Shanaka Fernando, already the winner of the Metropolitan Local Hero Award, has gone the next step and won the Australian Local Hero Award on Australia Day. The Victorian Government has decided he is a “social challenger” lauding his victory thus:

‘By establishing the ‘Lentil as Anything’ concept, Shanaka Fernando has set a wholly successful example to society of how a commercial enterprise can be operated on a socially responsible, idealistic and altruistic basis and still be financially successful and popular with the public. Since Shanaka relinquished his personal capital in the first restaurant and turned it into a cooperative and youth training enterprise, the business has grown into four restaurants employing about eighty young people and providing space for artists and writers. This not-for-profit business celebrates compassion, individuality, and artistic expression under a philosophy that challenges and defies our consumerist society. The policy of ‘no set prices’ where customers pay only what they can afford or what they think the meal was worth is a social experiment that encourages people to have an internal conversation with their conscience and their ethics. And on top of that, the food is terrific.”

This is what John Howard’s men are saying about the Fernandomeister:

‘Melbourne’s Shanaka Fernando was awarded Australia’s Local Hero in recognition of his work founding not-for-profit restaurant group ‘Lentil As Anything’. The business has shown how a commercial enterprise can be operated on a socially responsible, idealistic and altruistic basis and still be financially successful and popular with the public. It operates on a policy of ‘no set prices’, where customers pay only what they can afford or what they think the meal was worth. Shanaka relinquished his personal capital in the first restaurant and turned it into a cooperative and youth training enterprise.The business has grown into four restaurants employing about 80 young people and providing space for artists and writers. The 38 year old, who was born in Columbia, Sri Lanka, arrived in Australia in 1989. His father is Sri Lankan with Portugese lineage and his mother is Sri Lankan with Irish descent.

“Being named Australia’s Local Hero means a lot to me and, hopefully, it means the nature of what is happening through our organisation is important and will spill out to the greater society.

“I hope this award will inspire other migrants and anyone in the community, who may have ideas that might not seem normal and which have no prior format, to go ahead and try these ideas and to follow your heart.

“On Australia Day, I will celebrate the generosity of spirit which exists in the Australian community.” Accepting his award on the eve of Australia Day, Shanaka’s view on what being Australian means was poignant.

“I didn’t know the answer to the question of what it means to be Australian until quite recently,” said Shanaka.

“I went out into country Victoria with refugees and we had a tree planting weekend and I came in contact with what I considered an amazing spirit of community and openness.

“To be Australian is, I think, to be welcoming of others. “To be Australian is to be encouraging of each other, to urge each other to shine and reach our full potential.

“Which is,” he said with a grin,”very contrary to the tall poppy syndrome.”‘

This all makes him sound somewhat earnest, but he is more interesting than that. He  mixes in patahysical circles, and bangs on his boogie. And the latest Convent Muse contains this passage from an interview with him:

‘As a result of his recent Award, Shanaka has been invited to speak at ABC Haywire, a national outh Conference in Canberra.  He hopes to encourage creativity in young people, so they can feel self-empowered to tackle issues with a minimal sense of convention.  When asked how this could be best communicated he said: “For example, if kids think the answer to alcohol problems is for everyone to walk around with pineapples on their heads – that is exactly what they should do”’

It’s true what The Oz says, it was a stroke of genius to get Kenny to open the newly renovated toilet block at the Abbotsford Convent. The handy summary of things Abbotsford Convent is here, really worth a read. I learnt with interest that the pictured massive oak tree was planted in 1857 and is known as the Separation Tree. It is as old as the state of Victoria, being planted to celebrate the secession from New South Wales. That makes it just shy of 150 years old. (The Age’s version is here, the Herald Sun’s here).
Meanwhile, an article from The Age highlights a new show, Tripping Over, which was filmed in part at the Convent.

And a book has been published on the history of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd in Australia, New Zealand and Tahiti. Authored by Catherine Kovesi, historian, author and senior lecturer at Melbourne University (pictured), its title is Pitch Your Tents on Distant Shores. Friends of the Abbotsford Convent can get a pre-publication special (save $15) for $55 (plus $10 postage unless you pick it up from the Convent): call Kate on 9419 5773 like today or tomorrow. The offer has already officially expired.
And here’s The Age’s review of the Convent version of Lentil as Anything.

Well folks, I had my camera with me this time, and I actually ate there. This is what it looks like. It is an unusual place. That is a good thing. It is not a restaurant run by an anarchist collective which comes across as a hip cafe. Obviously there are reasons people pay good money to go to slick cafes, but this place has its charms.

Appallingly bad art hangs on the walls, some of it enough really to put you off your food. There are too many tables too close together, and it is all a bit like the lounge and dining room at Continental House in Hepburn Springs. Someone mistakenly made my coffee with soy milk (and so I discovered that soy latte [which should really be called a cafe soy if you think about it] is really not a bad drink). My other coffee though, a strong cafe latte, was as strong as bull’s blood, the strongest latte I have ever seen.

The distinctive feature of the place is that you “pay as you please”, posting your money into the slot in a “magic box”. I reckon this is a variation on the old Indian taxi driver trick, in which the driver turns off the metre and invites the foreigner to pay whatever he feels, knowing that the western mind could not possibly conjure up a fare as low as the meter would provide for. The cost of preparing vegetarian food is very low — a joke amongst restauranteurs who typically price vegetarian dishes at only a little lower than meat dishes — and it does not seem like a lot of money has been spent on fitout. One can imagine that there would be plenty of people in St Kilda (Lentil As Anything’s original location) who would come in for a quick feed, paying what they could afford, to wit not much. But who is going to come into the Abbotsford Convent but folks like the three of us who felt it churlish to pay anything less than slick cafe prices and felt vaguely excited (despite the ex-post facto cycnicism exhibited above) by the Che Guevara-ness of it all, the Bolivarian links to Sub-Commandante Marcos, to Lula, Evo Morales, even maybe Michele Bachelet and especially to firebrands without speech writers like Victor Chavez who say, whilst on diplomacy in Rome, that George Bush should be indicted before the International Court of Justice as a war criminal but still get an audience with the Pope? And all within a short walk from our mortgaged formerly-workers’ cottages and with good cafe latte to boot. Who indeed? Impoverished artists with studios in the Convent for one, I suppose.

Back to my review now, though: the cafe inhabits a a beautiful space, with a high vaulted ceiling, lit by three windows which look out through the foliage of the garden. The middle one frames that omnipresent chimney of the Carlton & United Brewery.

A man who looked a lot like a recently arrived migrant from the Horn of Africa was working away with a cast of Latin Americans and a blonde waitress straight out of Chapel St, to the tunes of what I would describe (probably wrongly) as lush retro film music.

Miss K and our friend enjoyed their scrambled eggs (served on untoasted wholemeal bread rolls) though I considered their plates sceptically, and I had a pancake with stewed apple, sultanas and almonds which was reasonable (depending on how much you like stewed apple, I suppose). Other breakfast options included porridge with good stuff in it, a Sri Lankan breakfast of roti and dhal, and scrambled tofu.