Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to separate bathrooms. We would like to
Speaker 1: acknowledge the Gadigor people of the urination, the traditional custodians
Speaker 1: of this land, and pay our respects to the elders,
Speaker 1: both past and present.
Speaker 2: I'm Ali daddo, I'm Cam daddo. We've been blessed to
Speaker 2: have a number of master chefs we have in the
Speaker 2: bathroom with us. Yes, what a juggernaut of a show that
Speaker 2: is launching a bunch of careers. Yes, indeed, so today
Speaker 2: we have the very first winner, the one who started
Speaker 2: it all.
Speaker 3: I know, the lovely Julie Goodwin.
Speaker 1: She burst onto the scene as Australia's first Master Chef
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight. She's a mum and lucky her.
Speaker 1: She's a grandmama as well. Obviously she's a wife of course,
Speaker 1: a cook and author, a singer. Did not know she
Speaker 1: was a singer, a public speaker. Julie Goodwin is the
Speaker 1: epitome of a busy Australian.
Speaker 2: And she's not traveling the world alone. She has longtime
Speaker 2: partner Mick beside her. They've had a long and I
Speaker 2: dare say, adventurous life together. Let's get to know Julie
Speaker 2: and Mick Goodwin.
Speaker 1: All right, you two, we are a relationship podcast and
Speaker 1: we just love to hear a little bit more about
Speaker 1: the two of you. So if you can fill us
Speaker 1: in how did you two meet, You're going to talk first.
Speaker 4: So Jules and I met. We're going back to nineteen
Speaker 4: eighty nine.
Speaker 3: Yep, and it's the year we met.
Speaker 4: It it is, oh really, Yeah, we met through a
Speaker 4: Saint Vincent de Paul youth group. So one of my mates,
Speaker 4: he was a school captain of my high school, Saint
Speaker 4: Leo's College at Warunga. We started this Vinnie's group in
Speaker 4: high school years eleven and twelve, and then when school finished,
Speaker 4: he decided that he wanted to keep it rolling. He
Speaker 4: knew Julie because Julie was the school captain of her school,
Speaker 4: Hornsby Girls High, invited her along to join this group,
Speaker 4: and yeah, that's how we met school captain Julie.
Speaker 5: Yeah, those are the days. I think it was hip
Speaker 5: to be square back then, and I was pretty square.
Speaker 2: So now, was that voted on by the teachers or
Speaker 2: the students?
Speaker 5: Students? Students voted for all the prefects, and then I
Speaker 5: think the prefects voted for who they wanted for the captain,
Speaker 5: right right, so head prefect. It was called Hornsby Girls
Speaker 5: High School.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was a sedive's high girl. We
Speaker 1: were kind of almost mixing in the same circles.
Speaker 2: Well kind of.
Speaker 5: I think your snaive circles might have been slightly more
Speaker 5: rarefied than the Hornsby.
Speaker 2: Of course, it's not lomally put that way. Private school
Speaker 2: and public school. People normally go oh private school.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, we were known as snives back then, and
Speaker 1: it was it's.
Speaker 3: Come a long way that school, let's put it that way.
Speaker 5: Yeah, man, Hornsby has too. It's selective now, but it
Speaker 5: certainly wasn't back then. Yeah, all right, yes.
Speaker 2: So you met back then you were were you like,
Speaker 2: you were a school captain, so you're around year twelve?
Speaker 2: Then were you hanging out for those years and then
Speaker 2: you got married like a little like a few years
Speaker 2: on from that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, for many years. You can gosh, you'll slow it
Speaker 5: on the uptake this one. But yeah, were just out
Speaker 5: of high school. So you know, we were eighteen when
Speaker 5: we met, and we were nineteen by the time he
Speaker 5: figured that out that I liked him, and then it
Speaker 5: was another oh, gosh, nearly six years til we got married. Geez,
Speaker 5: I'm a patient. I've got the patience of the same.
Speaker 2: You like a slow cooker, hay.
Speaker 3: Something another cooking pun. There could be more to follow.
Speaker 2: I haven't scripted any of these. They're just flying off
Speaker 2: the top of my head. They're just I'm just impressing
Speaker 2: myself here. I'm self basting.
Speaker 5: So much.
Speaker 1: Did you did you know from the get go that
Speaker 1: that Julie was the one? And were you sort of like,
Speaker 1: this is it, this is this is my goal for
Speaker 1: the rest of my life.
Speaker 4: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 5: What was it about just until me?
Speaker 3: What was it about Julie that you love or loved
Speaker 3: her and still love?
Speaker 5: I'm sure, yeah, do you know what?
Speaker 4: I probably didn't realize that back then, but but it
Speaker 4: was her intelligence and her.
Speaker 1: Strength, I guess, and Julie for you, What was it
Speaker 1: about meck that you loved?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 5: Where do I start? He had a wicked mullet.
Speaker 2: And to come back again.
Speaker 5: No, he was just very funny. So yeah, I had
Speaker 5: a lot of laughs with him and we got on
Speaker 5: really well. So yeah, we were friends like right off
Speaker 5: the bat. But also I learned, you know, over time
Speaker 5: that he was extremely principal. I knew because I'd met
Speaker 5: him through some Vincent De Paul group with these these boys.
Speaker 5: These group of boys were doing amazing charity work, you know,
Speaker 5: just going out on their weekends, going down to sort
Speaker 5: of Sydney and taking out a bus from Matt Talbot
Speaker 5: Hostel and taking coffee around to King's Cross and Central
Speaker 5: Station and giving it to homeless people and stuff. So
Speaker 5: I knew that he had a really good heart and
Speaker 5: and just his his principles came through to me, and
Speaker 5: and yeah, I just you know, I mean it was
Speaker 5: hot as well, which never hurts. And yeah, I fell
Speaker 5: madly in love with him.
Speaker 2: With a mullet.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, I mean, I'm only human.
Speaker 3: Kind harder than a mullet.
Speaker 2: Would do the mullet again?
Speaker 1: Nick?
Speaker 2: Would you? Would you mullet up again?
