SA foodies celebrate Mother’s Day
As Tasting Australia this year celebrates mums, we speak with food personalities about what the word mum means to them.
Crystal Jagger — foodie, entrepreneur and wife of SA food identity Callum Hann — didn’t exactly long to have kids. Living with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), she didn’t think she could — at least, not easily. But when she unexpectedly fell pregnant with her first baby, daughter Elle, at the end of 2019, her world changed.
“Once I found out I was pregnant, Cal and I said to each other, ‘Yeah, we really do want this’,” says Crystal, now 38. “Then Elle was born and I went straight into being a fierce protector … ‘Yes, this is my job now and I take it very seriously’.”
Fast forward five-and-a-bit years, and the pair has announced they’re expecting their third child in June. It’ll be the peak of a busy few months for Callum, who’s currently competing on this year’s season of MasterChef Australia: Back to Win (and vying for the $250,000 cash prize), while also working on a new restaurant concept, as well as his special dish for the Tasting Australia Mother’s Day: Family Brunch event on Sunday, May 11. There’s been no downtime for Crystal either, having launched a range of aesthetically pleasing, non-toxic and dishwasher-safe cutting boards, called Maison Appret.
Crystal acknowledges that the transition from entrepreneur (her first venture was sleepwear line, Jagger Sleepwear) to first-time mother was a challenging one.
“You’re healing (from the birth) and you’re feeding every couple of hours and settling them or trying to get them to sleep, and then you think, ‘Oh my God, I didn’t even shower today’,” she says.
“That’s a really hard thing when you’re so used to getting up and getting stuff done. You feel lazy; as if you’re not accomplishing anything. Whereas with (second child) Henry, I was like, ‘You know what? This is the time to just enjoy it’. There is no rush. I don’t need to be doing anything else now. This is just the time to enjoy the newborn phase.”
Crystal and Callum consider themselves lucky that they, too, have “amazing” relationships with their own mothers. “Callum’s mum comes up for sleepovers and normally we’d have wine and watch trashy TV,” Crystal laughs.
To be a mother, Crystal says, is to be a “nurturer and protector”. The family celebrates Mother’s Day with pancakes, “though to be honest, we do have pancakes most weekends because my kids love being in the kitchen!”
Sharon Winsor is a remarkable business person, educator, chef and mother. A Ngemba Weilwan woman based in Mudgee, New South Wales, she has made it her life purpose to share 60,000 years of Indigenous culture through her award-winning, 100 per cent Aboriginal-owned and established business, Indigiearth. Sharon overcame significant challenges in her life but did it all, and continues to do it all, for her children: son Maliyan, 24, and daughter Kirralaa, 26. Tragically, her first child, Ngukirri, was stillborn at birth, full term.
Photographs supplied Tasting Australia
“The business has really been built on the back of desperation for survival, for healing … and to create some change and generational wealth, which I’ve never had,” says Sharon, 49.
“I never thought that I would be doing the things that I have been doing; it will forever be my healing through food and culture.”
For Sharon, it was her aunts, great-aunts and grandmothers — “lots of women” — who collectively were her mother figure growing up. Mother’s Day is not celebrated in Aboriginal culture, she says, but rather, women are celebrated in different ways throughout the year.
“Things such as when new seasons are coming in and the women and young girls are out collecting bush foods, it’s a celebration of new beginnings and new life,” Sharon says.
Being a mother, Sharon says, is about “giving guidance and opportunities that I never had”. Her daughter Kirralaa, whose name means star in the family’s native language, is a teacher in Dubbo, while Maliyan, which means wedge-tailed eagle, works with Sharon in the business and also studies philosophy and psychology.
Sharon Winsor – owner of native foods business Indigiearth and children Maliyan and Kirralaa.
“They’re on their own paths, which is amazing,” Sharon says. “I almost lost my life to domestic violence 15 years ago, and so the past 15 years has been about rebuilding and breaking cycles and showing my kids that anything is possible. You’ve got to go after opportunities and it doesn’t matter how hard it is, you dig deep and go after whatever you want, and you just keep going.
