117 Melissa Leong Inside The Mind Of A Tasteful Intellect

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I'm Mike Boris, and this is Straight Talk.

What's the MMA deal? Or are you going to go and learn jujitsu or do something?

The network might not allow me to.

You heal pretty quickly, especially if you eat the right food.

Was it bones heal, chicks dig scars?

Is that the...

Million.

Welcome to Straight Talk.

You're a little bit random in terms of things you do, but equally, there's a common denominator,

and the common denominator is what's someone's story. How can you bring that to life?

Yeah.

And that's pretty cool.

It's not dissimilar to what I've done on MasterChef, which is to be there to create a

structure for other people's stories and to celebrate the stories of others. It's, for me,

what I'm realizing as I get older and the longer I do this job is it's about the fascination with

human stories.

That's really what lights my brain up.

There are so many different reasons and purposes for why people do what they do.

And much like what you do with this podcast.

That's something I'm trying to find out from you today.

Mel Leong, welcome to Straight Talk.

Thank you so much for having me.

I love your shoes.

Oh, thank you. I love your shoes.

Well, mine are comfortable.

I'm not saying yours aren't.

No, that is the common denominator between our shoes is I like things to look nice, but they must be comfortable.

I like things to look nice, but they must be comfortable.

I like things to look nice, but they must be comfortable.

I like things to look nice, but they must be comfortable.

They must be functional and therefore, in the case of shoes, can't.

They look very comfortable.

They look nice and they also look very comfortable.

And Mel, if I just, if you don't mind me asking, you know, just because I always get curious about these things.

That's what we're here for.

You know, like it sounds like a Chinese name.

What's your, where were you born and or where were your parents born and what's your actual ethnicity, your background?

My parents were born in Singapore.

They're ethnically Chinese and I was born in Australia.

So I grew up in the...

I grew up in the Sutherland Shire.

Oh, you're a Shire girl.

I'm a Shire girl.

Wow.

Well, that gives, by the way, that gives you a reputation straight up.

We'll talk about that a bit later.

No, I'm only joking.

I'm only joking.

So you grew up in the Sutherland area.

So brothers and sisters?

Younger brother, five years younger.

Yeah, five years younger.

And why did your parents come to Australia from Singapore?

I think the party line has always been to give their future children greater opportunities

and to sort of open up the world a little bit.

I think, I love Singapore.

I love Singaporean culture, but there is, it's a very high stress environment.

I think everybody would agree with that.

And I think they wanted to give their, the idea of future children an opportunity to choose

and to maybe have a different experience to what they had growing up.

It's an interesting place, Singapore.

Like, I mean, I used to have a business there and, well, yeah, I had a business there,

but we had clients there, customers.

Yeah.

Nothing to do with my financial services business.

It was another business, but, and I used to go there quite often.

And I couldn't believe, I find it a really intense place.

I don't know if you've been there back much, but it's a pretty intense place.

You can make a lot of money there, but unless you've got a lot of money,

it's really hard to enjoy the fruits of Singapore.

I agree.

I think, I mean, look, money makes everywhere you live in the world easier, obviously.

It gives you options.

It gives you choices.

You know, places.

Like Singapore, it's almost like a different world that exists if you have the means.

Yeah.

If you don't have the means and my, you know, the way my grandparents grew up,

there's lots of stories of the rise and the fall in families,

but there was a big period of time where my grandparents did not have the means

and grew up in HDB flats and all the rest of it.

And it's a pretty challenging existence, for sure.

And that probably would have been one of the reasons why,

parents came here, they wanted to do something better for you.

When they came here, I mean, I don't know if you know this,

but know about the answer to this, but did they immediately fit into,

especially if they were living in the Sutherland Shire,

but did they immediately fit into the, you know, the Australian John,

especially around that area?

Because that's, you know, the Shire is pretty full on, you know.

And my brother and sister grew up there, by the way.

So I didn't because they're much younger than me, but they grew up there.

It's a magical place, the Shire.

It's so many things.

It's special, that's for sure.

So many things.

So many people.

They didn't immediately settle there.

They immediately settled in the inner city.

So the very desirable suburbs that they are now were not so desirable.

And I think like a lot of migrants,

you gravitate towards people in a similar community

or with a similar background to you.

And that was certainly the case for my folks, at least in the beginning.

And then when we moved, well, when they moved out to the suburbs to live,

to live the great Australian dream, buy their own slice of paradise,

however you'd like to call it.

My mum shares stories about how much she prioritised wanting to fit in

in the working environment in particular.

And where did she work?

She was a registered nurse.

So she was an RN at the time.

And then she sort of moved on to being a nurse unit manager over time

and hospital administrator and all the rest of it in the future.

But at the time,

coming in as a young nurse and a new mum and all of those things,

she was very particular about she must only speak English at work.

She wouldn't bring stinky foods to work.

She would only bring sandwiches to work.

It was all about blending in and being accepted.

Yeah, not, it's a tough one.

Probably both of you and I, my family, but we both weren't here.

But when I reflect on it, it probably wasn't necessary.

But nonetheless.

It's them who made those decisions.

And what was your dad doing?

Your mum was a registered nurse.

What was your mum doing?

My dad, sorry.

My father was a draftsman.

So he sort of worked in an architectural office.

In an architectural office and you're like in drafting, okay.

So, but you're a writer and a foodie.

How the hell.

You're like trying to connect.

Yeah, I'm trying to work it out.

I'm still, I'm always trying to connect the dots on my choices.

Well, how did you become sewage and food?

Like, how did that work out?

That part's easy.

If you are single.

If you are Singaporean, an interest in food is, it's innate.

So it's a cultural thing.

They brought it from Singapore to here.

It's a cultural thing.

If you are Singaporean, you have any experience living in that environment,

you must become obsessed with food.

Really?

Otherwise you don't last long.

Living in Singapore, you mean?

