef Lee Christmas.
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Mr Christmas is a trained butcher as well as a chef, and has previously worked with English celebrity chefs Clarissa Dickson White of the Two Fat Ladies and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall from River Cottage. Locally he helped with the redevelopment of the Red Feather Inn and worked at Agrarian Kitchen in Hobart, the County Club Casino, and Novaro's Restaurant.
He joined the organisation ten weeks ago, and is excited about the many possibilities he now has to help those with disabilities. “I’d been cooking the same thing for 30 years, working with the same people and I thought maybe I need to do this and challenge myself and go outside the box a little bit,” Mr Christmas said. “I was nervous the first month and didn’t know what to expect, but I couldn’t have chosen a better job. I’ve made connections with some of these guys that have just changed the way I even see daily things.”
St. Michaels CEO John Gilpin said the motivation behind Mr Christmas’ hiring was to provide engagement for intellectually disabled Tasmanians through food.
“Sometimes when you can't get through in what you're trying to do with behavior management, you can do that through the love of food because it's tactile and it has a taste and it had an impact on the person,” he said.
“They have to get their lunch ready and their evenings meals, and they have to make sure they have the right ingredients before they go shopping, so it impacts on budget and planning, and gives them routine.”
One night a week Mr Christmas runs a program in which he visits residents in their home, teaches a variety of recipes, and helps participants learn new life skills.
“I could peel a box of carrots in ten minutes but to see these guys get so excited about watching me peel a carrot flat out and then thinking they could replicate that, even if they could only peel one carrot in an hour, I think that I could have actually helped change someone's life,” he said.