Speaker 4: Mick?
Speaker 2: Or do you have one? Now?
Speaker 4: I won't. I won't do it again.
Speaker 5: He could. He's still got a beautiful head of hair.
Speaker 5: But that's all right. We've got boys in their twenties
Speaker 5: and one of them has certainly taken up the mullet
Speaker 5: challenge on occasion.
Speaker 1: So h and Julie, were you a cook back then?
Speaker 1: When did the cooking passion hit.
Speaker 5: For you, it hit for me. Yeah, as a young adult,
Speaker 5: I loved eating all my life. But back then, you know,
Speaker 5: it was part of how I connected with Mick.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 5: We'd go on these dates and I would I would cook,
Speaker 5: or i'd make a picnic or whatever, and I'd make
Speaker 5: the food as nice as I could, and it just
Speaker 5: seemed to be away to his heart. And so I
Speaker 5: continued that. And then when I got my own house,
Speaker 5: you know, my own kitchen to mess up, I went
Speaker 5: kind of wild. We didn't have very much money, so
Speaker 5: if we were going to eat nice food, I had
Speaker 5: to figure out how to cook nice food. And so
Speaker 5: that became a pursuit of mine. Was because I like
Speaker 5: eating nice food and I like feeding nice food to people.
Speaker 5: So I had to figure out how to do that
Speaker 5: on a shoe string.
Speaker 2: And were you working as well or how was that going?
Speaker 5: When we first met, I was at UNI, at Sydney UNI,
Speaker 5: and I was there until sort of midway through nineteen
Speaker 5: ninety when I left. I couldn't stay there anymore. I
Speaker 5: was going through some stuff that I didn't even realize
Speaker 5: I was going through until recently. And then I went
Speaker 5: and got a job at Village road show. I worked
Speaker 5: in an office for a little while, and that didn't
Speaker 5: suit me temperamentally to be in an office, and I
Speaker 5: went from there. I went into youth work and I
Speaker 5: ended up doing retreat and workshops with this lady. I traveled.
Speaker 5: I actually went all over the world as a backing
Speaker 5: vocalist at one point. And gosh, yeah, it worked in
Speaker 5: high schools with high school kids. And that's what I
Speaker 5: was doing when we got married. Amazing.
Speaker 3: That must have been a fantastic job.
Speaker 5: It really was. It didn't pay very much, but it
Speaker 5: was in terms of, you know, job satisfaction, it was
Speaker 5: pretty amazing. Yeah, Like I got to work with these
Speaker 5: groups of first of all, primary school kids, but it
Speaker 5: moved on to being high school kids. And I mean,
Speaker 5: that's a very challenging thing to do. But I loved it.
Speaker 5: But it wasn't really conducive to sort of starting a
Speaker 5: family and all of that. I was traveling more than
Speaker 5: six months of every year. Once we got married, I
Speaker 5: quit that, and shortly thereafter we started having little good ones.
Speaker 2: Right, you've got three little good ones who are now
Speaker 2: lumpy good ones.
Speaker 5: Giant They were all taller than me by the time
Speaker 5: they were in sixth grade, all three of them. So yeah,
Speaker 5: I've got giant good ones and actually got a little
Speaker 5: good one too, because we've got a little granddaughter.
Speaker 1: Oh that's so exciting.
Speaker 5: She's divine.
Speaker 4: It's the best.
Speaker 2: Well, Mick, you're quite tall, aren't you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, six foot seven and two out of our three
Speaker 4: sons six foot six. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Short, he's only six foot.
Speaker 4: Stopped at six foot Julie.
Speaker 2: Were they big babies?
Speaker 5: Oh? They were, and thank you because I have not
Speaker 5: received enough sympathy for that.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I can't eat three Well, boys are
Speaker 1: normally bigger anyway, and then if you've got a six
Speaker 1: foot seven dad, you know that you're in for some
Speaker 1: from some big chunkies.
Speaker 5: He's got a giant head too. Did you have big
Speaker 5: babies too early?
Speaker 1: Our son was pretty big, actually, certainly compared to the
Speaker 1: girls were average size. And our son was when he
Speaker 1: came out the words that Cam said, when Jesus he's
Speaker 1: a monster a good way.
Speaker 2: But the river was so well fared. I mean he
Speaker 2: waited until that placenta was absolutely suck dry and calcified.
Speaker 2: He was so old when it came out, it was
Speaker 2: like he came out looking for food.
Speaker 4: That kid.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was two weeks overdue.
Speaker 1: Yeah, placenta was as gray and old as anything, because
Speaker 1: it was he was.
Speaker 5: It's so funny because my youngest was two weeks over
Speaker 5: do fifteen days it turned out to be still had
Speaker 5: to be induced, and I reckon, I'd be wheeling my
Speaker 5: belly around in a wheelbarrow. He had a choice. I
Speaker 5: could still be there, Julie.
Speaker 2: I think about that and to go, Well, you're surrounded
Speaker 2: by amniotic fluid. It's pretty colmor. You got a permanent
Speaker 2: hose into your food. It's warm. You've got a mama.
Speaker 2: You can hear her voice. She's singing to you.
Speaker 5: Would you come out a lovely place to be? I reckon.
Speaker 3: So you're three boys and you're a good cook boy.
Speaker 3: They must love mum.
Speaker 1: Do they come home for Have you got all three
Speaker 1: at home? No, you can't have all three at home
Speaker 1: because you've got a grandkid.
Speaker 5: So well, the middle one with the grandchild has moved out,
Speaker 5: is a few minutes away from home, and like you
Speaker 5: was there last night for dinner, and the other two
Speaker 5: are still at home, So why.
Speaker 1: Would you leave that kind of food? Basically, Well, that's
Speaker 1: the plan. That's the plan.
Speaker 4: My youngest moved out for a little while. Yeah, for
Speaker 4: probably just over a year, and it's terrible. Yeah, we're
Speaker 4: really missed it. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they're my favorite people. So I really love it
Speaker 5: when they're around. And you know, I keep telling them,
Speaker 5: I'm in no hurry. We're in no hurry for them
Speaker 5: to go anywhere. You know, stay here, save up until
Speaker 5: you've you know, got a deposit, like a really big
Speaker 5: deposit to stay.