Either living in Singapore or being from Singapore in any capacity.

I think it's a deeply cultural thing.

Can you explain that to me?

Obviously I don't understand it, but can you explain it to me?

I think part of it is it's such a small place and, you know,

houses are small, apartments are small, kitchens are small.

And so eating out is a huge part of Singaporean culture.

So almost every apartment block, every office building,

the bottom of the street level of the building is almost always occupied

by food vendors, hawker centres.

Hawker centre culture is a huge part of the egalitarian part of Singapore.

You know, it's accessible to everybody.

And everybody loves it.

You know, it doesn't matter if you are pulling up in a Lamborghini

or you happen to roll on down from the HDB down the road.

If it's good food, you agree on it.

And I think that's a wonderful thing about good food.

Yeah, definitely when it comes to good food.

So does that mean, though, that growing up, whether you grew up in the city,

in a city, or whether you grew up in Sutherland, it doesn't really matter.

Does mum and dad sort of, you know, mum's work and probably shift work too,

are you giving it?

Regis, nurse, definitely in the early days.

We had very little family here.

So my mother worked night shifts.

My father worked office hours.

And that way someone could take care of me and then when my brother came along,

him as well.

So how does the food thing figure?

Because, you know, we are not like that here in Australia, Australians anyway.

We don't have a restaurant at the bottom of that building.

In those days, well, my brother and sister, as I said,

grew up in the southern shore.

My parents moved there when I was, when I left home sort of thing.

But I remember there was, they had a house in Sylvania

and there was one Chinese restaurant called Len Hong's just at the bridge at Sylvania.

Isn't it funny how it just sticks in the mind?

Tom Huggley's Bridge.

Just there.

Yeah.

Oh, I remember, yeah.

Just across the road was the Greek hamburger person, the Zara Foss's.

And then the seafood restaurant down the road.

That's right.

And then there's Len Hong's Chinese restaurant.

But there wasn't much in terms of Asian food.

In that area when I was going back to visit my parents that I recall.

So where was the food culture sort of germinated from?

I know that the culture's there.

I get it.

But how did it get expressed?

We still ate out.

Like my parents sacrificed a lot.

They worked very hard.

We didn't go out a lot.

It wasn't, we didn't do annual holidays or anything like that going up until a little bit later.

But we would inevitably gravitate towards communities where we knew that that good,

good food was available.

So for us it was Bankstown.

It was Cabramatta.

You'd go into the area.

So we would go on little weekend trips and buy things.

And the weekly tradition for me was I grew up swimming.

I had very bad asthma as a baby.

And so swimming was just part of that, that recovery process and making sure I was robust enough to

survive, you know, the life.

And so my dad would drop me off at Bankstown swimming pool.

That's where I first learned to swim.

No way.

Seriously.

Yeah, a different coach, I'm sure.

But at Bankstown, 100 percent, that's the very first place I learned to swim.

Well, there you go.

We have that in common now.

But at Bankstown, and then he would have gone off to one of the.

So he'd go off and do some of the Asian grocery shopping for the week because there are so many

Asian grocers, huge Vietnamese community there.

Totally.

Big, there's a street of Vietnamese restaurants at the back of Bankstown sports club.

So, so good for, and still to this day, you know, epic.

But also I was having fun.

Having a conversation with someone earlier about it enmeshed within that was still the

Greek and Italian populations, Lebanese community as well.

And so you would have such an eclectic group of shops.

We'd have an amazing continental deli next to a fantastic Asian grocer.

And the mix of the smells and the sights and the sounds, it was just a very Saturday was

just this happy market day where families were running around and kids were everywhere.

And so my dad would go and do some of the groceries, pick me up, and then the reward was

was always a curry puff and a coconut drink.

And and then we'd do the rest of the groceries and and head on home.

And that would fuel us for the week in terms of ingredients that we couldn't get at the local shops.

So where did your.

That's your exposure.

But where did you first become interested in food?

I mean, as a.

As a not as a profession, I guess, is but.

I'll tell you where.

I tell you it was Yum Cha.

Yum Cha.

It was Yum Cha.

Just not far from where you're talking about.

There was a really eventually I can't remember the name of it now, but a huge Chinese restaurant

on the corner there.

And almost every Sunday we would go to Yum Cha.

And when I was old enough to invite friends from school, I would always be allowed to

invite like one friend from school to come with me.

And I realised pretty quickly how much delight I took in introducing friends who were not

ethnically Chinese.

To the delights of dim sum.

And probably chicken's feet.

Oh, it's so it's I mean, the discomfort on someone's face, you know, watching.

Oh, that's that's for us.

Oh, that's going to be in front of me on the table.

What do I what do I do?

Oh, I can't I can't do that.

And just watching them consolidate that sensory experience of the sights, the sounds, the

smells of this sort of reasonably unfamiliar place and Yum Cha restaurants.

It's a calamity.

There's so much theater for me.

There's so much going on.

There are waiters tossing plates all over the place.

There are towering like, you know, there are towers of bamboo baskets just sort of

balancing precariously.

There's tea spilled on the table.

There are sauce everywhere.

It's it's just such a happy mess and such a brilliant time.

It's I like to call it signs of a good time.

You know, it's it's you can see the evidence.

It's there on the white tablecloth in front of you or maybe salmon coloured tablecloth.

It's always salmon.

But I loved encouraging people to eat things that they were unfamiliar with.

And sometimes it was a success.

But always if they accepted the invitation to try something new, there was this sense of

accomplishment that they would have.

And I, in turn, would just feel so happy and satisfied that I had encouraged them to see

food a little bit differently.

And that happened from.

You know, being a kid, like being 12.

So did you delight in their reactions?

I mean, like I can imagine I've done this, I did this sort of similar thing with kids of

Greek food, like they never taste an olive, for example.

They're like, what the hell, because it's pretty salty.

