Opinion
The childhood secret that has driven Julie Goodwin, and the recipe everyone should have
Peter FitzSimons
Columnist and authorAfter winning MasterChef in 2009, Julie Goodwin has gone on to a stellar cooking career across many media platforms. She has just released her memoir, Your Time Starts Now. I spoke to her on Thursday.
Fitz: Julie, your time starts now! In your memoir, you wrote about the auditions for MasterChef, lining up at Darling Harbour in 2009 as an unknown woman from the Central Coast, with hundreds of other hopefuls on the day, in what turned out to be 7000 candidates in total. What did you bring to the table, pun intended, that saw you win the whole thing?
Julie Goodwin in MasterChef Australia: Fans and Favourites
JG: In all humility, when I’m in something that is very difficult, I can just put my head down, and give it everything I have to get through, so …
Fitz: Can I beg you to be less humble, for us? There are 7000 people lining up! Many of them have the same capacity to focus as you, and with more experience as cooks. But you clearly had something that cut you out from the mob, that propelled you to win that show and make an entire unforeseen but glittering career out of cooking. I am looking for a secret source of wisdom, a guiding principle that got you through.
JG: Since I began cooking the driving force has never changed. It is to feed the people I love the food that makes them happy. That is what cooking is about. For me, it really got started with my husband and then my three sons walking through the door at the end of the day going “What’s for dinner?” Smelling what’s in the oven, loving it, and then really enjoying the family meal together. The joy that brought me has pulled and pushed me through getting more skilled at cooking. So it’s honestly just about generosity, and making sure people feel full and happy at the end of the meal you make.
MasterChef’s Julie Goodwin on the red carpet.Credit: Getty
Fitz: I love that. And what do you say to those of us who want to head a little way down your path, but who have an unfortunate medical condition whereby our eyes glaze over with recipes that have complicated terms like “steam”, “stir-fry”, “strain” and “stock”?
JG: If you don’t understand the recipes, Peter, it’s the recipes that are not good enough. They should be straightforward, and use ingredients everyone can find in their local area, with methods everyone – even you – can achieve, using equipment that everybody has in the kitchen.
Fitz: When you won in 2009, fame and fortune descended beyond your wildest dreams. Lights, camera, action, magazine covers, TV shows, books, radio gigs, “Come-this-way-Ms-Goodwin-your-table-awaits-and-can-I-have-a-selfie?” Did you stop and pinch yourself? “How did this happen to me?”
JG: I pinched myself then, and I pinch myself now. I was a very ordinary person living an ordinary life and, all of a sudden, I have all these opportunities. I was meeting all these extraordinary people. I remember the first time I was invited to the Logies, I was just sitting in this room, and I knew every face, and they knew me, and I just could not get my head around it. And I still can’t. Oh, my God! How did this happen? I guess I was just in the right place at the right time, stumbled my way onboard a juggernaut of a TV show – and, as exhausting as it was, I loved it from the first.
Despite her troubles, Goodwin’s memoir is also full of positives.
Fitz: Yet this is the other thing that rather shocked me in your book. Behind your endlessly sunny persona we saw on MasterChef, and see still, there was a great deal of trauma. I was stunned to read not only about your sexual abuse at the age of seven, but that you buried it for nine years, until suddenly at the age of 16 it all came back. And then, as school captain of Hornsby Girls High, things got so bad you actually had a suicide attempt …
JG: Yes, I don’t know how someone could not think of something like that for that many years, and for it then to come back. Maybe it was my little brain trying to protect itself. And I don’t know why it stopped trying to protect me either, but it was like something in the periphery of my vision. I turned my head towards it, and there it was and I went, “Oh, my God, that really happened to me.”
Fitz: And then you spiralled?
JG: Yeah, and you know what? I never put those things together, or truly understood what happened, until I wrote things down in chronological order for the book. I think it helped me to heal.
Fitz: Was it a straightforward decision for you to write so openly and transparently about it?
JG: Yes, it was: If I’m going to write it, I’ve got to write it all. If I don’t write it all, there’s no point in writing any of it. Because if you gloss over the really shitty stuff, then you’re not telling the truth and without it being the full story, then it’s unhelpful to people.
Fitz: Your advice to others who have been carrying the same kind of secret?
JG: It’s not your shame. It is not your shame to carry. It’s not. It was done to you, it’s not you who has done wrong. And if you can find it within yourself, find somebody to help you process that, get it out in the open, get it out of your heart, and just regather the parts of yourself that have been exiled and life just starts to get better.
Fitz: I imagine it is in the same spirit of transparency you wrote about your drink-driving charge six years ago?
