All right, welcome back to the Mason Coalk Show. We've got someone I'm actually kind of nervous. I'm a bit nervous to actually interview because I love Mark cooking. I love everything about this man and what he stands for. We have a bit of a background for introduce him. He's an actor in the comedy series Low Down. He's a Bachelor of Arts and Politics and Government from the University of Kent. Was a DJ and a punk rock musician. This is probably not what people know you for, but
also it was on ABC Radio on Saturdays. Food writer for Delicious and Taste magazine. Now we're getting their world's best food journalist in two thousand and eight credit director of the Melbourne Food and One Festival two and five, two thousand and nine, an international sensation, a master chef in over one hundred and seventy countries around the world. And now I might have to update this one. But has at least four best selling cookbooks. Matthew Preston, Welcome to the pod, Mason.
What a fantastic honor to be Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I'm loving what you've done with the man.
It's a fantastic yeah, great, little unique kind of way of doing podcasts.
Is it?
Four best selling cookbooks eight eight? Wow? Double that and we'll get yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, you know, look that's why I think I've probably reached that point. Now I'm sitting there and going maybe not for a couple more years, you know, you get yeah, I'm the good No, no, look look they've gone really well. People love them. It's great. There's nothing better than meeting people actually now have one of your recipes as in their repertoire, like that's your bolognasers out of their bolognaise or a dishy you've come
up with that they cook regularly. That that's the that's the ultimate accload for a recipe writer, because that's what you want to try and do you want to you want to. The book has to be living, It has to get dirty, it has to live in the kitchen. But but there's also that point where you know, I did a I did a vegan and vegetarian book two years ago, to kind of history of food book the last last year. So now I'll take a take a I'll take a After that last time, I was like,
I'm not going to do anymore. And then last night I woke up and I went, oh, that recipe, and there's it because I think, yeah, I think, I think you can. You can only do it when you've got stuff to say. Yeah, there's no point putting another homeless recipe. You know, if you're not teaching how to make their own tato tots, or or teaching people how to make a vegan mayonnaise using chickpea water, then you're not doing
a job. Just hacking out the same beer can chicken or or the same recipes have been lots and lots of other cookbooks, and let's face it, there'll be seven or eighty cookooks released every year, and I reckon eighty percent of the recipes will be sorry no, well no, they won't be garbage, but they'll be they'll be the same. You know, do you need another Do you need another? You need another recipe for meat life?
Yeah?
You know, we need the best recipe for meat life. If you find.
Book, well, no, give them. Let his book a shout out here.
So I know what the last tie was? Was that kind of and think lots of people did it. That was the lockdown labor of love and not was a quite quick to write. But this World of Flavor took me nine ten months because I went and tried to find out the true history of the one hundred best dishes in the world out there, and I looked for what really was the truth behind the Pavlova. Was it really originally Australian, was it New Zealand or was there
someone else there? And the answer is the answer is is very clearly, it's very clearly Australia's claim is is far far better than New Zealand's. There. You know that the recipe every one sites in New Zealand as being the original Pavloa recipe actually was written by an Australian who'd also put it has also put that recipe in
her own Australian cookbook two years earlier. So but then the weird one, that one with Pavlova, which I mentioned, is that the there's a there's a thing called the shram talk which comes out of Prussia, Germany and the earlier. And so I'm looking at chasing those recipes down. And the earlier for respee I could find for shram talk came out of a German language newspaper in Texas. For US, so so, and I think they also also find it
in Wisconsin as well. So it's a weird idea that actually, if Australians are going to argue about who's has the rights to Pavlova, it's probably it's probably it's probably German heritage settlers in the US versus Australians, and New Zealand is not going to look in so so stuff like that's great fun.
To do since maybe one of three different areas it's a little bit of a mix of everything somebody.
But I think so that's the thing you always you know, what tends to happen now with the Internet is that one someone makes a claim and it gets repeated and repeated it but it comes true. And it's actually nice to kind of myth bust time of that and pick some of that. So I did that, but it's incredibly labor intensive. You end up you end up reading reading documents in Korean or trying to translate stuff from High
German using your minimal high German skills. But it was that was really satisfying in terms of finding things like the first the first spaetty bolon As recipe that I could find anywhere in the world, everyone thinks it's an English rescpee is actually four years earlier in Adelaide. So
stuff like that's kind of surprising and good. And then the other thing about doing that kind of research is finding out that the you know, Massimine curry, that great Tai curry which has a has kind of Arabic or Indian anti students because it was originally made by by Iranian traders, by rich Ranian traders in the old Thai capital. But when you look at the old recipes, from the earliest recipes written recipes are probably the eighteen hundreds. They
all use. They all use a bit of squeeze of bitter orange juice in there to brighten up the richness of the coconuta curry. And so when you do that and that so that that gives you a new take on the recipe. So sometimes a new take comes from up here, and sometimes it comes from re searching and finding and finding a great idea that they used to do two hundred years ago that we don't do anymore. And you when you do it, you go, oh, that totally changes this ditch, brightens it up. It's fantastic.
Just in those three minutes, I can tell already how much you actually love food. Man, Like some people, you know, they do the job and it's their job. And there's some people that do the job and is their passion and that is you want to want to find out.
But I think that's I think that that's that it's the old cliche about never working day in your life. My old man was a naval journalist. It was his hobby, his obsession. My my sister was a tennis journalist. Now where's in tennis? That's obsession. If you can find a way of making of making your job the job you love,
it's fantastic. It's one of the things, right, I get quite upset when I've met a few over the journey, But when you meet footballers who hate playing the game and you've got they've they've achieved what when they were probably eight or nine was the dream, and then they get there and they don't like it and they don't love it, and it's like, that's so hard. That's so hard to do something you thought you'd love and then discover that that that you actually you're not you're not
getting off on it. So I think if you can find those things and I'm very lucky. I'm very lucky to have I have. For my thirty or so years in Australia, I've never done a job that I didn't wake over the morning and go get excited about going to well. I mean, I think I've had one morning when I didn't want to go into work. That's that's insane, and that's something I'm incredibly thankful for. I've been very lucky for.
That is amazing. Man. Well, I'm going to start this off. I want to ask you two questions now. These two questions I'm gonna ask you now, but you're gonna answer them at the very end, so a little bit of time to think about them. Two questions. First one, what's your easy go to dish to? Yes that anyone can do?
Yeah? Sure.
Second one, what is your weirdest thing you have in your kitchen at the moment? Oh yeah, okay, we'll have those a little bit about that, but we'll start back originally, I've got a really kind of weird crazy So this is the beginning. You're a punk rock musician at one point in your life.
Yeah, you know when I when when I started out, music was the thing I love the most and it still is. I mean I am obsessed with music. We go and see bands the whole time. You know, back in the back in the day, the podcast was a fanzine. We me and my best mate Jeremy used to do fanzines together, design and write them, go to gigs, sell them. I then I end up working in a then we ended up working for a Watson magazine in London called City Limits, and and getting to put on shows and
getting to put on bands, which is fantastic. So we did things like you know, the first time the Vanna came, they came with Tad and mud Honey. We were and we were involved in putting that on. So I love that stuff. I still play guitar. I'm terrible at it, really, I've got I got the front the front room. My house is set up with guitars three three, So that's okay, that's that's not true.
Good, you know for you guys. A food critic.
I remember I remember to Kirk Pandelli who obviously played in Next Lesson, and he has he has he has a little flat I think in Pott's Point where he keeps his fifty eight garuse a little little like sad Proof that we can go over there. Everyone's seen it that they're they're living on their und so yeah, so so I really enjoyed that. I played through university in bands. We were always we were always terrible. We had no chance of getting a deal.
But reunions.