And they just and some of the meals that we used to have.

But in my sort of similar sort of experience, we didn't get a restaurant.

We mostly did it at family places.

But.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I used to delight in their reactions.

Oh, the restaurants I'm talking about are like humble, humble places.

We grew up with never, never fancy food, fine diners.

That was a part of my later life.

That was definitely part of my adult life.

My parents are still wary of fine diners, I think.

But anyway, sorry.

I'm similar.

I'm already, I'm still the same.

But I used to delight in their response, like, you know, oh, my God, like, did you delight in the response of

I just keep thinking of chicken feet when I think of yum cha.

But did you delight in their response when they went, what the hell?

What the hell is that?

Like, was that fun?

Shock value is always a little bit entertaining.

I mean, I don't think I've done anything in my life deliberately to shock.

But I think there's just something funny and light about humanity where we enjoy the juxtaposition.

We enjoy that, that the crossroads.

Where there's a bit of discomfort going on, but because there's also an opportunity to expand your perspective.

And I was, good or bad, the reaction, good or bad, I always, I was just fascinated in watching that process.

Like reading someone's face and just sort of seeing how they're taking on this new information and whether or not they're going to accept it or not.

It's, I don't know, it's just that fascination with people.

Yeah.

So because that brings me to the question.

The question about curiosity, I mean, do you think, given that you're a writer, you have to be curious.

But do you have a curiosity as to the, forget about the, for the moment, about the taste and the colour and the.

How can you forget about that, Mark?

No, if you just, just for a moment, just park it for a second.

But were you always curious about the theatre of people trying different types of foods?

And because you did talk about the theatre of yum cha.

There is a lot of theatre associated with it.

And it's not really put on, it's actual, that's just how it all rolls out.

Oh, yeah.

But at the same time, it wouldn't be the same if it wasn't there.

So it's nearly like a precondition to having yum cha.

You've got to have theatre.

So if I'm running a yum cha joint, I've got to, I'm actually going to make sure there's theatre.

Because I want to make sure that everybody gets the full experience.

So, but have you always been curious about the theatre of eating, the theatre that food provides?

Yes, I think so.

And that has only grown the more I've.

Incorporated food into my working life and my career and, you know, the inevitable existentialism of what I do.

The dance of food etiquette, the way people carry themselves in different environments.

When you feel like a fish out of water in different dining environments.

When you don't know what to do with all this cutlery in front of you.

There's an interesting discovery process involved in watching people undergo.

That experience or experiencing that for myself.

Because ultimately you were in the ultimate theatre.

That's MasterChef, which we'll talk about in a second.

But that's the ultimate theatre.

But you did experience a theatre when you were a kid.

And also, I guess, not just yourself, but watching your friends experience.

And you tend to, did you find that you sort of, if you look back on it, it's sort of like you doing an assessment of audiences.

You know.

Because they are your audience.

I mean, your friend who you invite along and then other people who are sitting in that room, in the Yum Cha room,

which is not just Chinese people or Asian people.

It's a full suite of different people.

And you're looking at, you know, you're sitting there observing all this stuff.

It's a massive theatre.

Do you reckon you ever took, do you think subliminally you have taken something out of those experiences into the show?

I don't know about that.

I think more simplistically it was more the essence.

The essence of, or the notion of hospitality.

But what is hospitality to you?

But it's about generosity.

It's about making people feel comfortable to a degree, but also to maybe open up their world.

So I can see where you're going with that, which is there is this, you know, this tipping point where it is both those things.

But I am inherently a feeder.

So I think what I was probably motivated by.

I think what I was motivated by earlier on is wanting to give people things, wanting to give people experiences

and then delighting as a side effect in witnessing that.

Yeah, so that's interesting.

So when you say you're a feeder, I think what you mean by that is you wanted to display generosity.

Can I ask you about that?

Because that's a very interesting, you know, what would be, people don't refer to that word these days.

As a virtue, but it is a well-known virtue going right back to Aristotelian times back in, you know, 500 BC, 600 BC.

I love how anyone with Greek culture is always able to bring it back down.

Everything's got something to do with Greece.

It originated in ancient Greece.

Well, I'll tell you why, because we're limited to that knowledge.

That's why we do it, because that's our only reference point.

But if you go back, I mean, like generosity is a well-known virtue.

But I often wonder.

I don't know about, you know, it's like forgiveness, but I often look at things like generosity

and sometimes I look at generosity as not really someone being generous towards the other person,

but they offer generosity because it rewards them, themselves.

Oh, absolutely.

It's nearly a selfish thing.

I don't mean it in a bad way.

No, I agree with you.

That is completely correct.

I think it's a two-way thing.

There is a payoff for the person giving.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

That's your love languages to give.

You derive enjoyment and satisfaction from observing the response to your actions.

Yeah.

And that's, yeah, that part is, I absolutely accept.

And where does that come from in you then?

So, like, I'm trying to work out, like, I mean, generous when you were young, you were

still generous, you still play, because being a writer, you've got to be generous too.

There's a lot of generosity.

There's a lot of generosity being a writer.

You've got to share so much stuff.

And you've got to put effort into it as well.

And you have to be real about it as well, because people know.

If you're bullshitting.

Absolutely.

So, where does that come from in you?

Have you ever thought that through about yourself?

Why am I like that?

I think I've learned by example.

I think my mum in particular is an incredibly generous person.

That's one of her love languages.

Well, she's a nurse.

She's a nurse.

Acts of service are part of who she is in a vocational sense, in a parental sense.

In a parental sense.

And I've been the grateful recipient of that.

And I think you learn by doing.

Or what you see.

What you see, you do.

If you can see it, you can be it.

All of those things.

And then later on, you can choose if that suits you or it doesn't suit you.

But I think I inherited that from her.

And I come from a big family of particularly women who feel the same way about generosity.

It's part of who they are.

They do it because they enjoy it.

