A good win
01.12.2009
Julie Goodwin was the winner of the popular TV series, MasterChef Australia.
Celebrity is a new experience for Julie Goodwin. In less than a year this 38-year-old Sydney mum has gone from being an anonymous shopper at the local greengrocer to 'New Idea's' cover girl at the newsagent next door, her beaming smile accompanied by a caption suggesting she's a millionaire.
"Anything could be further from the truth!" Julie told the audience at the 2009 Australasian Catholic Press Association (ACPA) Conference Dinner, held in Sydney on September 10.
As ACPA's guest speaker, Julie was relating how winning the actuality TV show MasterChef Australia in July had brought her face-to-face with the hitherto unknown experience of sudden fame and its consequences. In fact, a record-smashing 4.1 million viewers tuned in to Network Ten for the Sunday night finale where Julie snatched the title of MasterChef from Poh Ling Yeow.
Coming after four months secluded inside the eastern suburbs mansion used as the set of the TV show, Julie found herself stepping out into a glare of publicity, a household name and a hot media property.
Since that moment, Julie said, she has been learning "how to deal with the media". "The day after the finale aired, with two hours' sleep under my belt, I spoke to 70 radio stations and dozens of newspapers. It was intense."
Overall, the experience was very positive she said. Families wrote to tell her how MasterChef had brought them together every Sunday night for three months. "I've heard stories of children eating foods they had never tried before, teenagers exploring new career options, retired chefs returning to the game and one three-year-old who carefully plated up the dog's food in its bowl."
But what Julie wasn't prepared for was a second wave of "fictitious stories" in gossip magazines and tabloid newspapers. Many of these were filled with hateful quotes lifted from internet forums.
"Certain journalists, and in this instance I am using the term loosely, drew on the forums for their material. Completely one-sided, non-verifiable and anonymous web posts were hauled off the internet and printed as newspaper articles.
"It disturbed me to think that this material could be presented to the newspaper reading public without the source being identified."
"I've always believed that if you are willing to say something in a public arena, you should have the guts to put your name to it. So that was a tough time."
Julie said during and after making MasterChef her greatest support had come from family and friends, particularly from her husband, Mick, and their three boys Joe, 13, Tom, 12, and Paddy, 11.
The Goodwins live on the NSW Central Coast where they are members of the Catholic community of Our Lady of the Rosary Parish, Wyoming. Julie and Mick are co-ordinators of the Family Group Movement in the parish, which encompasses around 50 families.
They have been part of the Group for more than 14 years. "We get together for dinners and picnics, community activities, and all that. The contact means we share each other's lives and we can all help out if someone is sick or the kids need to be minded or picked up. It's an anchor in my life."
Julie said she doesn't see herself as a Catholic role model. "I'm not the perfect mum, but I do my best. When people ask me about my faith I say 'I'm Catholic and I let them join the dots."
She said the MasterChef experience had reminded her of her own resilience when things go bad. "When it's really hard never ever quit."
"I've learned that in one short year life can be turned completely on its head, and yet retain all its most important elements: the constant support of a community and the ongoing love and joy of family, the comfort of everyday routines alongside the excitement of new opportunities."
Beyond writing her new cook book Julie said she was keenly looking forward to realising a lifelong ambition of writing a regular cooking column for 'The Australian Women's Weekly.' And then there's the restaurant of her dreams.
"One day I'll open a restaurant called The Pianola - named after the pianola that was a feature of my Nan's house. It will be a warm and homey place where you will want to be with friends and family. It will be everything that cooking means to me as an act of giving."
Dan McAloon is a freelance journalist at The Catholic Weekly newspaper in Sydney, Australia.
Editors Note: Dan McAloon and the Editor of The Far East, Fr Gary Walker attended the conference.
Read more stories from the The Far East, November/December