When he's right now, no unions coming. But but I loved it. I think there's there's some What it is food is a very individual experience, Like maybe you can go with a group of people and I've done it. You go when you have something that you all have a devastation, all have one dish and it's so beautiful. You look around and people are in tears, and that's
that's the ultimate moment in dialing out. But it's so rare, whereasf you go to something like Glastrombury and you stand there with seventy thousand people singing along to Paul McCartney or seeing you along to Radiohead or seeing you along to Oasis, that that's some magnificent experience with you know, so many more people. There's true shared experience. The hidenes it. Football's a the same you know.
You about the crowd. It is totally different.
We saw that, we saw that during during lockdown without the crowd and playing, but just going to see it. You know, you want, you want the roar of the crowd, you want, you want the singing. And obviously growing up in the UK and growing up you know five minutes walk from Stamford Bridge, one of the great football stadiums of the UK where Chelsea play, and having been going to that stadium since I was probably seven eight, you know that that communal singing, that that communal experience of
communal pleasure. It's absolutely central to who I am. So food is a bit it's a bit rare like that because it's not really a commonal thing. Although we talk about going out in groups, it's a different sort of thing.
It is something you talk about. Doing a bit of research on you. You talked about you going out and food is not the main thing. It's actually the people you're with. Yeah, of course, now I find that I
find that awesome. As a food critic, you would think, oh, he's just about food, taste, flavor of palette, everything else, right, But yeah, I'll find it amazing that you take that and you go, no, that's just the conduit to the actual night of entertainment and that people are the most important thing that makes a meal.
Absolutely and you know, I think, I think if you I always you know, that realization came from me asked right at lest of my favor favorite meals, my five favorite meals in a year, and they all started with, you know, with my England mates going to Copenhagen to eat it the name, but it was started with, you know, with my with my partner, with the woman I love with the It started with the person first and then
the experience. And I think that's one of the things when you when you when you're looking at where to go, I mean, that's the thing, people, is where's the best restaurant you go? Who do you want to go with? You know, the place you're going to want to go with with with the woman you're romancing with, your best mates,
with your girlfriends. They're all different. They're all different and and often the most important thing, the most important thing is that is to not this is my service is so important to not let negatives derail the night, like you know, amir with that's that's tasty and fine and services grows. Okay, is good. You're going to enjoy your friends.
That's not going to derail it. So so to agree that's more important to have an absence of negatives rather than have amazing food terrible service, or terrible food amazing service. You know, a negative with with derail the night will stop you having having pleasure having said that, you know, a great night out. I went out the other night
with four friends. We had we laughed pretty much for for three and a half hours, but there were some really good land ribs, you know, with really good like you know that when the fact it's all, oh, I've broken down, crispy, and and that that was the moment when everyone got you know, you're all laughing and talking then suddenly and this is a great moment when you're in out and the table that silent, Yes, I and you just get a little bit of the evoluti.
Your senses for the moment.
So I think, so, I think that's I think that's I think that's kind of a that's sort of the benchmark. But but again it's you know that, and that's the same when people come around your house, you know, always people are talking about cooking, dinner parties or and I think that's why dinner parties the concept is kind of something that sort of disappeared. We have people around. But the whole idea about about cooking for other people is
it's an absolt negative. Just don't don't don't stress it, don't do three courses, don't do stuff that's going to stress you out. You know, put tasty on the table and everyone's happy. You don't need to do you don't need to do. You know, it's the old Italian idea that some beautiful you know, some beautiful fresh tomatoes, a little bit of mozzarellas and fresh herbs, bread, I mean.
Simple things.
It's it's so we're kind of we're kind of nailed. So I think sometimes we get we let the kind of the pomposity of and the showing off nature, because obviously there's a big element of eating out that's about showing off and about conspicuous consumption. But I think that's probably the least interesting or attractive part of eating out or having people around.
Yeah, and it's it's a cliche of it is very much like someone I think of some of the most amazing meals I've had, it's with my friends or my family, And it's the situation of life, of where you're at, and maybe a conversation you have that's life changing, that goes to pitch on a totally different directive.
And I think that, Look, I think that in terms of those key moments stuff, there can be a pizza on the table. You know, it's probably more like to be a pizza on the table than a than a nine course degastation. Bizarrely, because you know, the moment you go into a gastro temple, it's all quiet and it's all about the food. You you know, I'm not knowing that that's a bad experience. It's a bit like going to church, and I don't think that's necessarily not necessarily fun.
I've got a lot of fan questions at the end. But you did mention pizza. Someone asked one of these fan questions earlier. Pineapple on pizza, Yes or no? Absolutely, you've heard it here first.
No, No, I tell you why. I tell you why Pineapple and pizza. Pineapple pizza because when you because when you when you're out at a really bad pizza joint, the Pineapples is a reliable ed, you know what I mean. Yeah, that's why it's like ketschup but very similar. That's a very smart thing to say. Rayson. It is like ketchup Hamm and Pineapple. The hammer Pinapple is always the one.
If you go to a bad pizza, like a really bad pizza restaurant, the ham and Pinea will will hide all the sins of all the time, so that that pamma pine of we might go to in a bad pizza restaurant. If I'm in a great pizza place, it probably went Pineapple won't be number one. And if I make pizza myself, pineapple doesn't doesn't figure. But I think it has its role and I like the idea, so you know, I like again that's another one of you know,
everyone Hawaiian. The Hawaiian pizza didn't start Hawaii. He supposed to started by made first by Greek guy in in Canada. Actually Portland, Oregon. Someone someone dug up a menu from Portland, Oregon in the late fifties and there was a Hawaiian pizza from there. From so Portland, Oregon. Inventors of the Hawaiian pizza.
Wo Wlody thought he was absolutely crazy.
I'm sure, yeah, yeah, I mean, I mean he had capskum as well, which I think, well, you know caps ca THAT'SDD like like ham and pineapple I get because you know that's gammon stakes in England. But the moment the captain gets in there question somewhere, it's like it's like the moment you put you put you put an egg on your game and the state with your pineapple egg and pineapple really really just thought about a bad idea.
Well, we'll go back to I guess what brought you to Australia. Now obviously from England and you actually came over here for something and that's actually just wrapped up sad. Now, how do you feel about the whole thing? I mean, it's been a long running TV show for for ages, I feel like in Australia and something's very iconic to this town of Melbourne and of Australia in general. What's
your thoughts on everything? Kind of finishing up? This is one of the things that kind of got you to this country.
You know, it was I came here to write about names and home and away. But that was my that was my job when I when I arrived here, and I did it for for five years, and I watched every single episode for five years. Look, I think in terms, I think in terms, there's a whole lot of things
we're gonna we're going to lose. We're going to lose an amazing training ground for Australian actorsure and certainly when when you go to Los Angeles and you talk to people there in casting about why they love Australian actors because they've they've done an episode a day, like they they they they have learned on the job. They're quick, they're efficient, they're they're they're loved in they hollowod casting directors purely for that reason. We're going to lose that.
We're going to lose that expression of Australia that that we put out, that we put out through the world, through all those different places that that had that had the show. You know that there's that lovely idea that in in Milton Keynes, which was a new town in England, they spoke in the Australian accent because the only really the only unifying infants they had on accent was Australian soaps. All kids watched Australian Sight, so they started to speak
with the Australian twang. So so that that that's kind of good and I think it's a great way of us selling that, you know, and selling this image of a of an of an inclusive, of an inclusive Australia. It's not you know, other reasons to to to to be sad about it. I think it's a very much an expression of Melbourne. I love that idea that people would come and want to go to Pincoot Court to
see it. I was lucky enough to get invited to do an episode and the thirtieth anniversary and get to spend screen time with the great, the great doctor Carl Kennedy and Alan Fletcher, which was fantastic that they were. They were masters of what they do, so it was But I mean, like like all these things, we all have our we all have our use by dates or whether you're talent on the show or whether you're as a show. But I think it's just a you know,
it's a it's a pinion that nothing's replaced it. I think that's I think it'd be fine if there was another show that was coming up where yeah or yeah or just someone where where you know, there aren't many there aren't many great outlets for young Australian actors to
go and work on. You think of the amount of drama there's out there there's really not a lot here and and that provided both that Home and Away provided so many great gigs for for so many young Australians to kind of to cut their teeth, whether whether it was a as a as a principal role or just doing you know, just coming and doing four episodes and get any bit of experience or something for you, something for your showroom.