Speaker 1: Exactly what I told our kids. I had no issue
Speaker 1: with them staying. I said, if you need to bring
Speaker 1: your husbands and vibes, like, just bring them over, like,
Speaker 1: it's okay, We'll make a compound.
Speaker 5: I call it adopting the European model. It's good, let's
Speaker 5: just all live together, right, And they did.
Speaker 1: Forever that way. It's the part of the blue zone
Speaker 1: theory that you know, the families stay together.
Speaker 2: Are you in there as well with this?
Speaker 4: Definitely definitely that. The house we're living in at the moment,
Speaker 4: we built it when our eldest was just starting high school,
Speaker 4: and so what we wanted was for them to all
Speaker 4: have their own rooms, but to also have a separate
Speaker 4: living area so that when they wanted to have their
Speaker 4: mates around, they wouldn't have to sit around with adults.
Speaker 4: So it was a real purposeful thing that we're going
Speaker 4: to build this place, make it cool for their friends
Speaker 4: to hang around. They have their privacy, so that we
Speaker 4: could sort of, I don't know, just.
Speaker 5: Keep them close, keep them close.
Speaker 4: And do you know what, in the blink of an eye,
Speaker 4: that stay of their life was just over. They'd finished
Speaker 4: high school, they had good mates and yeah, so it
Speaker 4: all just went by so quickly.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so it would feel wrong for them to move out.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 5: It's like, but we built this house.
Speaker 4: Yeah, our brand new, fourteen year old home.
Speaker 2: Would you do anything different in terms of parenting them
Speaker 2: those boys?
Speaker 5: Oh, look, there's always things that you can look back
Speaker 5: at and pick apart.
Speaker 4: I do have a regret. We were sitting around as
Speaker 4: adults a year ago talking about childhood stuff and Patty,
Speaker 4: my youngest and my middle son told me that they
Speaker 4: carried this trauma Patty when he was about seven years old.
Speaker 4: He always had a ball and he was always kicking it.
Speaker 4: And so he's kicking this soccer ball in the house
Speaker 4: up against one of the walls, and it was driving
Speaker 4: me crazy, and I told him to stop doing it
Speaker 4: about twenty times, and on the twenty first time, I said, Patty,
Speaker 4: if you don't stop, I'm going to take you down
Speaker 4: to Cole's and give you away to another family. And
Speaker 4: he thought I was serious, but his older brother Tom
Speaker 4: thought I was as well. He started getting all upset
Speaker 4: because he didn't want a life without his little brother brother.
Speaker 4: And I only found this out a year ago that
Speaker 4: I traumatized two of my sons because I was going
Speaker 4: to give one away.
Speaker 5: Yes, they still cry themselves to sleep over it.
Speaker 4: And I actually I felt really bad about it because
Speaker 4: it was literally I was frustrated, sure, and I thought,
Speaker 4: what's an extreme thing that I can say to him.
Speaker 5: To make him stop kicking it all?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, And that's what I came up with, not
Speaker 4: realizing that that he literally thought I was. I was
Speaker 4: done with.
Speaker 1: Him like that in the heat of the moment, when
Speaker 1: you're taken to that kind of level of frustration, it's
Speaker 1: like what I remember Cam's month threatening to chop our
Speaker 1: youngest child's head off at one point.
Speaker 4: She's French, and.
Speaker 1: It was like it went dead air for like about
Speaker 1: half a second, and then we all burst out laughing, actually.
Speaker 2: Broke the air.
Speaker 3: But I remember saying chopped your head off.
Speaker 2: I was like, okay, you know. Also it also happened
Speaker 2: right at the moment, like probably a couple of days
Speaker 2: after we've been given the parental tip of never threatening
Speaker 2: your kids with something that's unrealistic, and this mum just
Speaker 2: straight out of the thing. She's come over from Australia,
Speaker 2: landed in Los Angeles, fifteen minutes in the car. I'll
Speaker 2: chop your head off, your miserable little mom.
Speaker 5: You've said it, and now to teach him a lesson,
Speaker 5: we actually have to do it exactly.
Speaker 1: But tell Julian Mick about what your dad did with
Speaker 1: the boys home, because that's that's taking it to a
Speaker 1: whole other.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was a bit of a tear away as
Speaker 2: a young young boy. I was probably about it would
Speaker 2: have been about nine or ten, and Dad had enough
Speaker 2: and around the corner when the next suburb from Madaliza
Speaker 2: was Mornington and there was the very famous Mornington Boys Home,
Speaker 2: the Sunny Side Boys Home, and Dad said, he goes,
Speaker 2: you do that again or something I'm taking here as Sunnyside,
Speaker 2: And sure enough I tested him and did it again,
Speaker 2: and next thing you know, he said, right we're going
Speaker 2: pack your bag. And it was on a Saturday morning,
Speaker 2: and I'm sure he had to give up his golf
Speaker 2: game or something in order to follow through with this.
Speaker 2: And he said eat your corn flakes and I and
Speaker 2: he said put your school uniform on.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I put my school uniform on and my black clerk's
Speaker 2: leather shoes and went there, packed my bag and Mum
Speaker 2: was crying. Course said come on, off, you go. Get
Speaker 2: in the car and going to the car by kiss
Speaker 2: your mother, kiss mama, and off we went.
Speaker 5: Talk about following through through.
Speaker 2: And we drove to the front gate of the Sunnyside
Speaker 2: Boys Home, which was on the most amazing real estate
Speaker 2: looking over Port Bill at Bay down there.
Speaker 5: It's the main thing I think you know for all
Speaker 5: of us from this story. It's great real estate.
