When Julie Goodwin joined me on the couch for a new episode of The Australian Women’s Weekly Love Stories podcast, we covered a whole lot of ground.
With husband Mick by her side, the couple opened up about their giddy days of first love, the joy – and pressure – of being parents to three boys under the age of three – and, of course, the show that led her to creating recipes here at The Weekly.
The Love Stories podcast launched in February, and celebrates love in all its forms, featuring unforgettable voices from The Australian Women’s Weekly universe, like our beloved recipe columnist Julie. Find her episode on this page, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Before MasterChef Australia shot her to fame, Julie was, like many parents, trying to make ends meet while cooking up delicious meals for her family. Money was tight. There were days they worried about their ability to pay the mortgage and put food on the table. And to her surprise, it was this stressful experience which was the secret of her enormous success once cameras started rolling on MasterChef.
“In terms of transitioning from not having much money into being able to cook that show, those are directly linked,” she reveals on Love Stories.
“And it made sense to me once [judge] Matt Preston said, ‘The best cuisine of any nation comes from its poverty.’
“When you think about when people are really hungry, how inventive they have to be, that’s why human beings figured out they could eat kidneys and other gross things like that … That’s what builds a cultural identity. And I thought, ‘That’s what’s happening in my house, from the poverty of not having much to eat.’
“I couldn’t walk down and buy the best piece of fish or the best piece of steak or whatever. I had to make do with what I could scrounge together. And because I love food, I love eating and I love feeding the people I love, I wanted to make it as good as I possibly could, for as little as I possibly could. And that stood me in awesome stead in the MasterChef kitchen. I was able to get flavour out of not much.”
When it was time for the Mystery Box challenge, Julie was always in her element.
“I used to call that Tuesday night dinner,” she laughs of the small range of disparate ingredients contents had to work with. “The [challenges] I didn’t like so much were the invention test, which I liken to walking into the supermarket 30 minutes before you’ve got to put dinner on the table and there’s too much choice.
“In the MasterChef pantry, you can afford anything you want, because nothing cost anything. Too much choice overwhelmed me. It was that restricted ingredient list that was where I was home, because that’s what I’d been doing for 20 years before I went on MasterChef.”
Having won that inaugural series, Julie has maintained her love of cooking affordable yet delicious food that now she shares with readers of The Weekly each month. As our regular columnist, she’s parlayed her family favourites into easy meals for us all to prepare at home.
This incredible relatability around not just meal time but in all areas of life are what made her and Mick delightful guests to host on this very special episode of Love Stories. Tune in for this and other tales from the highs and lows of their lives. And email me at [email protected] to let me know what you thought!
Mick and Julie Goodwin were the third guests on our inaugural podcast, The Australian Women’s Weekly Love Stories. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
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