You just feel I feel like every actor, actors sits out there that's in mainstream kind of movies. Now you about Robbie, I think was on one of them, Robbie Chrismsworth Chris, Yeah, yeah, you know, I mean, I mean, it's a it's a it's a long part of the chapter of life.
And I think that that's the thing. It's a bit like losing it's a bit like losing your apprenticeships at hotels, you know. There you you unpick a level of training that actually enriches the skills of the people that we want to be surround by. We want we want great actors. We want to see the best actors. We want we want our actors to be amongst the best in the world. We want our cooks to be amongks the best in
the world. You know that's that's sort of the dream, you know, as supposedly gives us you know, the best the best sports people in their chosen field as well. But I think it's you know, that's one of the one of the ways we express ourselves as the country and we're you know, we're a pimple on the on the back end of the world. But you know that culturally it's really you know, and that that that's that
thing that we never understood. I think we were there, we were making a TV show, making Master Chif in a shed in on the showgrounds at Adam Flemington and then you go to India and it was massive, that's crazy, six million people watching. But also you know, they they saw they saw a cast of people that were incredibly diverse. I mean they saw they saw a show where people respected,
they saw a show where people got on. You know, they're all the all the things that we'd like to I think if we ideally were saying what's the Australia want to live in? You know that they're all there and it's good to be able to it's good to be able to project that at a time when you know, you know, at one point when there were all those racist tax going on against taxi drivers, and there was a perception of Australia being a really racist country and
we've not been a great record in that area. So so anything that we can do to to show that, you know, to show that it's not the case in terms of culture, it's fantastic.
It's pretty crazy and you probably wouldn't realize this, or I'm sure you do, I guess to a certain extent, but how much Master Chef probably shows Australia to other people, Like I read something that people are learning English in India.
That's emerging middle class to do it. But it's also in Portugal, and it's also in Brazil. And you know, I was in an elephant sanctuary in Sri Lanka and these Bulgarians came up to his own no English, came up and said your mastership. So I think that that idea, that idea of essentially, I think, because the show also was very was very supportive that I think, and that
I think is very much an Australian trait. I think that that that that's really nice that people picked up and identified that in all those markets, and it's a weird thing, you know, We're standing in the in Portugal airport, and this woman came up to my, my wife and said, here's my number. If you have any trouble that translating, you just want to put me on the phone, and I'm happy to help you with the love Master Chef everywhere running on Portugal. People are doing this really nice
thanks to learn any Portuguese. But also from my perspective, I mean that's the other thing, you know, to be able to have a little level of recognition or notoriety, it's fantastic because it means that I can talk about food. Wherever I go. People wanted to sit and talk about food, and they'll tell me what their grandmother cooked. And so in terms of finding recipes, or getting inspiration or or just having a good you know, talking about food, it's a great way to get to know people.
It's funny. I was actually a difference place in Sweden. I was a friend of mine from high school and I probably five or six years and I was staying at his place and started talking about different TV shows and whatnot, and they, oh, yeah, we were watch an Australian show. You know, it's a Master Chef. And I said, ah, I know a guy from They're like, oh, I was like my presence just like the Cravat. It's good by like just like lost her mind that do you.
But I think that's also really funny as well, because it's because it's Melbourne and everyone basically does know everyone. There's that there's that lovely thing that you know it is. It does anchor this idea that the people talk about that they bump into, you know, whether they're doing business in India or they're doing business in Venezuela, and it comes up and do you know and they go, yeah,
of course I'm from I'm from Melbourne. Like you know, if you're in Melbourne, you would have seen you would have seen someone, You would have seen Andy, you would have seen you, You would have you see these guys around the traps. So you're you're kind of like you're connected. You order this time And that's what I think. We're traveling always looking for connection, aren't we.
Yeah, they talk about travel connection. One of my all time icons, I feel like in the food industry in Rust in Peace, Anthony Bourdain. Yeah, sure you have done a few different things. Yeah yeah, man, you played an interesting game then, true, go I'm not sure if this is still played today, because still you.
Can go up to Brunswick. I are two places playing true go, which is weird. It's sort of like a it's sort of like a cross winning croquet and bowls. I suppose it's a It's a really interesting game. It was originally it was again it was thought up by by a load of a load of track layers, railway trail layers, as a way of passing time using the mallets of the sledgehammers they had on the and the I think they were, and these little rubber kind of these rubber washers they rub washing on. So we went
out to film. Tony was here filming one of his TV series, So we went out to we went out to play trigger and Tony was an absolute natural trigger. It was really annoying, like he was he was he was, but also he was like he was like he was like he could have he could have formed the American the American team and been the captain. He was that level of good he was. Really it was his hidden skill.
I mean, he's like the only American ever plays like the American every single year.
That's right exactly. But but in this case he was really really good like he was. He was, he was right up there.
He was like the Dusty Martin. Did he talk trash the whole time too? Was typical New Yorker kind of like there was there.
Was a bit of there was a bit of trash talking, obviously because he was so good, and I think, and I think because he was like, but isn't this is really easy? What's the problem?
You know?
That kind of annoying when people got a natural talent, So that that was fun, but look, it was grey. I was lucky enough to film a couple of series with him, and a couple of episodes from series with him, and also meeting a few times for dinner catch up with him. He was a he was a great character and he and I think he brought a real, a
real looseness to to making that sort of TV. Was often very po faced and very much about and very much about, you know, the fancy restaurant and the white tie and the guy with the French accent and the waste of the white clubs. And he was all about the street and finding great food in holes in the walls and and and they kind of a lightly place which, as we know, the best food I find when I'm traveling is normally in homes or or you know, in
small street restaurants. So that that that that that that was great. But yeah, he was He's a he's a big loss because I don't think anyone's come along who can who can actually has that kind of easy way with the camera, and the way they shot it was really loose, you know, it was really well. They'd have this thing where they the editor would the editor, the would have three editors working on the show. So the editor editor would work the wide camera and be there
for the whole of the filming. The d P and the director would each have a camera to be a sound guy. And then at the end of filming, saying Melbourne, the editor that that one editor would take all of the tape back and go and edit that that that episode. So having seen everything, having been there, having shot the general vision, we shot the wide stuff, he would then go back and edit it and another editor would come in.
So it's really so it's really it was a crew of maybe five people, but that's why it was so that's why the stories were so good, because after what happens is you send footage back to an editor back home and they then we talked about they described and filming becomes like making paint, and the editors paint with that they extract a story from the paint that they've got, Whereas in that case the story was he'd been there for the story, so he told the story as it happened.
And that's a great thing with Tony. Things could go off on an angle, or they could they could kind of reach a dead end. But that was finally just moved on. It was it was felt very felt, very real, felt very real life.
What was his favorite part of Melvin maybe I said, what was his favorite cuisine while he was here?
