Three Food Memories

“Because you've come from an institution where you're meant to put yourself last, to ask for help is seen as a bit of a failure”In this episode you’ll meet Special Forces Veteran Heston Russell. Heston grew up in suburban Brisbane as the middle child, with a Dad who was in the army, and an aerobics instructor mum. Like his Dad, he joined the army too - but when he was a kid, he loved heading to work with his mum at the aerobics classes she taught. Food in the household was healthy and nutritious, chocolate and sweets were never to be seen.This of course led him on a path the the corner store where he’d devour killer pythons and frogs. But life since high school hasn’t been all sweetness and lollipops. In fact, it's been far from. During his time in the army, Heston served four combat operational deployments to Afghanistan and the Middle East, multiple counter-terrorism operations, a year in the US Special Ops command, and much more. Last year he won a defamation case against the ABC linking him to war-crimes in Afghanistan. Hear Heston talk about the challenges he and other veterans face once leaving the armed forces, how it took him until almost 30 to finally realise who he was as a person, and how he feels more accepted in America as a veteran than back home here in Australia.  These days Heston invests his time in Veteran causes and the Veteran Games, an opportunity for Australian Veterans to showcase physical resilience, teamwork, and problem-solving in competition. You can find out more about the games at veterangames.com. Send us a textTo find out more about the project and Savva - head to threefoodmemories.comInsta - @savvasavas @threefoodmemoriesEmail us at [email protected], we'd love to hear from you! TFM is produced and edited by Lauren McWhirter with original music by Russell Torrance.

“As people we are all capable of so much more than we imagine ourselves to be” - Katherine Bennell-PeggIn this episode you meet Australia’s first ever astronaut. Katherine Bennell-Pegg grew up looking at the stars in her suburban Sydney backyard, and by early high school when asked by a teacher to write down three professions she’d like to pursue as an adult she wrote just one.  Unlike those of us who still don’t know what we want to be, she set her sights on the stars and achieved what few dare to dream. Listen in to hear what it takes to become a qualified astronaut, why being able to understand Привет, как дела? is important, how space food is better than you’d expect, why all astronauts are medical test subjects, and how big aspirations are so important for young kids. On the menu are Fantales, chip butties, and marshmallows. It’s a sweet and super-inspiring episode.    Katherine’s social cause is diversity in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) because “unless we have diverse thought and creativity we can’t solve the problems of tomorrow”.Katherine serves forth duckweed, from the Plants4Space team to our next guest Heston Russell. This episode was recorded at SXSW Sydney on the iHeart Radio stage. Send us a textTo find out more about the project and Savva - head to threefoodmemories.comInsta - @savvasavas @threefoodmemoriesEmail us at [email protected], we'd love to hear from you! TFM is produced and edited by Lauren McWhirter with original music by Russell Torrance.

“I mean the media is a tough ground. People swear, including me.”This extraordinary episode of Three Food Memories celebrates media doyenne, Ita Buttrose AC, OBE. Recorded at The Neilson auditorium at the Australian Chamber Orchestra for Savva’s 50th birthday party, Ita shares incredible insights from her trail-blazing eight decades.We start the food journey at Watson’s Bay with her father as a child, voyage through the Rockies on the glass roofed Rocky Mountaineer with her husband Alisdair, and find out the cheesy secrets behind a $3000 chicken dish in Townsville, which she also passes forward to our next guest, Australian astronaut Katherine Bennell-Pegg.Along the way we hear from special guest Beryl Lane, a life-long Ita-ite who travelled to Sydney especially for the event, and who shared why Ita was so important to women in regional Australia.Ita is an ambassador for the Bobby Goldsmith Foundation, which is Australia's oldest HIV charity and provides support to anyone having difficulty living with HIV, physically, emotionally, or financially. Poignant, thoughtful, and thoroughly funny, this is an episode not to be missed. Send us a textTo find out more about the project and Savva - head to threefoodmemories.comInsta - @savvasavas @threefoodmemoriesEmail us at [email protected], we'd love to hear from you! TFM is produced and edited by Lauren McWhirter with original music by Russell Torrance.

"I was living the goth life. I still begrudge my parents for not letting me have a pet rat" - Karen MartiniIn this live episode recording of Three Food Memories thanks to our friends at Poliform Australia - sit down with chef, restaurateur, and cookbook author Karen Martini (whose middle name is NOT Louise).Share the memories as she tells all; her childhood dreams of wanting to be an embalmer, the drive and persistence that had her running her own restaurant before the age of twenty, and how if she had a tattoo it would be of a fennel bulb! On the menu is broad bean paste on crostini, fish soup taught to her by her Tunisian mémère, and cheesecake flavoured biscuit turnovers. Karen’s social cause is the Children’s Cancer Foundation whose research is key to uncovering better and kinder treatments for children with cancer.She serves up pasta vongole to our next guest Ita Buttrose. Send us a textTo find out more about the project and Savva - head to threefoodmemories.comInsta - @savvasavas @threefoodmemoriesEmail us at [email protected], we'd love to hear from you! TFM is produced and edited by Lauren McWhirter with original music by Russell Torrance.