Dorinda Hafner

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Dorinda Hafner
Born1947 (age 76–77)
Ashanti, West Africa
EducationSt George's Hospital
Occupations
  • Author
  • actress
  • dancer/choreographer
  • television chef
  • public speaker
Years active1965-present
FamilyNuala Hafner (daughter)

Dorinda Hafner (born 1947) is a

television chef, She is also an optician and registered nurse[1]

Early life

Hafner was born in 1947 in Ghana, when it was still a British crown colony called Ashanti. Her father was a surgeon, and her mother a midwife, with her family part of the Ashanti royal family, and she grew up in an affluent family but with a mother who taught her how to do manual work as well. Her maternal great-grandfather emigrated to Ghana from Scotland in the 19th century.[2]

Hafner was affected by a violent

Methodist ethos.[2]

Career

Hafner after leaving school, aged 18, went to London to train as an ophthalmic nurse.[2] She was the first black registered nurse (RN) trained at St George's Hospital.[1] In London she met her future husband, psychiatrist Julian Hafner, with whom she emigrated in 1977 to South Australia. After settling in Adelaide, she worked as an RN. At that time, there were very few people of African descent in Adelaide, and she was met with a lot of misunderstanding, and mostly "just annoying and stupid" discrimination rather than deliberate racism.[2][1]

In 1988, she was one of a four-woman

Adelaide Festival of Arts, entitled AKWANSO (Fly South). The others in the group were Pitjantjatjara dancer/actor Lillian Crombie, African-American dancer and choreographer Aku Kadogo, and Jamaican Jigzie Campbell. Each woman tells her own story of racial prejudice, which is followed by a dance by all four women, choreographed by Mary Barnett of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.[3]

She worked as a television chef and presenter with Bert Newton on Good Morning Australia for ten years.[1]

Other roles

Hafner also espouses humanitarian causes and has worked for several Australian charities. She founded her own charity, called Australian Sponsorship for African Kids.[1]

She is a qualified

marriage celebrant.[1]

Recognition and awards

Personal life

Hafner has two children with her ex-husband Julian: medical specialist James and television presenter and registered psychologist Nuala Hafner,[2] and is described as "first a mother" on one of her agency websites.[1] She had a brief second marriage to an African diplomat, but remained on good terms with her ex-husband Julian.[2]

She speaks five languages, and has spoken openly about the battle with her weight. Over the five years up to 2012, she reduced her weight from 168 kg (370 lb) to 72 kg (159 lb)[2] She wrote the book Honey I've shrunk the chef, published in 2012, about how she did it.[4]

Publications

Hafner is the author of at least eight books,[1] including:[5]

  • A Taste of Africa (several editions, from 1993)
  • I Was Never Here and This Never Happened:: Tasty Bits & Spicy Tales From My Life (1996)
  • Dorinda's Taste of the Caribbean (1996)
  • United Tastes of America (3 editions, 1997-8)
  • Honey I shrunk the chef (2012)

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l "Dorinda Hafner". Saxton Speakers. Retrieved 23 December 2021.
  2. ^
    Adelaide Now
    . Retrieved 23 December 2021.
  3. The Australian Jewish Times
    . Vol. 93, no. 30. New South Wales, Australia. 15 April 1988. p. 24. Retrieved 23 December 2021 – via National Library of Australia.
  4. ^ a b c "Dorinda Hafner". ICMI. Retrieved 23 December 2021.
  5. ^ "Hafner, Dorinda", Trove, retrieved 23 December 2021

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dorinda_Hafner&oldid=1214061386"