Speaker 2: Great real estate, Sunnyside Boys Home. And Dad sat there
Speaker 2: and we sat out a gate, the iron gates, as
Speaker 2: much as I remember what it was, and he said,
Speaker 2: so are you going to do it again? He goes
Speaker 2: and I said no. He goes, You're sorry. I said, yes,
Speaker 2: I'm really sorry. Dad. He goes, Okay, no footy for
Speaker 2: three weeks and let's go home. And I went home,
Speaker 2: thanks to thanks to good for three weeks, probably good,
Speaker 2: and they did it again.
Speaker 1: So Mecca, hope that makes you feel better about your
Speaker 1: your threat to Cole's to take you down to Coles,
Speaker 1: because this was a serious.
Speaker 5: You're in good company anyway.
Speaker 4: Back back in those days it was a bit more
Speaker 4: old school, you know it was. And I can't even
Speaker 4: lean on that one.
Speaker 2: We're talking nineteen seventy two, seventy three, and yeah, we're
Speaker 2: all wearing Golden Bred and brown and orange.
Speaker 5: You talk about regrets as parents, and I think that
Speaker 5: sort of the proof of the pudding's got to be
Speaker 5: and how your family is now. And I read somewhere
Speaker 5: recently that you know you've parented well when your kids
Speaker 5: still like hanging out with you and ours won't stop. Yeah. No,
Speaker 5: it's we've got a really beautiful relationship with all of
Speaker 5: our sons. We all talk openly, We've got Yeah, So
Speaker 5: I think that you can spend too much time worrying
Speaker 5: about regrets. I think the end result, or the ongoing result,
Speaker 5: is that we've got a beautiful relationship and we're all
Speaker 5: very open and honest with each other, and we love
Speaker 5: each other very much, and we tell each other that
Speaker 5: all the time.
Speaker 3: That's beautiful.
Speaker 5: That is beautiful of them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so how old were the boys when you won
Speaker 1: Master Chef?
Speaker 5: They were in year five, years six, and year seven,
Speaker 5: so they were ten, twelve, and thirteen at the time
Speaker 5: that I won. And yeah, that so quite young, quite young.
Speaker 5: And I was away from home for nearly five months
Speaker 5: to do that, So it was it was a massive
Speaker 5: I didn't know when I signed up what the commitment was.
Speaker 5: I just kind of went in a bit blind. And
Speaker 5: when they told us what it was going to be,
Speaker 5: Mick and I had to have quite quite a conversation.
Speaker 5: It's like I've just been told I'd live out a
Speaker 5: home to do this. And by then we were down
Speaker 5: to about thirty people out of seven and a half
Speaker 5: thousand people. We were competing to get into the house,
Speaker 5: and they sort of sprung it on us. So if
Speaker 5: you get into this house, you don't go home from there.
Speaker 5: You just stay until you're eliminated. And yeah, they even
Speaker 5: then didn't tell us that we also would have had
Speaker 5: phones taken away and not be allowed outside except to
Speaker 5: go to the studio to film. So it was it
Speaker 5: was it was huge. That was huge, and so intense.
Speaker 2: I had issues, and you would have had no frame
Speaker 2: of reference, given that it was the first time.
Speaker 5: None at all. The only frame of reference was that
Speaker 5: most of the crew had just come off working on
Speaker 5: the Biggest Loser. So they were really surprised when we
Speaker 5: were like, but we need to talk to our families,
Speaker 5: like if you're on the Biggest Loser, you don't even
Speaker 5: get letters. Well, I'm not on the diet show.
Speaker 2: This is the complete opposite of that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's very different now. I have to say,
Speaker 5: like in recent series and a more recent series, it's
Speaker 5: changed a lot. But back then the model was very
Speaker 5: much let's stress them out as much as we can
Speaker 5: and get as much sort of on screen cheers and
Speaker 5: dramas possible.
Speaker 2: Right, So how did it even come about? I mean,
Speaker 2: if they started with that many people you have, like
Speaker 2: we've established this this is the first season of it,
Speaker 2: how did they know you were cooking or how did
Speaker 2: you find out about that this was going to be
Speaker 2: a TV show?
Speaker 5: They put out a contestant call, like an ad just
Speaker 5: saying you know Australian Master Chef, if you love to cook,
Speaker 5: put your name in them in the ring. And so
Speaker 5: I did, My best friend Tash kind of brought that
Speaker 5: to my attention. She knew I loved to cook. I
Speaker 5: love to cook for my friends and my family, and
Speaker 5: she said, you've got to go on this, You've got
Speaker 5: to try out for this. And it was a massive
Speaker 5: process that the form was huge and in the end
Speaker 5: at this stage, by this stage, I was working with
Speaker 5: Mick in a business that we'd started ourself in it business,
Speaker 5: and I had to take a couple of hours off
Speaker 5: work just to fill in this form and forgot all
Speaker 5: about it. And then I got a call up a
Speaker 5: few months later just saying we want you to audition.
Speaker 5: And that was the start of these wild sort of
Speaker 5: few months that culminated in what it did.
Speaker 1: We loved the show, but not but we love the
Speaker 1: show and we're just amazed at how good home cooks are. Like,
Speaker 1: I'm a home cook, I've cooked for many years. I
Speaker 1: couldn't I would be eliminated that bloody fast they.
Speaker 3: Throw like cook with chestnuts and ginger. I'm like, I'm out,
Speaker 3: I'm done. Can I have a chicken wing and some
Speaker 3: garlic salt?
Speaker 5: That's all I could do?
Speaker 3: Like, how do people know how to cook that well?
Speaker 3: As it just passion. I guess I think.
Speaker 5: For some people it's passion and practice. For me, it
Speaker 5: was the fact that by that stage I was thirty eight,
Speaker 5: I'd been standing at a stove, you know, for years,
Speaker 5: years and years, every single night, cooking for my family,
Speaker 5: and so I had a bit of muscle memory going on.
Speaker 5: But it's amazing, Like so many people say, oh, I
Speaker 5: could never do that. If I watched it, I would
Speaker 5: look at it and go I could never do that.
Speaker 5: But it's amazing what dark recesses of your brain given
Speaker 5: access to in those really heightened moments. And trust me,
Speaker 5: those are some pretty heightened moments.
