Road to recovery

In the pre-pandemic world, Adam Liaw was supposed to spend a sizeable chunk of 2020 travelling overseas in his role as ambassador for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s Australia Now program. His brief was to “cheerlead for Australia”, promoting not just our many attractions, but also our innovative and creative skills and our rich multicultural heritage. But, as with so many of us, the universe had different plans for the one-time lawyer and MasterChef Australia 2010 winner turned cookbook author, TV presenter and UNICEF Australia’s nutrition ambassador. He found himself confined to barracks in Sydney, grappling with the fallout not just of COVID-19, but also the bushfires that ravaged vast swathes of food-producing regions during the summer of 2019/20 and, before that, the drought that crippled farmers all over the country.

“The collective impact was devastating not just for the farmers, but for all Australians, not to mention our image overseas,” Adam explains. “The last images most people both in Australia and other countries saw of the bush was of devastated people and landscapes. Without the stunning scenery and the