I think I think he really loved he really loved the kind of the Middle Eastern middles It wasn't an there he knew a lot about so I remember, I remember we took him to butchery, Turkish butchery we had and he was like, I've never had this before, and I was like, okay, and he loved it. But I think, but I think, I mean, but I think that's the thing. I think that's the thing with with the favorite cuisines. I think when you're someone like Tonya, when for most
food lovers, you know, it's like it's all great. You know, there aren't many you know, there are some things you don't want to wait, there's some things specific you don't want to eat that some cuisines have more of those
than others. But basically, you know, he could be in he could be eating around the fish restaurants, around the fish market in Tokyo, or he could be he could be you know, he could be eating in he could be eating in the in the cinnamon the cinnamon bunshops in Sweden, or you know, and he would and he would find great joy and excitement because it's because it's an expression of place an expression of people as well.
I think that's what he founds was so good. He used food as a way of reaching an expression of place and expression of people.
Yeah, he's a phenomenal person and he's someone I don't know if you've seen the movie Roadrunner on his kind of whole life. It's really well put together and talks about kind of from starting being and it goes into a bit of the background of how he kind of shot in the original first kind of Days and coming
through with Kitchen Confidential and everything else. It's really interesting, just kind of different like perspective, and for a guy who was very well known to kind of get a bit of a backstory kind of what was going on in his life.
I think what was interesting is that he wanted to go to places that were difficult as well.
Yes, and he wanted to try things that most people would not try.
But without it being without it being I'm not going to I'm going to hate running shark. You know, it's kind of without it being a performance sport.
But remember one time he went and did this scene where it was like, you know little suction cut things that athletes do, Yeah, he did that, but they were like pricking you and then pulling like blood from you and it was like this whole thing is all over the floor. It was insane. I was like, this has nothing to do with food. Was like, you gotta try this and I look at.
That that there There were definitely, but that's also that that was great. I think great TV has a bit of madness to it. I think that's what helped me Tony Boy and got a little bit of madness as well as well as great stories, and that that helps you not quite know what's going to happen next, and that's what you want. You know, we were the predictability of so much electronic media. You know, buy me girl, this girl, same story. So it's exactly going to again.
It's like the same homus restaurant recipe Traye Endusty. It's great when you get something new and fresh. And we are you know, I believe, just like you know, just like we have we have that I think all restless legs and we have restless paletts and and we're always in there. Now nowadays we're looking for a new and what's the new?
So much access to everything?
Yeah, and also we're what are we gonna do with the kick cat? Now? What flavoring with sabi white chocolate matcha? You know that now? I mean having said that ninety nin percent of the time, whenever there's that kind of brand extension or experimentation, the original is always the best.
But shapes, but barbecue shapes, I've learned everyone says barbecue shapes original the best.
That's right, that that that's right, the whole the whole shape. Well, and and again, what is the most popular chip flavor? You know in Australia, it's one of the old traditional ones. Yeah, always comes up with it and you go, well, what about all the fancy, the truffle and the and the you know, Pruvian chicken or whatever it is, any.
Bizarre flavors, and it's like, no, no, no, it doesn't last.
You know, it's great for a moment. It's that moment different, something different, move on, trying something different, move on. But which is always so well well served in Australia, there's always somewhere new and exciting to try, often in terms of cheap and being an expression of maybe a regional cuisine, which is fantastic very much.
I like go into a Calls and you see the big Cadbury blocks and you've got like a whole section just for the chocolate of Cadbura, and I'm like, every time I wrack up, I'm like, dude, there's six more flavors.
And you know that you're never gonna You're never going to buy the pineapple block. Na.
I mean, who, what's your favorite?
What's give caramel or fruiting up?
That's good?
They I reckon that solid. I reckon that. I recooni. They're solid. You know. I don't mind a dark I don't mind a dark mint. I do love a white. You see, you're not allowed to talk as a food person.
Yeah.
People, well there was an argument it wasn't chocolate. But I think both the US, the US Food and Dragon Mason administration, and also you have said that white chocolate is it chocolate? It's got coka buttering it. But yeah, it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a common chocolate, you know, Okay, it's a kind of it's a it's a stonewashed jeans of chocolate.
How that's this you've I looked up something the other day and it was what was the most embarrassing meal you've ever cooked? And I think there was one about you putting food coloring in potato.
I was, I was all excited. I was at university. It was a time in my life when green eggs and ham typestyle. I wasn't makes and I wasn't making good I would have been I've been eighteen nineteen years old.
I was.
I was young, I was naive, I was stupid, and I thought it'd be really interesting just to we didn't need to like dye all the food. So we died. We died. The baked beans bright red and we love to cutch it, and we dyed the mashed potato blue and.
And it was almost fair amount of food color. I feel like there was air.
There was a fair amount of food coulting. But the bizarre thing was psychologically eating blue food felt really wrong, you know it was I mean, I was eve that the same taste. It's the same taste, yeah, but the but mentally it just like you know, you're when it comes you week with your eyes you kind of your eyes are going, well, this is weird. Don't have it? You know that that that that wasn't. That wasn't. That wasn't one of my finest moments. But you know, but
that's all. Yeah. I mean, I've got three kids. When i'm when i'm when i'm testing recipes for a new cookbook, there will invariably be those moments where you get there they're flicking bits of the side of the plagues. It's so horrible.
So you done that. That would be your hardest critics.
Absolutely, absolutely the hardest critics. I mean, with with with with with You know, this probably worse when they were kids, but you know, just the mere sin of cutting the zucchini and batons not in rounds.
They're that fussy, you.
Don't understand what kids are like kids kids will And then then the week later on my Zucchinian batan is not in rounds. So it's oh yeah, changed in all three of them, you know. It was I remember sitting that and going gee, you know, and it's like cooking for a food credit when you're a top chef is compared to be easy, compared to cooking with your own own family, own kids who have all these different all these different kind of obsessions at different times. So so yeah,
so that that that was I think I made. I think the worst one was the sinner putting putting capsicum in something, and my daughter went through and picked out every piece of capsicum and put it around the edge of the plate. So when this was finished, there was a little kind of clock face of capscum. It's like, don't do that. Or the worst one is let's not let's not have them again.
Do they they actually tell you something?
You know? Oh no, I mean no, my kids are my kids are brutal. But you want it, you want it, because then it doesn't go in the book. You don't you don't want to put stuff like that and that in the book. You want everything. You know it's going to be all through the no filler. I mean, that's the whole idea. You want it to be delicious because you know you've got a responsibility when you're on a recipe that that was if someone makes it at home, One, it's going to work to it's gonna look vague like
it is in the picture. And three it's going to be tasty because they're spending not just the money to buy the ingredients, but also the time, but also you know, it's the it's dinner for the kids that night. You know it's about it's about you want to give people a win. So the kids go, that was great. That's how that.
I can't do it again.
That's staple, the ultimate, the ultimate accolade.
That is funny. You are the gatekeepers at home, making sure all the recipes in the book.
Very important, all approved by the present, very very important, very important.
I was talking about something a bit off off this kind of topic. Now, you've recently been in a car accident. Oh no, sorry, you have a long, long time ago, and that did that change your life perspective kind of? I know, like I feel like there's a lot of different things in your life that have happened. You've done everything under the sign, like researching your mate, You've been on radio, TV. You know, you do the food critics. Stuff you do very old.
It makes them very old. When you get to my age, you have done a lot as well.
You know, you fit a lot in fit a lot.
I have a big attitude that if you're offered something, no matter how weird it is, you have a go at it that why not? Because why not? Why if it scares you, you do it, if it if it concerns you, do it just you know, and then you don't have to do it again. But you do it once just to just because it's and then try and then who knows? And then next thing you know, you're you find yourself acting in Bold of the Beautiful and you go.
Wow, how good is that hole for another resume?
But just be really annoying when you when you when you're with it, when you're with a top actor, and you go things like you because I don't I've done not Hollywood, what what happens? And then then they then they then they call it up on YouTube and go it's terrible.
But I think, like back to the chore as I want to say. It's like, because there's were you defining moment?