And I'm just following that bloodline.

Because I often think about why do I do not this show so much but the mentor show.

But it's because, you know, I will say, you know, I like to help people.

But really, it's reward-based for me.

They get a reward.

They get something out of listening to me, I hope.

But there's a reward in it for me.

And what I know about myself is that I'm continually feeding my reward center.

And, you know, obviously, a lot of chemicals are being released that make me feel good.

So it's a feel-good effort from my point of view.

And therefore, I get very curious about people like yourself who you call yourself a feeder

and your mother's a nurse.

So she's therefore a giver.

And there's a good reward.

It's not like taking drugs where you get a reward as well because that fucks you up.

But these things are high-quality reward center-based actions.

Sustainable.

Yeah.

And sustainable.

And sustainable.

Sustainable through life, through your whole life.

You can do this forever.

And because when we look at why we're living on this planet, what the fuck are we doing here?

Like, what is this?

Well, it is basically about that.

Finding things that work well societally that give us a reward and give someone else an outcome, a good outcome.

That's pretty much it.

Whether it's having kids, which rewards everybody around us, or whether it's, you know, doing what I do or lending money.

Or, you know, giving money to somebody or guiding someone or helping them out in whatever.

That's really at its most fundamental level.

And food, of course, is one of the most fundamental ways of displaying that.

Yes.

And so you've adopted food.

Yeah.

As your reward center.

Absolutely.

It's not just because food is colorful.

Because food's a great instrument because it's colorful.

It smells.

It tastes.

It's tactile.

It's everything.

It's a multidimensional sensorial experience.

There is alchemy.

There is alchemy involved in the transposition.

Oh, I love that word, alchemy.

I love that word, alchemy.

Can we just spoil that word for a second, please, Mel?

Yeah.

Because, you know, I mean, of course, one of my favorite books is The Alchemist.

Not because it's a bit of a kid's book, but when I say kid's, like a younger person's book.

But what it's sort of…

It's a rite of passage book.

The philosophy of it is pretty cool.

Yeah.

And obviously the moral of the story is pretty important too.

But alchemy…

With food, I mean, Hest and Blumenthal's is probably the ultimate at that, you know.

For Anagia.

Using food and turning something into something weird.

So many, yeah.

But just a normal, fun meal, I think, has alchemy in it.

And I'll tell you what.

I agree wholeheartedly.

And I would like to hear what you say.

I can be feeling like shit and I can go to my sister's place, who's a great cook,

and she will present to me a meal.

A meal that's well-cooked, well-made, good ingredients, nothing fancy, made with lots of love.

But also she plays around with it the way it looks.

And my community does this.

Greek community does this all the time.

And immediately my mood changes.

Immediately.

And I might go back to the mood after when I'm driving home.

It's magic.

But it is magical.

And alchemy is about magic.

I actually think as much as I respect, deeply respect,

operators within the industry that have pushed food to, you know,

beyond the bounds of what we could conceive as being food.

It's where art meets, science meets, existentialism and all of the rest of it.

I, the more time I spend in food, the more I believe that the simplest food,

soul food, if you like, contains the most alchemy, contains the most magic

because its ability to transform your mood, to comfort you,

to soothe you when you are, when you are hurting or you're sad,

all of those things, to go to when you're happy and to celebrate.

That's, there's so much beauty in that.

And I think that that intangible feeling that you get from, you know,

a bowl of chicken soup, you know, a bowl of congee,

whatever it happens to be, some noodles, in any culture, in any language,

you don't need to understand the existentialism of it.

You don't need to understand the existentialism of it.

You just need to feel it.

And that's, if nothing more, the most human thing that you can do

and be in that moment.

Can I just sort of lean into a few of those words you used then?

Comfort is a really good one for me.

Comfort food.

But probably you have a greater understanding of the emotions

associated with food generally.

But if we just lean into the word comfort, Asian people that I know,

and also Greek people I know, but to a lesser extent,

because Asian people have been here a lot shorter time

than, say, the Greek people here,

in terms of bigger communities I'm talking about.

And I think it's sort of been bred out of the Greek community,

getting bred out of the Greek community a little bit,

but still quite fresh and new with the Asian community.

They are much more attuned to, you know, I don't know,

you mentioned the Vietnamese meals, like pho, pho, however they pronounce it,

or chicken soup.

You know, like, especially if you're not feeling well,

you know, like chicken noodles or, you know, all those types of meals.

This need, this sort of really important thing in my life,

if I'm an Asian person, to try these foods,

and I'll drive to Bankston or Cabramatta

or I'll drive to Fairfield or wherever it is to experience it.

It's so important to, I don't think it's culture,

I think it's individual.

Individuals feel like they just need this.

Where the hell, how, why is it so powerful?

The need to go to the ends of the earth to...

To try it out.

...pursue a particular meal.

Even if it's 14 bucks, it doesn't really matter.

I mean, the cheaper, the better, really.

Yeah.

Honestly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because that's part of the game.

It costs nothing.

That's the great thing about, you know, hawker food.

Like, if you go to a hawker market, the best chicken and rice,

like Hainanese chicken and rice might cost you five bucks.

And everybody from billionaires to old grandmothers

who have to, you know, count their pennies will go there for that.

What is that?

That's in Singapore, I know, because there is a place called,

I think there is a place called Hawker's Market or something like that.

Well, it's just a hawker centre is a place that you have lots

of different outlets.

It's like...

They're little kiosks.

...like an indoor-outdoor food court.

Yeah, the one I went to was outdoor.

Yeah.

And if it rained, you're stuffed.

Like Maxwell is one of the most famous ones in Singapore.

What's it called?

Maxwell Hawker Market.

And it's a covered...

You know, covered sort of food court.

But it's, you know, sort of it's an open-air food court.

Well, if we're bringing it back to Australia.

No, but if we do, where is your equivalent to you?