JG: Yes. I would rather it never happened. But at the end of the day, I have to put it out there and I think that just describing what happened might help somebody else from being so careless.
Fitz: Where are you up to with grog?
JG: I’ve been completely off it for three years.
Fitz: Are you in the category of, like me, you don’t miss it at all, or are you one who proudly if agonisingly counts the days of sobriety?
JG: For the first few months I counted the days, but now I don’t even think about it, other than sometimes when I walk into a wedding and there’s someone at the door with a tray of champagne, and not a non-alcoholic one among them. I could have one, but it wouldn’t end up being nice. And I don’t miss it at all. It harms me so much. I’m so much better off without it.
Fitz: OK, in your book, there’s a killer and transformative quote that I absolutely love: “We live two lives. And the second one begins when you realise you only get one.”
JG: [Laughing.] Do you know who said that to me?
Fitz: No?
JG: [Delightedly.] Your wife, Lisa!
Fitz: No!
JG: Yes! She said it to me, and it helped me go on a new path.
Fitz: Well, she’s never said it to me! [Both laughing.] So this is the approach you now take?
JG: Yes, I give that quote to people, and it’s like a light goes on. It went on for me. I now only do the things I genuinely want to do, and I don’t do what doesn’t interest me.
Fitz: Is that quote the origin of the title – Your Time Starts Now?
JG: Yeah, absolutely, as well as it being the kickstart of every cooking challenge on the shows. It’s also about saying “Whatever has happened in the past, just put a full stop at the end of that, and start from now.”
Fitz: You are blessed to have such a fine family to be sharing that time with.
JG: Yes. And on September 1, it’ll be 35 years since Michael put his arm around me when we were 18, and we’ve been married for 29. And we have three fine sons, with great partners, and a beautiful granddaughter.
Fitz: Where are your own favourite places to dine out?
JG: Surf Cafe, Terrigal. I also love the Railway Hotel and the Gosford Hotel. If we’re going a little bit fancier, I love Yellowtail, also at Terrigal.
Fitz: Your favourite cooks and chefs?
JG: Well, obviously I loved Margaret Fulton. But I also love Stephanie Alexander, Maggie Beer and Rick Stein. He’s a real honest sort of cook. And yeah, I love those kinds of cooks who do that big hearty cooking.
Fitz: OK, who would you like to cook for? As in, if you were starring in a new version of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, who’d be your dream guest, and what would you cook?
JG: The honest answer is my own family. They’re my favourite people. My husband, my boys, their partners and our granddaughter at the table is the absolute pinnacle of joy for me.
Fitz: OK, funny you should say that, ’cos they’re all coming to dinner next Saturday night, 7pm! You’re celebrating your happiness, your successful book, and nearly 35 years since your husband put his arm around you. What would you cook for an occasion like that?
JG: I would probably put on like a Middle Eastern feast. I’d do a slow-cooked lamb shoulder, a whole lot of mezze, dips, olives and stuff, and we’re gonna throw in labne. I’d make home-made flatbread, a whole lot of really vibrant fresh salads, and spicy potatoes. Also whole roasted cauliflower with tahini sauce on it. Yeah, and some char-grilled veggies with lemon and almonds.
Fitz: Lisa and I will be there! OK, here’s the final question. Michael Caine’s autobiography Elephant to Hollywood was well received for the great accounts he gave of his acting life. But it was celebrated for the famous recipe he gave of how to do perfect roast potatoes. I read it, followed it, and my roast potatoes have been divine ever since. Your book is dotted with great recipes, but can you give me the one? What is your answering recipe to Michael Caine’s, the one people will do ever afterwards?
JG: OK! It’s called labne. You buy a litre of plain Greek yoghurt. Put a teaspoon of salt into it and stir it. And then you drain it through a colander and a piece of Chux cloth.
Fitz: A fresh Chux cloth, yes?
JG: [Slightly gasping.] Yes! A brand-new fresh Chux cloth or the like, and drain it overnight in the fridge, or for a couple of days, when it will be thick and delicious. Now, you can either use it as the bed for the potatoes, carrots and roast pumpkin, or serve it with some chopped herbs, chopped tomatoes, olives, a drizzle of maple syrup and a few hazelnuts, and serve it as a meze platter – with flatbread. Enjoy!
Fitz: I will. With similar concision, is there any way to make carrots interesting? Mine are as boring as Birmingham, no matter what I do.
JG: Either roast them and toss with yoghurt, tahini, lemon juice and cumin for a side dish for a Middle Eastern feast, or for your regular baked dinner put them in the oven (cut into large chunks) with extra virgin olive oil, butter, honey and sesame seeds and roast until golden and sticky. Always add salt.
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