Why don't I don't know whether that's it? Yeah, is that a defining Is that? Is that that moment?
Maybe it's another one. Maybe it's something else that change.
Look, it's interesting and I was. I went up at university. I was convinced I was going to die before twenty eight in the white car crash, and then I would have and that this car crash would have happened when I was about twenty eight actually, and and it with the car was white. We went off into trees and it was kind of like the premonition I had but
didn't die. So so there's so there's an angle there that says there's an angle there that did I then go okay, my my, my made my deeply held fear that I was going to that time was limited, that was was removed, and that and that therefore you had to you had to you had to kind of live as if you're going to live till seventy I don't think so I didn't have an effect on me. It was before I before I moved to Australia didn't have
an effect to me. Moving to Australia. Possibly when I moved to Australia nineteen ninety three, so in three or four years before then, I don't I don't think so, I don't think. Probably in the same way as I came to Australia. For I came to Australia because I'd always lived in London. It seemed like a good idea to try something that was a that was more of a that was more of a you know, when you've grown up in a city like London, you've really only
ever been there. This idea of living somewhere else seems so weird. London's in American was the best city in the world. And then I moved to Australia and I fell in love with it pretty much almost immediately, and really, you know, within five years there was no no way I was going to go back to the UK. So I think that that was probably that was probably a bigger transitional moment. Obviously meeting my wife, which happened, you know when I was here, that was a bigger transitional moment.
Having kids is a bigger transitional moment. I think there are I think there are those moments. I think that I think often those transitional moments rather than coming through. For me, matters the trauma. It's when it's when you when you've yearned for something and you achieve it, and then you go, what's next, rather than going or you know, rather than going and let's stay here. This is really good,
Let's go on and do something else. So I think that's a I think that's a I think that's a that that maybe is in terms of my my kind of mental mode. But having said that, I did Master Year for eleven years, so and we kind of you know, Year two was probably the you know, they were the best narratings we were ever going to get. So I could have at that point if I maybe for thought that. I mean, I love doing that job so so, but again I'm very lucky. You know, I get paid to
eat cake. I've written I've written for Delicious for twenty years. Yeah, you know, that's an crazy long time to be with one place, you know. And my wife, My wife calls and caused the team up there. My family. I literally caused them a family because they are like a family. I've known them all for so long. So I think
I think those things. I think that's where for me that you know, although I say I like moving on, and there's also a large element of when I get when I find something really love, you know, let's actually celebrate and embrace it and love it and go How lucky am I to get paid to come up with recipes or to travel to Argentina to do a story on the food of Buene's areas, And that's a job. I mean, that's a that's a that's a dream for my those people and for me that that that's a job.
And then also travel with the photographery is a close personal friend and who We're gonna have a really good time with them. We're gonna enjoy the We're gonna actually enjoy the experience with So yeah, no that so I don't think that. I mean, all I remember with the car crash was this whole thing of you know, coming coming to and having the car had gone into trees and the bonnet, the roof had been collapsed down to
the door gam level. But I was able to kick the door open, and I was wearing a really heavy wax got in like a barber jacket, white wax jacket, and it was covered in glass just embedded all over it. So like so like, so I was that was you know, I've got one scar on the back of my hand, but that would have been the whole of my body would have been ripped up with all the glass it was driven. But luckily it was all driven into into
my tors and into the jackets. I took the jacket off and that was run away and I could use the jacket to hold the to hold the when the car had crashed and obviously flowing up into the air, I'd hit the handle above the door on my arm up here and I'd smash the bone clean through. So that was just hanging loose. So but I was able to pick up the jacket like that, and we'll come in. You ask that when you have on the football field and you have a big injury, you know, you just
adrenal gone. You just deal with it, you know, and it's okay. What's not okay is when you end up in the when you end up at the hospital and the gang we might have to operate, So we're not going to give you any pain medications. So but but we're gonna have what we're gonna have to do is we're gonna have to just separate. You've got You've got a jiggy zaggy fracture here and the two the muscles
have knitted the bone back together incorrectly. We're gonna have to pull those bones apart and then we're gonna have to pop it back in so they knit, and then they'll heal, and then we'll probably put a pinion. This is the eerie. So I'm lying on I'm lying on the bed, nod, I've got no mads. I'm lying on the bed. I've got three nurses on this arm, pulling this arm down as the doctors pinning my chest back, and they pull the broken arm apart and then pop
it back together again. So that was and but it still wasn't child burst, Mason. It was bad, but it still wasn't. So so I think that, I mean, I think but that. But so those things are kind of they teach you a bit about yourself. But I don't. I didn't suddenly go I'll never let anyone else drive, or you know, or I'm nervous when my kids drive, obviously, I mean any more than so any other parent would be. But yeah, look at so so I'm not a not a not a pivotal moment in my not a pivotal
moment in my life. I found them normally, the pivotal moments in your life are little things, you know. That's certainly the getting the phone call from a friend them from with master chef. I've got a phone call from this woman. She sounded very young, like a like a like a her work experienced kid working for a casting agency, wanting advice on chefs because they were making mass chef. And so I gave her some advice and that that phone call led to me being auditioned and then cast.
So but that and that was totally that's the totally
random thing. And I think that that that idea that opportunity knocks quietly is you know, and that's one of the things we all have to learn is rather than shouting the whole time, is just to keep quiet and listen for an opportunity knocks is really really crucial, really crucial advice, because so many opportunities pass you by if you're not you're not engaged and seeing what's going on, yeah around and the opportunity's being you know, fun opportunities or you know, I'm in the radio is a great
example of that. Radio is a terrifying prospect, you know, someone for someone who for someone who's who's worked in TV. You know, not not not not the journalist Matt preston pre TV, but someone's worked in TV where if you say something wrong, you can edit it, you can cut it, you can do it again.
To be live well can be a bit stressful. And also in Surdayday.
Saturday eight thirty eight thirty twelve, last hour of sport first two and a half hours is magazine stuff, so gardening but available on the web. But that moment when the when the red light goes on and the MIC's there and you're by yourself and there's nothing else that you've got, no host to bounce off, you go just got to start talking. That's it. That's it, that's it. I can see you.
It's not easy. People think, oh, you just talk for a living, and it's like now you have to have things everything properly structured, working your way into one thing to and next, to make sure you cover all the different things that are going to be in the show.
Like there's a lot that actually goes to it. And before we got on, we were talking about the research you do beforehand, and it's it makes actually going live on air that much cleaner and you have an idea of kind of what you're going to go into and maybe some factual information behind it.
It's fantastic. And also you you also know when someone's bullshitting another place. But I think it's I think it's that. But I think that that whole thing of that whole thing of no safety net is really interesting because we normally we normally as we get older, we get better at finding safety nets and protecting ourselves.
And it's good.
And I mean, you try that. You know, football is all about no safety net, taking yourself to a place where where you're just you know, where you're running backward the flight of the ball, not knowing who's coming to world. That's right, But you do it, and I think that's a I think it's a fascinating I think it's a fascinating to overcome your overcome your natural fears to do something is really really interesting.
And I want to ask you another things. We're going to wrap this up here in but now you're massive massive on Cole's second bite, which is an initiative you kind of become a part of. Can you give us a bit of a background of what they did.
Yeah, look I started. The Second Bite is a charity that started as Ian Cast and Simone Cast and a couple of Melbourne is going to Prayer Market and collecting produce that was kind of that it wasn't going to last until the next market day and then dropping it off to charities. Really simple idea that's now growing. That's now growing into the biggest food food recommation charity in Australia. From when we do we work with farmers, we work
with all sorts of stores. Obviously coals it is a big one, but an idea last different coals alone, we picked up twenty two million, twenty two million kilos of food from coals that would have gone into landfill.