Speaker 2: What the change in your life, the trajectory that your
Speaker 2: life then took from just doing that two hour application.
Speaker 2: I mean, we all have best intentions, and life takes
Speaker 2: over momentum happens. You became an overnight sensation basically by
Speaker 2: completing that show, winning that show. Then you become an author,
Speaker 2: a celebrated radio host, you open a cooking school. I mean,
Speaker 2: all these what a life change for you? How did
Speaker 2: you cope with it?
Speaker 5: Or oh, look, I'm lucky that I was surrounded by
Speaker 5: some very grounded people, including Mick and my boys. You know, yeah,
Speaker 5: there was. In one sense, there was a lot of
Speaker 5: adjusting to do. Obviously. In another sense, things sort of
Speaker 5: stayed the same, Like we're in that same house, you know,
Speaker 5: we still are, My friends are the same, We still
Speaker 5: do the same stuff. You know, barbecue on the back
Speaker 5: decks still our favorite weekend thing to do. So at
Speaker 5: the heart of it, all of that important stuff stayed
Speaker 5: nice and strong and sturdy for me while all this
Speaker 5: stuff career things and opportunities and things were kind of
Speaker 5: swirling around us. And you know that the impact was
Speaker 5: so the positive so heavily outweighed any negative that it's
Speaker 5: just been a blessing. It's been beautiful and the things
Speaker 5: that it's brought to my family. I'm grateful every single
Speaker 5: day that for that Master Chef experience.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sure, meck how was it for you watching the
Speaker 1: Rise of Julie? Did you expect this of her? No,
Speaker 1: this was going to happen, or how was it? How
Speaker 1: was your experience in all of this?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was quite quite surreal. And if you watch
Speaker 4: back the finale, I had no idea that they captured it.
Speaker 4: But when she won and I was hugging her at
Speaker 4: the end, I just whispered in her ear what just happened?
Speaker 4: And that's I guess that's when it really smacked me.
Speaker 4: Sure our lives are about to change here. Ye? Yeah,
Speaker 4: And you know, I think those first couple of years,
Speaker 4: like it was like, let's just let's flog this for
Speaker 4: all it's worth, you know, like this is just going
Speaker 4: to be a five minute thing. And this was this
Speaker 4: was part of the trap. I guess that led to
Speaker 4: Jules eventually running out of energy. Was just wanting to
Speaker 4: make hay while the sun was shining.
Speaker 5: And yeah, the sun kept shining and shining and shining,
Speaker 5: which is wonderful, but you know, I you know, we
Speaker 5: had to learn how to say notice stuff.
Speaker 2: You did allude to. And I'm going to ask you
Speaker 2: if this is okay to talk about the pressures of
Speaker 2: life and all those things that you're doing. Are you
Speaker 2: okay to talk about the anxiety and depression that you
Speaker 2: went through?
Speaker 5: Of course?
Speaker 2: Can you go thatt us in a bit about that?
Speaker 5: Yeah, it would be. It was probably towards the end
Speaker 5: of twenty nineteen when there was just a culmination of stuff.
Speaker 5: I'd been experiencing anxiety and depression for a while and overwork,
Speaker 5: I was you know, Brecky radio plus cooking school. So
Speaker 5: it was like two full time jobs and literally seven
Speaker 5: days a week, many many hours a day, and I
Speaker 5: just exhaustion and you know, un processed trauma from years
Speaker 5: and years before and all that sort of stuff just
Speaker 5: kind of all culminated in what you know, it's old
Speaker 5: fashioned language, but nervous breakdown is really just the simplest
Speaker 5: way to put it. You know, just everything fell in
Speaker 5: a heap, and it was a really, really terrible time,
Speaker 5: and it was something, you know, something I resisted for
Speaker 5: a long time, being getting a diagnosis, getting any help,
Speaker 5: and it just became very clear all of a sudden
Speaker 5: that I needed it.
Speaker 1: And Julie, is that also just because my passion is
Speaker 1: menopause and supporting menopausal women and understanding the effects of hormones.
Speaker 1: Was that actually were you PERI metopausal or menopausal at
Speaker 1: that time as well?
Speaker 5: Look when I when I first got a diagnosis of depression,
Speaker 5: which is years after I first experienced it. Yeah, but
Speaker 5: it was the first time I was willing to hear it.
Speaker 5: I had a female GP and she ran all the
Speaker 5: blood tests for that because that was that was her
Speaker 5: first thought as well, which I understand it's quite often
Speaker 5: the last thought that occurs. But she she was a
Speaker 5: beautiful GP and she was all across all Latin, and
Speaker 5: so she did blood tests and that wasn't the case.
Speaker 5: So I have I have had a lot of sort
Speaker 5: of commentary around, oh, maybe it was menopause, and the
Speaker 5: I mean, the reality is that that peri menopause and
Speaker 5: menopause don't help any of that stuff. Well that's the thing.
Speaker 1: It's more like it exaggerates it more than that's really
Speaker 1: what happens with Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I've I've since tested differently for those levels.
Speaker 5: I mean, I'm fifty three now, so that's to be expected. Yeah,
Speaker 5: but yeah, my depression far predates any any hormonal changes
Speaker 5: that nature gotcha.
Speaker 1: And that was nothing the birth of your son's that
Speaker 1: was their postnatal depression that popped up then.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah, after Joe was born, once again there was
Speaker 5: a medical professionals trying to give me a diagnosis of
Speaker 5: postnatal depression. I was told I scored very high on
Speaker 5: the scale and I basically told them to bugger off.