Where today does Mel want to go to find that and why?

It's...

For me, food is deeply rooted in context.

So it's about how you're feeling, it's about who you're with

and what dish occurs to you that you need at that moment.

Like what's...

What's the perfect thing that's going to complete the picture?

Are you thinking about that before you go there, on the way there?

Are you thinking...

It's just a feeling.

So if I...

It might just be as simple as what I cook.

So if I'm feeling a bit under the weather and, you know,

I feel like I need something warm and brothy and soothing,

it might not necessarily be, you know, Chinese food.

Like I love cooking from all sorts of different cuisines across the world.

But Italian...

Italian is a really classic one.

I might want a bowl of, you know, pastina and just make...

It's the simplest broth in the world to make.

It doesn't take very long.

It's imbued with soul and you don't have to speak the language

to understand why that is.

You know, chicken broth, there's just something about it.

It's universal.

It comforts us.

It's physically nourishing.

We know that to be true.

I'll make that.

It seems like every community has that, by the way.

The Jewish people have it.

Italians have it.

The Greeks have it.

There are these universal...

Meat on sticks.

Chinese have it.

Meat on sticks.

Yep.

Fried chicken, some kind of chicken soup, some kind of dumpling.

Like there are these universal foods that almost every culture

in the world will have meatballs, a version of it.

And it means a great deal to them because it's what carries

their particular preference for flavour profile

and texture and all of those things.

So it's universal but it's also extremely nuanced

to the consumer or to the originator.

Do you think that we sort of build some sort of neurological response

to how food becomes comfort food to us?

Like I know that there are some...

Probably for a period of my life I sort of disregarded

these things.

I stopped thinking about it.

But then as I've got older I'm starting to turn back to them.

And there are certain types of biscuits, for example,

and there are Greek biscuits called kuluri,

which I'm desperate to have when I have a coffee.

But I probably haven't really thought about it for 40 years.

But I think of my grandmother.

They were sort of a dry biscuit and it's got a braiding pattern thing on it.

It's a dipper.

Yeah, and you put a little bit in there.

It's got a bit of an orange taste.

It's not very sweet but it's got orange rind in it.

It's got a bit of a...

It's got a little bit of sugar in it, not much.

It's not very sweet.

It's more dry.

And then there are various meals that I'm starting to, as I get older,

I'm starting to revert to.

And I'm thinking, why am I thinking this?

Why am I feeling unhappy with my life or is it just an age thing?

What's the deal?

I mean, do you have any views on that?

I feel like I'm in a therapy session with you.

Oh, my goodness.

I'm honoured that you feel that way.

Yeah, because you study these things.

I mean, you know these things.

I think the one word that comes to mind when you describe

what you're describing is nostalgia.

Yeah.

And as we age, we become fond of reflection.

You know, self-reflection is part of our journey, isn't it?

You know, you get to a point where you think about what you've learned,

you think about how your life compares to, you know,

when you meet someone younger and what their current experience is

and you're like, oh, that doesn't match up with my...

...my perspective because I'm at a different point in my life.

I think the older we get, the more nostalgia means something to us

because we have had the time to accrue those memories,

to layer them upon each other.

And I think the things that stick out to us,

they're the most powerful memories.

They're the ones worth holding on to.

So, you know, the biscuits that your yaya would have served you with tea

when you were growing up, like the smell of the orange rind,

the texture of that dry biscuit.

The way it would transform as you dip it into the cup of tea.

All of those sensory things come back to you.

And, again, they're the simplest memories, but they are the most powerful.

They're the ones that we're going to remember, you know,

in our last days, you know, on this earth and these bodies.

And, yeah, I think for me nostalgia is such a powerful tool in cooking.

It's what the best chefs in the world of every level and calibre

are able to wield in their kids.

And I think that's the key of skills is how do you knit nostalgia into food?

Like you go to a three-hat fine dining, you know, three Michelin star place

and things, sometimes food doesn't really look like food.

Yeah.

But if somehow you're able to infuse a scent, a texture, a flavour,

a shape into the food, suddenly it goes from being that's a very overworked,

fancy plate of food to I can taste my grandmother's brothel in this.

And that's what gets people, that's what gets me as a writer

and a person who works in food that does communicate those feelings is that.

It's the magic.

Nostalgia is one of the most powerful ingredients you can cook with.

So is that where alchemy comes in then, if I could go back to that?

Yeah.

So it's about...

It's about weaving nostalgia into the thing you present.

I think so.

And that's the alchemy.

Like how to get a carrot that, you know, is an orange thing that's, you know,

the shape of a carrot and it's like just come out of the ground, whatever it is.

It's sort of sitting there on the border of the market for a buck.

And then how do I...

It's funny, I had a conversation with Colin Fasnitch one time about this exact point.

He was telling me about...

He was showing me how to cut up a carrot and he's saying,

you know, most people waste most of the carrot.

And I couldn't believe the amount of detail that he knew about carrots

and how to get the most out of it, you know, and don't waste anything.

Because one of the things I love about chefs, a good chef,

is that they don't waste shit.

No.

Everything gets used.

And it makes sense to me now.

I never used to think about it,

but don't be wasteful when it comes to food or ingredients.

Not when you can sell it.

Not when you can value add.

You look at...

When you look at the margins on restaurants, they're so fine.

Why would you throw out something that can add an extra dimension of flavour to something?

You know, peels and tops of carrots, for example, can be so many things,

but the simplest thing you can do is collect them and turn them into a stock.

Yeah.

You know, it's a very, very easy thing.

The, you know, if you're going to throw them away, compost them, for God's sake,

because those nutrients can at least go back into...

some soil in your backyard, whatever it happens to be.

But the alchemy thing, I think, is twofold.

Yes, it's nostalgia.