So forty four million I want to say to meals to be made from it.
That's exactly right. So so that that ability when you've got when you've got charity struggling, if you can provide them with the free food for their for their their lunch program or it's food to give out to their clients, it's fantastically it's fantastically important. So I've done that for
ten years. The charities has gone from strength to thanks thanks to really really good people within the organization and and it's a and it's something I'm very proud of it that that whole idea we need to do stuff to We have a massive issue with food and security in this country, and we have a massive, massive issue in terms of waste. And just I love it. I love I love an idea where you've got two problems.
You've got food going to landfill that people could be eating, and you've got who were not enough food And if you just put the two together, you solve those two problems. It's like, how clever is that? Fantastic, simple efficient? Such a simple idea. So that's so second Bite's a second bit. It has been a bit a pleasure to be a
part of. And and again you know, it goes from strength and strength, and I think people are getting a sense of how important is I think we all identify now as food prices are going up, so that you know, and the amazing thing we did a during the pandemic when everyone was obviously you know, when it was supposed to be self absorbed, the amount of donations we got went up during the real because people identified that that there were people more people were struggling out there and
there was the need for help. So I think it's fantastic that the Oussie Punters are kind of supporting Second Bite in order to do that job, because again, you know, again it's that simple idea that for every one dollar donted, Second Bit can redistribute enough food for five meals. So it's a you know, it's just it's it's a it's a small step to make, but it's a huge impact for so many strains. And and when you hear the micro stories, when you when you see the you know,
you went to a distribution center recently. It was a charity that worked with women's refuge and they'd basically they'd basically learned up all these plastic bags. We're going to women and families, you know, in women's refuges, And there was like a whole long line, like maybe maybe sixty meters of bags, and you go, that's having the problem is and that's one of that's one of fourteen hundred charities.
So when you see that sort of stuff, you go, it kind of redoubles your efforts to do more because you know, it means so much. I mean, that whole idea, not just the not just the financial and being able to, but just that kind of idea that that there are people out there who care and who want to and who you know, food is a food is an essential
part to our well being. You know, if we're well fed, we're happy, and so you know, getting people fresh, nutritious produced to eat should be you know, if we can find a way to help, let's try and find a way to help.
I must say thank you because I actually went to a place called the mat Pintass in the city all right, yeah, sure, yeah, Collingwoodsworth and they talked about second by one of the
things that helps them with their food. So I've seen firsthand how impactful it can be to some of those people that are in the homeless community and get those free meals from a place like that, And it is so amazing to see there's even like a miniature community within that now because of the options and the availability of things like this.
And I think that the main proane Ness is a great example. Sacred Heart Mission is a great example. That Paramount Mission is another example that you know, if you can provide people with a meal and that kind of support, they'll come in. But if you these are marketized people,
you don't don't see community. We don't see them in the community, but you can if they come in, you can help them with secial services, support with dental, with medical, with mental health, so you can actually you can actually help them become part of the community. You can. You can also help them in terms of providing other other services they need, because otherwise they're really hard to meet. So it's a you know, it's a it's a it all starts. It all starts with it all starts the
bottle of pumpkin soup. Very simple, alright, slice of carrot cake, sliced caro cake. I haven't actually said this yet on the pipe, but I've got a sliced carrot cake for you. I'm very excited.
Hold back here.
Who doesn't love carrot cake?
I think it's a healthy cake. It's not what I made it.
When you buy anychus putting a bit of oil on there body.
There is there is a bit oil? How much old enough to make it moist?
The fair amount? And would that be cream? Cheese icing on the top?
There is, yeah, made of vanilla. But a lemon, very nice lemon.
I've got you know, you know, you know the history of carrot cake. Do you know? Do you know where carrot cake the first ever recipe? There are lots of carrot puddings that exist in medieval medieval history, but the first recipe of carrot cake being served. It was served at the Francis Tavern in New York when Washington and General George Washington said goodbye to his troops after the British had sailed away out of New York. He had this big dinner for all his generals and carrot cake
was on the menu. And that was the first sign and that that's the first time anyone can find a reference to carrot cake be on the menu. So that was it was George Washington. And it's very tearful farewell that he said he was off. He was he was then heading off to the content of Congress. Was it anyway? He said, He said thank you to all his to all his all his his commanders in this. And you can go to the room. You can go where this happened. You can go to the room. You can see the notebook.
It was a French guy worked in intelligence for in Washington's content, a army that that recorded the meal and recorded the carrot cake.
You're not only a food critic, you're a food historian.
But I think that whole thing. I mean, how good is it to know that? And also, but also it changes the significance of you giving me carrot cake because it's good, because it's got an American aunt Stevens and you can go And that's kind.
Of you know, it's like drinking wine. You want to know where the wines come from. You want to know the bit of the story of how it's made and everything else. Like there's it's not just the taste of it, it's actually the whole story that comes from right and it and.
It connects you through It connects you straight through to to history and gives you a sense of how ancient some of these some of these recipes are. You know, it's fantastic, It's fantastic. I'm very excited.
Yeah, we're gonna do at the very end, but before that, we're gonna do fan questions. Yeah. Great, we're gonna smash through these. But actually we need to answer the first two questions I asked you. I'm going to give you a reminder. One first question, what's your easygo to dish that impresses anyone that anyone can make. Well.
Look, look, assuming they're not vegetarians, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I mean, you know, there are there are things that we can do for them. But I think the simplest thing to do lamb shoulder. Grind up some coriander seeds, some cuman seed, rub it over the lamb shoulder two hundred wee other for other and for half an hour, and then put the temperature right down one and slow cook it. So slow cook lamb shoulder, it'll fall apart
off the bone. And then with that some salads, so maybe you know, maybe a kind of like a couscous salad or a quinoa salad or a freaker salad, but loaded with pomegranates and pistachios and current soaked in muscul or tea and maybe a bit of fetter, so lots of lots of kind of texture and the flavor with the lamb shoulder, and then some flat bread and you can either eat it like a salad with with some meat on the side, or you can put the put everything into the flat bread and roll it up and
the way you go.
I'm getting nervous now about this cake. The second question, what is the weirdest thing you have in your kitchen at the month, I'll give you.
I'll give you a bit to try. It's an it's an afghan. It's a hard afghan cheese. And it looks like it looks like it looks a bit like rabbit droppings, large rabbit drops. But they're white and it smells slightly of smells slightly of feet but but they're designed. There's this cheese, is you know that whole the whole brilliant of humanity to be able to preserve things for a long time. This cheese can be preserved a long time. That's probably that. I've also got some parmesan crusts infusing
anywhere like tool you used to cook? Oh no, no, I'm pretty for me. The things you need is a potato peeler, a microplane, and a silicon spatchlor I don't. I don't iron a mandolin maybe for slicing things thinly, I don't. I'm not a big fan of the kind of like I'm now going to get my melon ball or out my prison scoop. I'm not going to get out my my PRAWNI valor my my zucchi cora.
So now I've got I've probably got all those things, but the kids get fussy.
Well, no, we we had to put a we we had we we we redd the kitchen about six years ago, mainly so we could have something for me to put my poppy sea grinder and my my my strange Sarginian Yachi machines which never get used. But yeah, that's right. There are pieces of living and living and live in a cupboard. But no, most most of the stuff, most of the stuff I call it most recues I write.
And they're designed. They're designed to be you know, you standard standard rental kitchen, you know, because you don't want to tell Pody's an ice cream machine, because ninety percent of pill don't have them. You don't turn to tell them to use a to use a kind of some weird, weird sort of Bavarian horse castrating knife, because no one's got you know. I mean, they make it so that everything should be about making it. And then the same
thing with ingredients, the same thing with ingredients. I've got no recipe for that weird Afghan geese in any of my books, because I want people to be able to go, and I've probably got them in the fridge and if I don't, I can go to my local supermarket and I can probably pick out how good.
