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