QUEENSLAND'S GERMAN CONNECTIONS - PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

Some writers have all the luck – it’s a wonder that Peter Ludlow didn’t go up a couple of sizes in trousers while researching for this book. Wolfgang Kelke is a big man with a big, happy disposition. Hardworking, but always ready for a friendly chat. We sit outside his Taringa shop in Brisbane’s inner southwest. Banter flows freely between Wolfgang and his multicultural staff as they busily serve his customers. The whole place is noisy – a sure sign that people are enjoying themselves! “My father was a pastry chef,” Wolfgang begins. “Then he changed to an ‘Imbiss’ (take-away) that sold sausages, beer, pretzels and was a meeting point before and after work for everybody in Schwabing, a suburb of Munich. I was tired of the situation (and weather!) in Germany at that time – it was still a divided country then – so in February 1989 I got a job in Sydney and we moved to Australia, seeking a new adventure. “I always wanted to see the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge but I was disappointed to see just how small they were in reality – on postcards they looked humungous! Anyway I procured a position as a pastry chef in Sydney but it was not really what I was looking for, and Sydney was too cold and unfriendly, so we came up to Queensland, first for a holiday while my parents were visiting, and found it much warmer and the pace of life more relaxed. When we returned to Sydney I went through the newspapers and found a Pastry Chef job advertised here in Brisbane. In October 1989 I accepted the offer and we moved. “That was a very eventful time for us Germans, because it was just a week or two before the Berlin Wall came down. I started a job in Brisbane but once again it was not exactly what I had in mind, so the million-dollar question to my mind was, “What was I going to do?” Der König der Kuchen

The man to make your mouth water and your heart less homesick: Wolfgang dispenses freshly made “Brezel” at one of his

“So we decided to start a shop of our own. We put all our money down and procured a shop in Taringa in 1990, which we called ‘King of Cakes’. We had several secret family recipes at our disposal, but I can’t tell you what they were because then they wouldn’t be secret! Pastry tastes in Brisbane at that time were fairly plain: white bread, a little bit of wholemeal, lamingtons, neenish tarts, instant coffee, and that was it! Then along comes Wolfgang and adds Black Forest Torte, rye and sourdough breads, Kaiser roll, brezel, windbeutel, Gugelhupf, Beesting … Business at our Taringa shop was soon booming! “Eighteen months after starting at Taringa, we had a shop offered at Milton, which we took up. It was slow for a while but eventually became busier. We were running out of production space and had to look for alternatives, and this was when we started ‘Hooked on Bread’ at Corinda. As well, we began to supply First and Business class sweets to airlines, trains and began wholesaling to other shops. many event stalls, as well as gugelhupf (top), pretzels, delicious tortes, crisp fresh brötchen, delicious breads, and the perennial favourite (right) Lebkuchenherz (gingerbread hearts)

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