That's a, you know, a more lofty way of thinking about one of the many skills

that chefs can have at their disposal,

but also it's the transformation of ingredients,

so raw ingredients into amazing textures, amazing cohesion on the plate,

all of the contrasting elements that bring together something that is deep

and complex and bright and makes you feel...

and makes you feel something is making you feel something

as the nostalgia ingredient that is, you know, is blended in there.

But you also need to have all of these other skills in transforming, you know,

a root vegetable into maybe something that's invisible on the plate

but gives great depth of flavour or sweetness or whatever it happens to be.

You now sort of made me think about the MasterChef series,

which you've just...

you've only announced you're not going to do any more MasterChef.

Nice segue.

Yes, very segue.

But...

No.

When you're on that show, that show is...

well, you tell me, is that show about what you just said,

that is about no waste, alchemy, weaving nostalgia,

or is it...

which sort of makes me think more about fundamental food, like basic food,

or is it more about theatre and presentation and emotions?

I think it's a mixed bag of all of those things.

I think, for me, the realisation that I have come to have,

reflecting on my time at MasterChef, has been stories.

We communicate our stories through food.

If you are a cook, if cooking is part of the way you communicate to people,

then you convey stories through that.

So this is my grandmother's recipe.

This is a recipe that is highly prized and deeply rooted in the culture that I'm from.

This is what my mother would cook for me when, you know, in her last days.

And this is something I wanted to share with you.

So there are...

I think there are so many nuanced layers to what MasterChef is,

but the one that I love is storytelling.

And it's being part of the structure that allows people to feel comfortable enough

to go there, to be vulnerable and to show who they are.

The contestants are.

The contestants, to show who they are through what they cook.

And yes, the...

The mechanism of a giant clock and, you know, and fireballs in the ad break

and all of those things.

It's fun.

It's a format that is easily digestible.

It's easy to understand and it's light and we need lightness in life.

There are so many heavy, horrific things going on in the world,

but we mustn't discount entertainment.

It's the thing that gives us respite.

It's the thing that allows us to pause and take a breath

and just not think about things too much sometimes.

And so...

I love the show because, yes, it has that lightness,

but it still has depth to it.

It still has a sense of purpose to it.

And when you speak to contestants that have gone through the show,

you know, a number of which I still keep in contact with,

the party line about this show potentially transforming your life

and allowing you passage into an industry that you've only dreamt of,

that much is true.

There is a tangible part of that.

It gives you...

It can happen.

It's not guaranteed, but it can happen.

So there is that shining, you know, light at the end of the tunnel

that that is a potential outcome for a contestant

that applies to go on the show as well.

So what's the role?

What do you see as your role as a judge?

My role as a judge is a little bit of a few things.

One of them is as a mentor.

I think you need...

So guidance.

To guide...

You know, there are fundamental parts of cooking

that you need to guide people through.

Like, it's taken years,

but I can smell within a degree if something's about to burn.

And I know it.

We all...

Like, if you're trained to smell it, you can't unsmell it.

And you will go over to someone and say,

that is seconds away from burning.

I'd keep an eye on that because they are...

We are asking them to focus on all the other spinning plates

that they have going on as well.

And so...

It's about sort of giving them that technical advice.

It's also, for me...

I don't know that I walked into the role expecting it,

but to be of an emotional support to people

and to encourage them to feel like it was a safe space

to be who they are in their shining moments,

but also in their vulnerability and their failures.

Because as we all know and we all do,

that we get the failure is so important.

Hmm.

If you don't fail, if you don't embrace failure

and the lessons and the gifts that it gives you,

you are ignoring the most powerful things that life can teach you.

So, you know...

Yeah, 100%.

There's that part of it.

So to create an environment in which people feel safe to fail

is a privilege.

And I get to do that on Dessert Masters still,

even though it's a professional context

and the contestants are professional pastry chefs.

We're still human though.

So to continue to be associated,

to be associated with offering safe harbour

is a privilege of who I have become in that space.

And was that in any stage confronting to you?

Totally.

Yeah.

In the beginning?

Totally.

Because you probably know what your real deal was

when you rock up,

yeah, I'm going to be a judge.

I can judge the food.

I turned up thinking, look, I know food.

I can stand there in a pretty dress.

I can deliver lines.

I can tell you what I think about your food.

I can do all the technical parts of the job for sure.

It's fine.

I can smile sometimes.

But I think in the doing, I was humbled

because the most powerful parts of what have resonated with people

is in finding the power in human connection.

Even when you're judging someone, you're still connecting with someone.

You still need to know something of them

in order to understand what they've produced.

And how they've produced it.

So you give them, basically you're giving them a place to reach out to you.

So, you know, because you've got to get to know the people.

I mean, they're putting themselves on show.

Yeah.

They sign up for it.

Absolutely.

And yes, connection is the goal.

It's also impossible to connect on an extremely deep level

with every single contestant because you have up to 24

every single year coming through.

And I can only...

I can only imagine what it must be like for the former judges

to have gone through 11 years of that.

That's so many people.

And of course, you're not going to have that moment with everybody

as much as you might want to.

Statistically, it's just not possible.

But when you do have that moment, that's really special.

And that's what makes the job worth doing.

Can I sort of throw something out that's completely different to all that now?

I mean, I want to talk about your writing after this.

But today there's a...

a lot of discussion about health, healthspan, lifespan, eating healthily.

And they talk a lot about, for example, less meat or less protein from meat.

More veg, less meat protein.

Yeah, we lost more fiber, you know, gut biome, feed your gut biome,

all that sort of stuff.

You know, and have, you know, soluble fiber as opposed to insoluble fiber.

There's a lot of technical scientific stuff

and there's a big movement around this stuff today.

Yeah.

Do we need to reconcile that?

That with what you ordinarily would get presented with

in terms of, let's call it tasty food or presentable food or theatrical food?

Is there...

How do we reconcile those two things?

I think we need both.

You know, it's like art and science.

Yeah.

It's...