Speaker 5: And how dare they call me that when I had
Speaker 5: a beautiful husband and a house to live in and
Speaker 5: a roof over my head and food on the table
Speaker 5: and the most perfect, beautiful baby. How dare they suggest
Speaker 5: that I would be unhappy with that? And that was
Speaker 5: the really warped thinking I had around that whole, that
Speaker 5: whole mental illness thing, you know, and that you know,
Speaker 5: that's a product of my upbringing and my own stubbornness
Speaker 5: as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's really sort of the way, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, we've come a long way with mental illness
Speaker 1: as well, being able to speak about it really well
Speaker 1: and also understand it's so much better. But back you know,
Speaker 1: postnatal depression was something that, yeah, that was like it
Speaker 1: was sort of like a bit of a shame and
Speaker 1: a secret, and people women were embarrassed about it because,
Speaker 1: as you said, it's like I've wanted this baby my
Speaker 1: whole life. I've now got the baby, and I'm just
Speaker 1: so sad. So it's never made sense to so many women.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think I think that for a lot of us,
Speaker 5: and particularly of a certain generation, but maybe not exclusively,
Speaker 5: we're raised to muddle depression and sadness with ingratitude and
Speaker 5: inability to count your blessings and also weakness and inability
Speaker 5: to sort of just pick your chin up and put
Speaker 5: on your best face and whistle a happy tune and
Speaker 5: fake it till you make it, and all those things
Speaker 5: that we say to people to just say, just get
Speaker 5: over it, essentially, and it's just not that simple. It's
Speaker 5: just not that simple. Those things help, and you know,
Speaker 5: practicing gratitude and counting your blessings and all of that,
Speaker 5: they're all really useful tools in the toolkit when you're
Speaker 5: combating depression or anxiety, but they are not the answer.
Speaker 5: They're not the only answer. You can't you can't just
Speaker 5: say to somebody, yeah, but look how good you've got it?
Speaker 5: Why do you feel that way? Look how good you've
Speaker 5: got it? Because we can always we can always look
Speaker 5: around and see someone worse off than us, But it
Speaker 5: doesn't strip us off the actuality that we're not going
Speaker 5: to feel happy and upbeat all of the time. And
Speaker 5: I think we've just got to forgive ourselves that and
Speaker 5: allow ourselves to say and to say to other people,
Speaker 5: which is the hard part. I'm not coping with this.
Speaker 5: I'm not coping with this, and to not be shamed
Speaker 5: for it.
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, where were you sitting with all this?
Speaker 4: Mick? Well, just I guess I was along for the ride. Really, yeah, how.
Speaker 2: Did you how did you support Julie? And did you
Speaker 2: understand I'm imagining that you learned as much as she did.
Speaker 4: Definitely, definitely. I guess it all came to a head
Speaker 4: really one night when when Jules had sort of reached
Speaker 4: her lowest and she she communicated with me how low
Speaker 4: she was. And I was a little bit shocked at that,
Speaker 4: but at that point realized that, you know, I wasn't
Speaker 4: equipped to support her. I'll stand next to her, but
Speaker 4: I wasn't equipped to support her or advise her on
Speaker 4: how to resolve this. And it's at that stage where
Speaker 4: you know, we got in the car and we drove
Speaker 4: to the local hospital, presented an emergency and just said,
Speaker 4: you know, my wife needs some help, you know, and
Speaker 4: then you know, you sort of put self over to
Speaker 4: the professionals and and you know, we got to learn
Speaker 4: what the public mental health system was transitioned into the private.
Speaker 4: And yeah, it's been you know, we both learned so
Speaker 4: much along the way. And you know, this is part
Speaker 4: of who Julie Goodwin is and part of the reason
Speaker 4: I love her is her just her generosity. So to
Speaker 4: come out and tell her stories so publicly, and the
Speaker 4: reason she wants to do that is to help others,
Speaker 4: you know, to make it an easier road for some people,
Speaker 4: or yeah, just just to to support other people going
Speaker 4: through the same.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I mean we were Australia was already madly in
Speaker 1: love with you, Julie, and then I feel like, as
Speaker 1: you were saying, beck To is open and as vulnerable
Speaker 1: as you have been with the challenges of what you've
Speaker 1: been through.
Speaker 3: I think everyone just went, Yep, she's my favorite.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you your book. I mean, you've written cookbooks.
Speaker 2: I imagine that it was probably easier writing a cookbook
Speaker 2: than it was writing your memoir. The book is called
Speaker 2: Your Time Starts Now, Food and Fame, Failure and Freedom,
Speaker 2: The Life Story of Australia's first Master Chepher. It's a
Speaker 2: great title.
Speaker 5: Oh, thank you, thank you. Yes, it was much harder
Speaker 5: than a cookbook. Cookbooks are very very shary sort of
Speaker 5: thing to write, because you know, you cook in your kitchen,
Speaker 5: you write things down, but then the family gets involved
Speaker 5: and they critique it, and you know, quite harshly sometimes,
Speaker 5: but you know, and to test a recipe, I would
Speaker 5: hand it to one of my kids and whatever questions
Speaker 5: they needed to ask me. Was obviously a gap in
Speaker 5: the recipe or information that was missing, and so it's
Speaker 5: really collaborative to write a cookbook. To write a memoir,
Speaker 5: the opposite had to happen. I had to take myself
Speaker 5: out of the family home actually and go and stay
Speaker 5: for days and sometimes a couple of weeks at a
Speaker 5: time in a house by myself and just really sink
Speaker 5: right deep into some of this stuff. And it was
Speaker 5: it was brutal, and I had to have some very
Speaker 5: hard conversations with lots of people, but most especially my
Speaker 5: parents and eventually my sons. You know, they didn't they
Speaker 5: didn't even know some of the stuff that's in that book.
Speaker 5: So yeah, that was a very very different, different process.
Speaker 5: I needed support, not just my beautiful family, but I
Speaker 5: needed my psychologists had to support me through a lot
Speaker 5: of that as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Is there anything that you discovered about yourself as
Speaker 1: you were writing the book or at the end of
Speaker 1: writing the book?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 4: Good question.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Well, I think one of the big revelations for
Speaker 5: me was it was not necessarily about myself so much
Speaker 5: as it was about relationships, and you know, especially like
Speaker 5: relationships with my parents. You know, like I used to joke,
Speaker 5: you know, one day I'll write my life story, but
Speaker 5: I've got to wait till everyone I know is dead,
Speaker 5: because otherwise had you write about people. But I had
Speaker 5: to have these frank discussions with my parents and say,
Speaker 5: I need you to understand that I'm going to write
Speaker 5: some stuff that might call into question some of your
Speaker 5: parenting decisions, but I need you to know that it
Speaker 5: all comes from love, and there's no blame in any
Speaker 5: of this, you know. And actually that I had underestimated
Speaker 5: them and that I kind of thought they would be
Speaker 5: why would you want to air this dirty laundry? You know,
Speaker 5: still that generation, Why would you air your dirty laundry
Speaker 5: in public? And they were so supportive and so beautiful.
