Around The Kitchen Table
Event description
Nothing brings people together more than a warm, home-cooked meal. Crowd around the kitchen table and get a taste of Arwa El Masri (‘Tea with Arwa’) and Tamara Haque’s flavoursome inspiration for storytelling. They will share ingredients from their home lands, recipes from their roots and the history of their multicultural upbringing through the universal love of food.
ABOUT THE PANELLISTS
Arwa El Masri
Arwa is a Palestinian Australian author born in Saudi Arabia. Arwa is the author of memoir Tea with Arwa published by Hachette in 2011 and the author of short story Muslim Footprint published in the Anthology Coming of Age by A&U in 2014.
A mother of three children, Arwa has written for SBS food magazine and the Sun Herald. As a part of Arwa’s public profile she has been involved in many television appearances such as ABC’s Australian Story alongside husband Hazem El Masri. Her public speaking engagements saw her invited as the keynote speaker at the Women in Policing Bi-annual conference in 2012 discussing the stigma surrounding Muslim women in Australia. Arwa continues to write and has completed a Masters degree in interpreting and translation at WSU and is a qualified certified Arabic interpreter working with a variety of Government agencies. She continues to write about a variety of issues, focusing on the migrant experience and advocating for bridging the gaps between CALD communities and mainstream Australia by improving access to information through translation and interpreting services.
Tamara Haque
Tamara Haque is a strategist by day and writer by night. Bangladeshi by birth and with roots in Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and Australia, Tamara loved the multi-culturalism in her upbringing and worldview. Tired of orientalism and the erasure of Muslim history, Tamara decided to write Stories of 20 Mighty Muslim heroes for children. She also writes on decolonising our minds. When Tamara is not working or writing, she is reading, cooking, walking, travelling, annoying her husband or petting adorable doggos.