Well, we'll get back to the fan questions. First one, you have over four hundred cravats. I haven't actually talked about these, and yes, how many? What's the count now? And how many suits do you are because we know you love your fashion.
Yeah, cravats. That's probably gone down to about two, about about one hundred now there's been a mass cull because I just don't have space and no, no, but but people do come around, as they did on Saturday covering game. I'm going to a cravat party and do you have a cravat? And yes, you're very lucky. I do have one. So so they get lent out sent out suits. I do have about fifty different suits. I love my suits almost more than cravats. Those cravats, right, they're just material,
often from the remainder bin of the shop. Right. So we've found a couple of young Australian indigenous designers and we've got some cravats from from them for or scarves from them, which which I'm wearing an MKR, which is lovely to do. But often they're just it's literally just an edge bit of material. So it's not the same a good suit as you know, you're a man of style,
a beautifully cut suit, you know. And I mean that I'm very I do love the fact that I do love the fact that everything I wear, from the you know, the R and Williams boots, to the shirts and gans and the suits made in by Peanut Prinsy and Brunswick here in Melbourne, it's all Australia made. And I think that's that I've been very proud over the last twenty years to do that and to support those guys. And it's great because they're just beautifully made things, you know, just that.
Makes you feel good.
Oh my gosh, I've got I've got a couple of new suits we had made from car that just I'll put.
Them on and just stand up to.
The shelves.
Are good.
It drops twenty keys of you. I'm like, you know, it's it's you look good. It's that the fabrics are interesting. And I think the great thing we live in an age now in Australia where people are men are so much more adventurous about what they'll wear. You know, in the old days, it was a maybe a comedy tie on Fridays, and it was maybe a comedy Hawaiian shirt
for the barbecue. But now you'll see men in checks, in multiple colored shirts, in you know, socks, socks, and the way of the Australian male dress is now compared to say, when I first arrived in Australia thirty years ago, it has changed beyond recognition, beyond recognition.
Now. Actually was going to wear a cravat to this, but I've come to the oralization. Cravats are not easy to find. No that I was, no that I called probably fifteen to twenty places. Now that you told me that, I was like, I wish I want to call them, and they're.
Really expensively, maybe one hundred bucks for Convan.
It's like, No, the one place I found, oh yeah, there you go, where's the resolution.
You can go down, you can go down to the op shop and you go, that's nice, you know, and that that's one of the fun with the fashion has been exactly doing that.
You know.
Of the of the stuff that I've worn over the last fifteen years, you know, they a lot of the originally the original pants I was wearing these crazy harlequin type our girl check pants. They all came out of John Day's golf pants.
Oh my god, they.
Were and they were and they were John Day and they were like ninety bucks a pair. They were, so they were cheap and they and they came all these crazy colors and pans. So we looked there and then and then we bought some. Then there were a few chanting pairs we bought from a like an army disposal store for like fifty bucks from Scotland. And then and then then the last batch all these I bought. I went through this phase wearing and I still love these
broad stripe pants. So I've got a beautiful Collingwood pants black and white strip about right. I've got the Collingwood ones. I got pink and white ones, I got blue and white. I got so North Melbourne.
Style yellow yellow.
You know, I can go. But that's all that's all made with. They're all made with Ikia curtain February. Really I was doing that is a hot take. I did not know that I was going to Ikea. I was wandering through and we wondered they went that curtain fabric is pretty good? How much that I was like seven bucks of meters?
Oh, I've got the idea here that's.
And they and they hang very well. So yeah, so there's a lot of it.
You know.
On one side, there's the kind of the lardie properly made suit and that of the property made shirt. On the other hand, it's like, let's save the money in other ways and find cheap fabrics rather than the stuff that's come out of a little cross somewhere in Scotland.
You've never walked into someone's house and didn't been matching something of the furniture.
Would be, could be, could be very easy.
I have.
I have walked into places and found that the clothes, the suit I'm wearing perfectly matches the background. I kind of blur into the background, like the coat if there's one of those feature walls in duck egg blue and the suit and easy just drifts straight in. It is it is, you know, it is. It is a it's been, it's been. One of the great joys has been. It has been to not take it too seriously and to
and to wear wear stuff. And I love that, and I love the social media interaction of you know, Matt Preston dress today like the man from Delmonte, Matt Matt Preston desk today. Like a climbian drug lorday, like a care bear. You know, there's a there's a great well, it's just I just like that. I do people having fun with what you do, you know, and you know, you know what it's like that there's the social media is a two edged sword. It can be really bitchy.
They can also be really funny. And you would have had that with some with with whether when you started wearing the goggles. Now we all know the really serious reason why you're wearing the goggles, but some of those comments were really funny. Some of them were horrible and bitchy and disgusting, but the funny ones. Actually, you can't break something and go great, good onion, nice work.
I like that, true or smashing some of these is great for you here. So we'll make this quick work. But what's your cheap meal and what's your fast food meal that you would go out and have.
I'd probably go for I probably go for pizza. And if I'm looking for for fast fast, it will be ideally small, family run, you know, yeah, yeah, probably yeah. I think I think pizza is the ultimate food. You know, it's you needed one hand it's got all the all the all the food, all the food groups and one in one place, in one slice for the great idea. And I don't mind my a burger, A burger for someone like Andrews very nice.
What's your favorite dish you've ever had, a master chef, because I watched a video of you and I thought it was the best outro into a commercial I've ever seen in my life. And it was you and you had a plate in front of you and you looked at it and you go, this is disgusting, and you threw it on the floor at the moment and then it was a break and I was like, oh my gosh, I'm about to lose my mind. I was just sitting one of my seat and then you come back and what do you say?
I see, Yeah, then I that's disgusting, disgustingly good, classic, classic, classic TV mist experience. I'm not a fan of a mis threat, I gotta say anymore. But but that that that seems I think now maybe because because the kids who are watching that were seven, eight, nine, ten, it's kind of had this weird second life now and I get I get pictures regularly from friends who were at events like Golden Planes or beyond the Valley and they'll be a there'll be a matt press and holding a
plate distin wandering around the crowd. My poor son is my more older side is twenty one, said he was out one of that's three in the morning and there's his dad crown really dad, and I quite I think there's a suitability given that Duff is food backwards. I think that kind of makes sense. But yeah, that that that that that was, I don't know. Look, there's so there, there are so many in terms of in terms of the kind of the they were invariably, they were invariably.
You know, there was one guy that put a little bit of liquorice in a licorice in a in a red wine sauce for a steak that was a really clever idea. Another guy smoked smoked butter and used that for another sauce that was really delicious. Then there were you know, there were there were certainly slow cook ribs, and there was a aven Kui has been on the recent series did a great, uh great dish called Drunken Bruise that was really really delicious, kind of like age,
I think. But but you know that there have been other years. Over the years, there have been there have been so many spectacular stuff, a lot of the stuff that Billy cooked back that that that we when we did an event we went to Japan and we filmed under Mount Fuji. One of the amazing things we did. I've got Mount Fuji like here in the background, and and Sarah Thong brought this kind of version of bac out that was kind of like it's a traditional Chinese
Hong Kong, Chinese Singapore and Chinese dish. It's a kind of it's a it's a soup. And it was like unbelievable. I mean that that was really that was very memorable. But it's hard when you know we've got that kind of you've got the memory of the dish and you also got the memory.
Like everything else. You can give a shot out here best restaurant in Melbourne. Oh this is under the pump here, but you can give give one of probably your list of Okay, who's paying, who's paying, You're paying, Vitamont paying.