“They don’t have to follow in my footsteps, but to go after whatever the hell they want to and achieve amazing things.”
For Rose Adam, “mum” has been a constant: a pillar of strength in a life marked by more grief than any family should have to bear. The former MasterChef Australia star, who now runs The Middle Store cafe in Melrose Park with her sister, Haefa, lost her father when she was just six years old. This was followed by the loss of her brothers Moussa and, then, George.
“When I think of Mum, I think of strength and resilience and care,” says Rose, 48. “She would literally give you the shirt off her back if that’s what you needed.”
Rose’s mother Samira, 78, who migrated to Australia from Lebanon in 1969, was just 35 years old when she lost her husband, Adam, aged 40. She was left to raise their four children, then aged between eight months and 13 years.
Rose Adam – chef at The Middle Store and mum, Samira.
The family bought a deli in Morphett Vale, which would become a local institution for 30 years. They called it: Adam’s Deli.
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“We started working in the deli when we were really young, and that’s where we spent all our time,” Rose says. “There was a kitchen out the back, so we’d come after school and Mum would have dinner ready for us … it was like a second home. And as hard as it is having a business, we were very lucky because we got to spend a lot of time together. For 30 years, to see each other every day — for most families it would be spread out over a lifetime.”
Adam’s Deli was more than a business, and Samira more than a businesswoman.
“She was part of the community,” Rose says. “Everybody just knew Mrs Adam. People would come and spend time just talking and getting things off their chest. She was always patient, always calm, always caring — she would always listen.
“When Haefa, George and I were opening The Middle Store, the first thing we said was, ‘We want to create a community like we had at the deli’. We understood from a young age that customer loyalty isn’t about produce and price; it’s about relationships … that’s a huge lesson that you wouldn’t learn anywhere else.”
Mother’s Day has been challenging for Samira in recent years, but Rose says traditionally, the family celebrates all the women in their “village”, including the aunties who helped raise them.
Samira nods proudly when asked if she can see the qualities she has passed onto her daughters.
“They have very good hearts,” she says.
Look up the phrase, “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” and you might find a picture of Karena Armstrong and her Mum, Helen. Garden patch and all.
“I always start laughing when I say this; Mum was a mad keen gardener, so we always had a huge veggie patch and that’s where we ate,” says Karena, co-owner of McLaren Vale restaurant The Salopian Inn and festival director of Tasting Australia.
“Mum made everything from scratch, so my becoming a chef and being food obsessed is no accident.”
Karena Armstrong – Tasting Australia festival director and co-owner of The Salopian Inn and mum, Helen.
For context, Karena, too, has a mighty green thumb — until recently, her home veggie patch was the source of all freshly-plucked produce for the restaurant. Now, a recently completed, expanded garden at the Salopian site means chefs are just a few steps away from the good green stuff.
One of Karena’s favourite memories of her mother involves a fish pie, complete with homemade puff pastry. “She was hardcore, but I thought it was just normal,” Karena, 50, says. “It was a two-day process for Mum to do it and you just knew this special meal was coming. Now when I cook it, it has such a nostalgic feel … it’s pretty amazing.”
From baking her own bread to crafting tofu cheesecakes, Helen’s cooking was about nourishing her family, Karena says. “Mum is a very affectionate person … that idea of taking care of people was and is still very intrinsic,” she says.
As a mother to three boys — Harry, 18, Sebastian, 17 and Fletcher, 14 — Karena describes herself as “intense”.
“I’m very firm with them,” Karena says. “I’ve always said, if my boys can dance and cook, I’ve done my job; the rest they can work out. And you know what? They’re all pretty good! They’re all really kind and I’m really proud about that.”
Karena says the Tasting Australia Mother’s Day events in Town Square provide an opportunity to celebrate any special person in one’s life.
“It’s about having time with that individual, and … that person perhaps gets a moment to reflect on how much they’re loved and appreciated.”
This article first appeared in the May 2025 issue of SALIFE magazine.