One is art, actually, and one is science.

You're right.

Correct.

But we need both to be human.

You can't take the art out of the world.

Otherwise, what would be the point of living?

But you can't live if you're not nourishing yourself.

So you've got to inject the science into the...

Are you talking about blending them?

So I think that both are important.

You know, I celebrate indulgent, rich, beautiful things on television

and that's, you know, that's to be commended.

You know, it's very difficult to create food like that,

to generate bags of flavor, as Andy Allen would say, is hard.

And you should acknowledge that someone is capable of doing that.

But I don't go home and eat that way all of the time.

Right.

And I think that, you know, people, you know,

I see what people, you know, look up about me occasionally.

And to think that I also eat like that at home

or that I go out to eat every single night of the week at, you know,

fancy restaurants and things like that.

Yes, there are times of my job where that is required.

But you need to nourish yourself properly.

You know, the fundamentals of being human is to keep the body alive

and to keep the body alive for a long time, hopefully,

there are certain...

There are certain things you need to do.

And that is, as you mentioned, all of the things.

Pay attention to your gut microbiome, your fiber intake, you know,

how you consume protein, what forms of protein you consume,

macros, all of that.

They're really important.

But we're also moving down the track now, you know,

red meat's no good environmentally.

You know, we've got those movements.

So it seems to me that the food industry or the restaurant industry,

I don't know, let's call it the food preparation industry,

is sort of has a few headwinds potentially up against it.

And I don't say it's a bad thing or a horrible thing.

It's just an observation of mine.

It's a complex one because you need to think about this from the soil up.

Yeah.

And any farmer's going to tell you that.

You don't have food if you don't have farmers.

You don't have farms and food if you don't have healthy soil.

This goes all the way down to the earth.

And it's...

Yes, of course, we know that, say,

excessive red meat consumption is not brilliant for our bodies.

It's also not super sustainable.

But if you take away beef farming or you cut, you know,

cattle farming in half,

let's look at the human ramifications of that multi-generational family.

They've been cattle farming for eight generations on this land.

Are you just telling them to cut their business in half?

Where's the sustainability in that?

Where's the human?

Consideration for who they are and what they do next.

What happens to the economy?

You can't make, as you know better than I do,

knee-jerk reactions economically

and expect there to not be far-reaching ramifications of that.

So we know that there are changes that need to be made for our diets,

for the environment, the sustainability of our world.

But it's a complex...

It's a complex, moving, living thing, you know.

It's very dynamic.

It's an incremental move towards something better

rather than a knee-jerk reaction where we just cut and run.

So does Mel Leong, in her writings,

does in your comms work, you know, as a writer,

do you feel in any way an obligation to build that reconciliation?

Reconciliation is a word we use in lots of contexts in Australia.

But do you...

It's a complex word, isn't it?

Yeah, but these things will need to be reconciled.

Because I tell you why.

You know, I listen to a lot of stuff about living longer

and all that sort of stuff for the obvious reason

because I'm getting fucking old, you know.

Same, mate.

And then I'll go out and I want to take my dad out for his 89th birthday

so I take him to somewhere he would not ordinarily go.

And then, of course, all my sons want to come along

and, you know, that's like a...

a six-person event.

And so I take him somewhere fancy and I might go to, you know,

dad likes Rockpool.

The only time he ever goes to Rockpool is if I take him.

But he likes Rockpool.

Someone else is picking up the check.

Yeah, great.

And it's not cheap.

And fortunately none of us drink.

But so like we eat and we enjoy the meal.

But you know what happens to me?

I walk out and I think, fuck, I didn't have any vegetables.

And I actually get a guilt trip from the other shit that I'm watching

or reading about.

Life span, health span.

So no, but it's not to you, but not a guilt trip,

but I go, oh shit, like I've sort of interrupted my really good program

and I just think that I'd like to bring the two worlds together

and I wonder whether people like you could start these things,

like reconciliation and how do you live your life?

But this is the thing, is that it's not about eating perfect meals.

Like as anyone in, you know, nutrition or, you know, the fitness space will tell you,

but one guilt meal, one cheat meal is not going to ruin your diet.

It's about the cumulative total of what you do in a week, a month, a year.

And as long as you're trending towards eating more of the things you know you should eat

and, you know, scratching that itch.

Because if I'm the kind of person, if I cannot get the thought of a slice of pizza out of my head,

nothing I cook or eat that's,

that's not a pizza is going to be good enough.

So if you can't get it out of your head, stick it in your mouth.

So, well, pretty much, you know, go and get that,

go and get the best possible slice of pizza.

Like enjoy it, sit down, don't be on your phone.

Go and eat with someone that you, that you love spending time with.

Enjoy that moment, savour it for what it is.

You don't need to eat the whole pizza.

Have whatever.

Well, I mean, if it's really good, then you should, because waste is also bad.

But enjoy.

Enjoy the moment and then go back to making sure that you eat your vegetables

and all of the rest of it.

I think what, eating a really beautiful meal,

like going to Rockpool with your family and not having enough vegetables

or having the rich sauces or whatever it happens to be.

I mean, God bless Beurre Blanc.

I mean, come on.

Rich, creamy sauces are.

Well, I love their chips.

Worth living.

I mean.

And their macaroni thing, whatever it's called.

I mean.

Hot oil and potatoes and salt.

Never met one.

Never met a combo I didn't like of that.

Fat and salt and whatever it is.

But do you think that at some point, given these movements,

that there will be restauranteurs who will exercise their alchemy

and create these super healthy foods, but they're also fucking tasty?

Like it's, you know what I mean?

Look, there are chefs that specialise in that.

Are there?

Okay.

That cook beautiful food that's really rich with nutrients

and that's all being considered.

And those restaurants exist.

They're not accessible for everybody, but they do exist.

I think it's far more plausible and approachable for most people to,

you know, you're wasting that expensive meal if you come away going,

gosh, I should have had a green vegetable.