Speaker 5: I know, I know it's been hard for them, you know,
Speaker 5: with their peers and all of that, to sort of
Speaker 5: read this level of detail of out my life. And
Speaker 5: they just said, you write whatever you need to write.
Speaker 5: And I even said to them, I've got the fine,
Speaker 5: like I certain passages I ran by them. They never
Speaker 5: asked me to change a word. And I even said
Speaker 5: I've got the final draft and I'm about to send
Speaker 5: it to my publisher, but I want to send it
Speaker 5: to you first to read, and I want you to
Speaker 5: tell me if there's anything in there that makes you uncomfortable.
Speaker 5: And Mum just said, don't send it to me. I'll
Speaker 5: read it when it's in print. Wow, I said, you
Speaker 5: know what you complained to me after it's been published.
Speaker 5: I don't want to hear about it. But you know,
Speaker 5: and I thought, well, I did. I underestimated how they
Speaker 5: would deal with that. So I think, you know, I
Speaker 5: learned that about my parents. I learned that about I.
Speaker 5: Guess what I learned about myself there is that I
Speaker 5: need to stop underestimating people. I need to be as
Speaker 5: honest with people as the situation calls for, because you know,
Speaker 5: you allow people to sort of step up and throughout
Speaker 5: this whole thing, and not just the writing of the book,
Speaker 5: but the whole falling apart. What I learned about myself,
Speaker 5: and this is critical and Ali, I think mums and
Speaker 5: women especially might resonate with this, is that I actually
Speaker 5: the world turns without you in terms of you think
Speaker 5: that you've got to keep all the plates spinning by yourself,
Speaker 5: and if you stop, then things won't get done, or
Speaker 5: they won't get done the way you want them or
Speaker 5: they won't get done in a timely fashion. But the
Speaker 5: truth of the matter is I had those plates spinning
Speaker 5: so hard and so fast that I fell down and
Speaker 5: all the plates came crashing down, and I had to
Speaker 5: step right out of my life, like I was in
Speaker 5: and out of hospital for a couple of years. And
Speaker 5: everyone just steps up, you know. And what happens is
Speaker 5: you give the people around you an opportunity to shine
Speaker 5: and to be the help heer and not just the helpe.
Speaker 5: And you, you know, you give other people an opportunity.
Speaker 5: And what you can say is, oh my gosh, nobody
Speaker 5: ended up starving to death, nobody ended up in prison,
Speaker 5: nobody that they're all still friends with each other.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 5: I actually, I actually am not as important as I thought.
Speaker 5: But I'm more loved than I knew.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it takes all of that pressure away beautifully.
Speaker 2: Reminds me of that that quote. Sometimes things need to
Speaker 2: fall apart so better things can come together. And yeah,
Speaker 2: it's beauty, not mine. I don't know where it comes.
Speaker 5: From, but that that Kinsugi ethos, you know, the Japanese craft.
Speaker 5: If crockery breaks, you put it back together with gold.
Speaker 5: Gold becomes far stronger and far more beautiful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and to trust that process, that just to accept
Speaker 2: it and allow it. You know, still have your into
Speaker 2: eens of what you want, and yet sometimes you just
Speaker 2: need to let go. It's hard, you will clearly. Hey, Look,
Speaker 2: you guys have been together for a long time and
Speaker 2: this is a relationship podcast for young couples. Give us
Speaker 2: the benefit of your of your experience here if you
Speaker 2: can for young couples navigating their early marriage, what would
Speaker 2: you say to them? How would you advise your sons
Speaker 2: on early relationship?
Speaker 5: Look, my mum wrote us a letter on our wedding
Speaker 5: day that somehow ended up in our honeymoon suite. I
Speaker 5: don't know how my mother inserted herself into her honeymoon suite.
Speaker 5: She wrote a letter and.
Speaker 2: Moms can do that?
Speaker 4: Do that surprised?
Speaker 5: And she said that her advice for them for a
Speaker 5: marriage was, if you want something for yourself, do it
Speaker 5: for your partner. So she said, if you feel like
Speaker 5: a cup of tea, get up and make your partner
Speaker 5: a cup of tea. If you feel like you want
Speaker 5: some space, give your partner some space. And she said,
Speaker 5: as long as you both are putting each other first,
Speaker 5: then and you can trust and know that someone has
Speaker 5: your interests first, and that way you trust each other
Speaker 5: and you're looking after each other. So I kind of
Speaker 5: took that on board, and for me, I think my
Speaker 5: best advice is to just come from a place of
Speaker 5: knowing that you've got a partner that loves you and
Speaker 5: wants the same things as you, wants the same things
Speaker 5: in your life, has the same values, and if you
Speaker 5: can respect one another, if your disagreements can happen with
Speaker 5: respect and love at their core. And you know, even
Speaker 5: if every conversation we're about to disagree is you know,
Speaker 5: I love you and you know we have the same goals.
Speaker 5: But this is what I think we need to discuss.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 5: It's just that respect and love always needs to be
Speaker 5: held at the center and not anger. And I think
Speaker 5: your grandparents had some good advice. Who didn't they make?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I think someone was taking the video camera
Speaker 4: around at our wedding reception. And so my mother's parents,
Speaker 4: reg and Amelda Hannah Berry. It's such a beautiful couple.
Speaker 4: They had twelve kids, massive, massive family. But my grandmother
Speaker 4: was always just so peaceful. Should just be sitting in
Speaker 4: the corner with this you know, just a little smile
Speaker 4: on a face reflecting on all the chaos going on
Speaker 4: around her. But their advice was never let the sun
Speaker 4: go down on your troubles.
