The Value of Attending Conferences

What you would have learnt at New Zealand Food Writers conference at Zealong Estate had you been there.

That we are all responsible for telling a story and that your story is far more interesting than you realise. The importance of owning it, to tell it well, to look exactly how you want to be seen. Tell everything how it deserves to be told with truth, creativity, enthusiasm and the desire to somehow make a difference.

You also would have learnt that food is a multi-layered context of how we exist in this world. That is, not only what you eat but how you buy your food, where it comes from and how it is grown. Somehow it also includes the “intent” of the all the people that are involved in growing and creating the food that sustains your community.

Pat Nourse, currently the creative director from the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, was one of the guest speakers at the conference and he was exceptional! He demonstrated the elegance of vocabulary and, just like a magician, he introduced new words that magically transformed something we might have had heard before, into something surprising and refreshingly new.
He deftly demonstrated how to own the direction and context of a narrative, and how to avoid being directed to a lazy answer. When he was asked, to tell the audience about himself, he cleverly told us that it was so nice to be invited as a guest and to share the floor with Sarah Miekle the creator of “Wellington On a Plate”. He then said that he felt very uncomfortable talking about himself but he would tell us about some of the people that had inspired him and his work.

This was a beautiful side step and allowed him to reframe what he was asked so he could then tell the story on his terms. He then described all these amazing food critics and writers who he had initially read and then met. How they had achieved some truly inspiring feats and described their contribution often equipped with little more than their imagination and a pen.

In so doing so, he became the storyteller rather than the story. The irony was, he could have been talking about himself through the people he referred to. I think he was truly masterful, but also endearingly naive of how good he was.

His 3 big takeaway messages were:

1. There is gold all around us, if we look for it and when we are prepared to be patient and listen.

2. We won’t always know what impact our story has on those around us that we aspire to serve.

3. What we get from doing something must not compromise the effort and conviction we put into our work. Make it uniquely ours and contribute as much of ourselves as possible because not to do so would be like having the means to save a friends life but choosing not to.

Pat is incredibly well-travelled as a world-renowned food critic, so it would have been reasonable to expect him to be opinionated and knowledgeable. Pat was much, much more than that. He showed consideration and genuine interest, wonderful artistry, and he had an air of understated elegance. Never was there a hint of posing or credit taking and no sign of needing to be better than anyone else.

Over the two days of the conference, we had insights into the lives and passions of a couple of dozen amazing small food producers, and some of the amazing tourist things the Waikato region has to offer, including the beautiful Zealong Tea Estate.

I would encourage you to consider where your food comes from, develop more interest in local food businesses, and be inspired to share food and recipes with friends.
You may think that you’re not telling stories in the course of your normal job, but trust me, everything you do is telling a story and helping someone enjoy a little bit of your world.