Vitamonder Arattica. Okay. If if friends are coming from me to state at the moment, probably Gimblet because it's super cool playing. I mean, I love I love Embler, I love Marion my my other two places. I've intero recently. I really like Sarai, which is kind of crazy Portuguese kind of barbecue. Hopefully, hopefully radio is really good and enjoy that because I've got a great vibe, great seating outside.
Tulham's fantastic. I mean, you know, it's a bit like it's a bit like asking It's a bit like asking Catherine Murphy I do the sports side of the radio show for her favorite rugby union player, because she's going to go on, She's going to go on for three or four days, just listening another Ohen Farrell and you know, and and and and so yeah, we're very lucky, very lucky. But then you know, then in Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, we've got we're very lucky to have some spectacular places to
eat and a really high stand. I've just come back from London and I had four well known places, and I reckon I could pick a number of places in any of those cities that are better those well known places. You know, cool places to go.
It's Melbourne's multicultural capital.
Melbourne's amazing, but there's also amazing food in Adelaide. There's amazing food in Brisbane. There's great food in Perth, you know, so we're we're lucky. There's great also great food in Ballarat, and there's great food in you know, New so I think kind of an or in Barron, or in Newibar. So we're you know, we're lucky. There's fantastic food all over this country where we're in a kind of a sweet spot at the moment.
If you were to dress up for a dress up party, who do you dress up as? Yeah? Oh, what do you think on that? I'll go to the next one.
I think, I think, man, it would be fun because I've just I'd just be under the French accent and I'd be able to carry some sauce with me, a little ja, this is my sauce. I think that that would be funny. That'd be funny.
I love that. First So I'd say someone's going on a first date, what should they cook first date?
Something they've cooked before, love that, something something that isn't heavy, something that's light, so you know whether it's whether it's like something that the other person likes. Don't don't bring them, don't bring them a smoked salmon and and avocado salad. If they don't like smoked salmon, so I think that. But but they're the three things light something they like. But and again, don't stress about it. Don't stress about it,
and not too much, you know. So So I mean, I think, I think, you know, start with a salad. Start with a salad. Easy, it's good. Good of his stuff with with with things asparagus, asparagus, poach, egg shaved, shaved, shaved parmesan. Simple.
Worse cooking mistake because I've made one. I'm embarrassed to say this, but worth kale in the oven too long.
Burn, that would be that, that would be that would be bad. I'm dadley doing making biscuits and mixing the salt and the sugar up because I was rushing.
That's books.
Those cookies, those cookies were. Those cookies were terrible.
Best way to cook chicken and steak. I know someone else recently asked you this and you said, use a thermometer. Now would you say chicken poached, grilled? What's the best way you reckon to actually taste chicken?
Look, I mean, I mean, I think if you're doing meta date me, I think poach chicken is really good, but I think it's I think you're a white poach it. So bring your bring your water with your your or your stock with your aromatics to the boil. Then put your breast in and then lid off. Leave it forty five minutes and you should get this lovely silky set breast, which is fantastic. That's a great way cooking poast chicken for me. I mean I think that, you know, because
again I'm I've got kids. I think one of the great you know, the go tos, I've got three of them into a two made let's good, let's to the two major ones. Chicken thigh. Yeah, cut into each side under six pieces, tossed it, tossed it in melted butter, and then toss it in panco bread crumbs with grated parmesan and thyme, and you'll get these little nuggets. Bake
them the oven. Bake the oven for about ten minutes one hundred and eighty and then those nuggets can be eaten like nuggets in a comb with mayo and sarracha. They can be put into wraps. They're really simple and the same exactly the same idea mix up a cup of peanut butter like half a cup of hosts in sauce some mirror together, mix it up and then again same thing. Marinate your chicken thighs in that and then then then spread them out on a line baking sheet
into a hot oven. Four the same thing fifteen ten to fifteen minutes, and then knowing what we both those, turn the grill up and put them and get the edges nice and charry and sticky, and that to you, you get that lovely almost like sarte flavor. And that's like, you know, that's five minutes of preyer and the ovens
doing most of the work. You can you can you can chop up your your your lettuce or your or your nice slore if your lettuce is too expensive, with with drumhead cabbage while the while, the while the chickens cooking. So that's really good steak. I don't I really don't need a lot of I really don't eat a lot of steak. But I got two ways, uh porter house, and there's a there's a great there's there's a great Malaysian thick soy called ketchup manus toss choss the steak
and ketchen manus on the barbecue grill. And what you'll do is the ketchen manus is sweet and it'll form a bark and you can cut you and get like a crusty bark on the outside of steak. But kids still keep the steak really like rare and blue in the middle, which I love, which is great over your two minute noodles. The the other the other way, the other way. I'm a rather than steak. I'd rather go
pork neck. So get porkneck, which is cheap. Slice it really like freezer, to chill it right down, slice it really thinly, a bit of salt on it, and then just on the barbecue really quickly, like you know, to see her each side. And then into a taco. It's some pineapple and corn susa. Maybe it'd have avocado, and that's genius. And it's really cheap and it's you know,
it's good. I'm not a massive fan of the big steak, but you know, the rule with the steak is as hot as possible, as hot as possible, one side, one side,
until the color comes. When you look at the edge of the steak, you can see it changing color from red to red to basy brown when the color gets halfway up the steak, check where your time is, so it's four minutes, flip it over and then do half the time on the other side, two minutes on the other side, and then you should get a medium were steak every time.
That is phenomenal. Now, if you're not hungry by now of star, I'm about to go a lot du last questions, what's for dinner? It's not.
I don't know. Actually there's absolutely there's literally, because my family's been away, there's literally nothing in the couple. We're just throwing away some old some old sushi rolls, terrible sin. They didn't get eaten. So I'm thinking tonight you've been a Carbonara of the night before, so it won't be pastor.
I'm thinking it might be. It might be those little chicken nuggets, huge rat and I think in wraps it's quick, it's easy, and whenever the kids are drift back in, there'll be some waiting the album for them.
So good. Well that's it from the fans questions. I just want to say, first of all, you should be super proud of everything you've done now, like doing this research, You've done that many different things from radio TV, food and everything else. It's so impressive. I've got friends from all over the world that know who you are, and you've been so successful and do it such a positive manner. I think it is something that everyone kind of you know,
is attracted to. And I really appreciate you coming on. Man, it's been an amazing time. We're going to have this carrot cake try it and that'll be maybe a little extra bonus bit to this podcast. But seriously, thank you so much for coming on. It's been an absolute honor. Learned a lot in this learned a lot, and there's a lot of things.
I've just put on my menu, I think, so, I mean, I'm expecting I'm expecting images to.
Yeah, there's been a lot of content coming your life.
It's good to say. No, it's a pleasure, Mason, and it's a it's always a joy to talk with someone who loves their food, and it's it's always lovely to be going around town and see your your small, unimposing frame sitting on some corner table. Gang is that Mason Cocks folded up followed. It's great. It's great, Mason. Congratulations on the show. It's really good.
Thanks nice to come around for the next Thanksgiving dinner and I can't wait. Candy yams, Yep, we got the whole thank do, the full spraat deep fried deep fried turkey. Nah, don't beg enough that here, don't be enough, the whole baked eight hours. It's a full thing.
Yeah, fantastic.
But like you said before, it's about the people you're starting with.
Yeah, I love that. I love that. Thanksgiving Day in twenty seconds.
Twenty fifth, twenty fifth, thank you. That's a question, Mirk. I'm not having you look Today's fourth of July. That's all I know. Happy for the July. Trying to get away from the fact I.
Don't know what thank Giving changes.
It's a Thursday, the last is that what it is? That is?
You know we're gonna work out when thanks Doing, because you know, I've looked as I've just had an invitation for dinner at Mason has and I'm quite excited about that.
That's good, that's just