Speaker 5: Yeah, don't go to bed fighting. And you know those
Speaker 5: two as well. Every time they got into a car together,
Speaker 5: before they put their seat belts on, they would kiss
Speaker 5: Ah and it was just like sweet gesture, Yeah, it
Speaker 5: was beautiful.
Speaker 3: Should we jump in this?
Speaker 1: She jump in the shower. We do something called a
Speaker 1: two minute showers. So we're just going to hit you
Speaker 1: with some quick fire questions that if you both can answer,
Speaker 1: that would be awesome.
Speaker 2: Sure, Okay, what about your relationship makes you feel most grateful?
Speaker 4: Just? Yeah, just having jewels to share life with, you know,
Speaker 4: like it's it's you know, a little Delilah raising her
Speaker 4: you know, like I know that Julie knows how much
Speaker 4: love is in my heart for that little girl, you know,
Speaker 4: because she's the same.
Speaker 5: Yeah. For me, it's just he is just always They're
Speaker 5: always there to hang on to when I need it,
Speaker 5: to call when I'm freaking out, and just always just
Speaker 5: a rock that I can absolutely rely on.
Speaker 1: If you could relive one day with each other, what
Speaker 1: would it be?
Speaker 4: Oh, God, We've had so many moments, but you know,
Speaker 4: I one of one of our best meals ever were
Speaker 4: in Positano in Italy, just sitting outside at this ridiculous restaurant.
Speaker 4: You know, there were waiters playing violins and singing. The
Speaker 4: moon was sort of setting on the Mediterranean Sea. It
Speaker 4: was it was like a scene from a really soppy movie.
Speaker 4: But man, I just remember sitting there thinking, who am I?
Speaker 4: What the hell is going on here? It was just
Speaker 4: such a It was such a beautiful meal, a beautiful night,
Speaker 4: and just a memory that I'll cherish forever.
Speaker 5: I think I would choose a time when we had
Speaker 5: been going out for not an overly long time, probably
Speaker 5: a few months. And I always loved the South Coast.
Speaker 5: I holiday down there with my family ever since I
Speaker 5: was a baby, and I knew, I knew in my
Speaker 5: heart because it was such a big part of my
Speaker 5: childhood that whoever I end up with is going to
Speaker 5: need to love it down here too, because I intend
Speaker 5: to raise my children having holidays down here. And so
Speaker 5: Mick joined me down the South Coast at my NaN's
Speaker 5: little holiday cottage, and and I'll just I on to forget,
Speaker 5: like it's such a beautiful place. The moon rises over
Speaker 5: the ocean, and I remember him saying, oh, I love
Speaker 5: it here. I love it here, and I thought, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: we're on baby.
Speaker 2: All right. Well, speaking of that, what do you miss
Speaker 2: when you're not together?
Speaker 4: Yeah, definitely, just those shared moments. Yeah, and even you
Speaker 4: don't even realize it happens, I guess, but when you know,
Speaker 4: I get home from work and Jules is home, we
Speaker 4: just sort of debrief our days. Yeah, so that's I
Speaker 4: definitely miss that.
Speaker 5: When I'm mum. So only recently Mick went away on
Speaker 5: a boy's weekend away, and I honestly I miss the
Speaker 5: fact that he brings me coffee in bed in the morning.
Speaker 5: I miss that he'll hamm me my towel when I
Speaker 5: get out of the shower. I miss that I can
Speaker 5: just lean against him and hug him, and I just
Speaker 5: feel completely wrapped up and protected. And and I miss
Speaker 5: just chatting, you know, just not not the I'm going
Speaker 5: to phone you and have this conversation, but just the
Speaker 5: those comments that to and fro, you know, in the
Speaker 5: course of that, that dance of the every day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, lovely, last question, one word to describe each other.
Speaker 4: Jill's definitely is I've just got to say generous, just
Speaker 4: generous of of everything, time, spirit, energy.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's more than one word. Well the world, oh
Speaker 5: my world. Yeah that's great, that's gorgeous.
Speaker 2: And make one final question, do you cook?
Speaker 4: Look that's no. You stick to your strengths, right, I
Speaker 4: can and I do, but not really well done.
Speaker 2: Hey, Julie and Mick Goodwin, thank you so much for
Speaker 2: being with us today. This has been amazing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we've loved having you on and good luck with
Speaker 1: the book. It's called Your Time Starts Now, Food and Fame,
Speaker 1: Failure and Freedom, The life story of Australia's first Master Chef.
Speaker 1: I'm sure people are just gonna love it, devouring love it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you guys, And there they go.
Speaker 3: What a beautiful couple like.
Speaker 1: That's a that's a great long standing, deep connection, isn't it?
Speaker 2: Through so much Yeah, through so much weathering the time together.
Speaker 2: It's still a long way.
Speaker 1: Yes, as being eighteen year olds that what you would yeah,
Speaker 1: where your life journey would have taken you, as as
Speaker 1: Julie and met Goodwin.
Speaker 2: No, amazing And it reminds me of that fridge magnet
Speaker 2: that you gave me that's still on our fridge of
Speaker 2: the older couple standing naked in the facing out to
Speaker 2: sea holding hands. Yeah, it's that beautiful, that beautiful photograph.
Speaker 2: I love it, just that looking ahead facing the water.
Speaker 2: Off we go.
Speaker 1: She's got a big bum like me in the picture.
Speaker 1: It's great, Julie, No the fridge magnet.
Speaker 2: Are you you're well? I was hoping you weren't going
Speaker 2: to go there with the shape? Who cares? She is
Speaker 2: two amazing people, and I love your bum. It's not
Speaker 2: as big as you think it is. You're going to
Speaker 2: need a new pair of glasses. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Maybe.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, look i'll get you fitted out.
Speaker 1: We hope you've learnt a little bit more about the
Speaker 1: fabulous relation relationship of Mick and Julie Goodwin and grab
Speaker 1: her book. I'm sure it's fantastic.
Speaker 2: We'll catch up with you next time.
Speaker 5: Bye for now.