David Mattichak's Biography (Photos)
Born 21 September 1963 (that makes me 45!) in Syracuse New York andimmigrated to Australia in April 1972 with my family where I have lived eversince. I went to one of Melbourne's exclusive private schools, Essendon GrammarSchool after winning a scholarship and then went on to study Art at PrestonTechnical College for two years. My wife of twenty years, Michelle, and I live in the suburbs of Melbourneand she has a grown son who lives in Perth. We share a passion for manythings including art and music, Michelle sculpts and plays several musicalinstruments, and for the main we live a quiet life with our two cats, stillenjoying each other's company after nearly twenty years! I mis-spent my youth pursuing numerous adventures, doing anything that camemy way from working on a self sufficient farm to building an adobe house,working in shearing shed and on farms, cutting firewood and every other typeof rural work, once trekking on foot with my cattle dog across one ofAustralia's (smaller) deserts before returning to the 'big smoke'- Melbourneand finding my place in the kitchen. I spent many years working my way up in the kitchen and I would say that Ihave probably worked in 60 or 70 different kitchens in the past twenty years. When I finally became the Chef de Cuisine in the 90's I pursued mypassion for food through numerous cuisines in many of Melbourne's finestrestaurants with many of Melbourne's finest chefs. In recent years I have focused on starting new cafes and on training young chefs so that I will have someone to cook for me when I get old. Another passion of my life that began in my youth is my interest in theoccult and I have studied Hermetic Magic all of my adult life, making oneparticularly important discovery many years ago which has led to my notoriety amongst occultists here in Australia and, to a degree, abroad aswell. The details of this are too involved for this short note and may be easily found through Google by using my name as the search subject. In the late 90's I turned my attention seriously to researching and writing anumber of instructional manuals for the Hermetic Arts to supply to thosepeople that seem to continually ask me to help them on their Path. In thepast decade I have written a number of essays for occult/Thelemite web sitesand I have complied two complete and three or four partly complete textsrelated to these subjects. Since I could first read and write it has been my most earnest desire to write, especially fiction, and so I have been pursuing that ambition most recently and my book Loot is the result.