I only thought about it the next day.

Enjoy the moment, I think, and then, you know,

eat your chia pudding or whatever it is that you want to.

Yeah.

I'm not that sort of fussy about it.

It's more a thought process, you know, because I'm thinking,

and to some extent I guess I'm getting a bit brainwashed

because there is a movement and it's a bit like, as you said,

older people tend to get nostalgic.

Older people also tend to think about how the fuck do I'm going to live longer

because, you know, the years are flashing by.

And especially if you can afford it, which I'm in the fortunate position to be.

And so you tend to, but I sort of brainwash myself.

I brainwash myself about this stuff because I believe in it.

I actually do believe in it, you know, because I believe you are what you eat.

And the more healthy you are, the more healthy you eat,

the more healthy you will be, I think.

And I often bemoan.

It's counterbalancing that with joy.

Yeah, because that's what I want to talk about.

So how do we bring the happiness and like because we're going back to virtues.

Yeah.

You know, joy, gratitude, generosity.

Are you saying that perhaps we, the people like if I use me as one example,

Mark, you need to learn or remember the importance of being generous to yourself,

the importance of having gratitude for the opportunity to eat tasty food on this occasion,

the importance of understanding how to enjoy yourself with everybody else who's around you

as opposed to thinking about is this really the right thing I should be eating?

Mm-hmm.

Are you saying that?

That we are perhaps someone like me and maybe there's a new cohort of people

starting to develop like this who are forgetting the reason why we eat together?

I think we can forget the reason why we eat together if we over-intellectualize food.

If we only see food as fuel, you take the joy and the humanity out of what food can be.

If you only eat for pleasure, then you take away the nourishment

and the happiness.

And, you know, the virtues that can be bestowed upon you in a health context from food.

So I think that sometimes you can meet in the middle and you can have a healthy, delicious meal.

It's hard to get if you go out.

It depends on where you go.

You know, I wouldn't know.

It depends on where you go.

I mean, if you go to almost anywhere in the Byron Shire area.

Yeah, different.

It's a long way to drive.

That particular region is one of the great food bowls of Australia.

So you get incredible produce that's that's grown locally.

You have very talented chefs that are all attracted to living up there, producing incredible dishes with them.

And you also have that lifestyle context.

So they know their audience, their audience wants to eat.

What's your favorite restaurant there?

Oh, there are so many.

There are so many.

The Doma in Federal.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Love that.

Is that the Japanese place?

Yes. Yeah.

It's like a Japanese, a Japanese cafe.

The Hut is some other direction.

Yeah.

Oh, God, what do you call it?

Matt Stone's now involved in it.

Like you.

I think they called it You Beauty or something like that.

It's in Bar in Bangalore.

In Bangalore.

As well.

Yeah, I know.

The Eltham Hotel.

The guys running the Eltham.

Brilliant.

Yeah, it's a great pub.

Tim Gogan.

Excellent chef.

There are so many at the farm, obviously.

But if you peel back to Sydney.

Well, we're just down the road from, you know, from from Bondi.

And that's, again, highly privileged areas.

You are a magnet for what you're talking about, which is consolidating within one meal all the virtues and not sacrificing the joy and the flavor and the taste.

And that's so there's there's that.

And for the lucky few, that is possible.

That's accessible.

But more and more when I speak to chefs, when I speak to people in food, if you distill it down, there's no such thing as a superfood.

There isn't.

It's just foods have certain nutrition.

Some of them are synergistic when you consume them together.

But the simplest food grown, like the best quality food that you can find that you have access to.

If you know how to cook, you can produce that for yourself.

And I think that that's where we mustn't forget about the virtues of cooking, the skills of being able to nourish ourselves.

If you know how to take a carrot, as you mentioned with our friend Fazi.

Take a carrot and transform that into something that is delicious.

And you can do that yourself.

A carrot is not an expensive ingredient to purchase.

So you empower yourself by knowing what to do with it.

He also told me don't go and buy it at the expensive food outlets, at the expensive grocers because everything there is perfect.

He said you can go and buy it for 50 percent of the.

Ugly veggies where it's at.

Yeah, he told me.

So it's always much cheaper somewhere else.

I want to move from there just to your new show on SBS.

Can you just quickly tell me about what's going on there?

Because it seems a bit off beat for you.

Off brand?

Yeah.

I'm all about 2024 is the year of off brand.

So what is it?

What's it called?

It's called The Hospital in the Deep End.

But what is it about?

It's a three part documentary series on SBS.

And it's about, I guess, a different look at the pressures on the public health system.

So I was very fortunate to work with Samuel Johnson and Costa Georgiatis as well on this project.

We each have a different.

Costa Georgiatis has on the beard.

As in?

I was talking to him the other day at Bonner Junction.

Yeah, he's cool.

He's a goddamn legend.

He's sunshine in human.

And a hundred percent.

Like I immediately felt warm towards him like when I was talking.

You just want to hug him.

He's so nice.

You just want to hug him.

One of my favorite T-shirts that he has that's the NWA straight out of Compton.

It's straight out of compost.

It's just there is an event.

So you guys are doing it together.

So we didn't spend a huge amount of time together because I guess we were tasked with.

Going off to different parts of the hospital that related in some way to our life story.

So, you know, for Costa, it was vulnerable community outreach work.

It was he also attended a heart transplant because his father passed away from a from a heart attack in St.

Vincent's Hospital, which was obviously really challenging thing for him.

For Sam, it was going into Panda, you know, the drug dependency wards talking about addiction, but also cancer research as well.

Which is a huge part of who he is and and a tremendous contribution that he has he's given to to Australians in terms of championing cancer research and raising money for it.

He's excellent at that.

For me, my mum being she was a nurse unit manager in in an emergency department, not at St.

Vincent's, but a different hospital.

And as we mentioned before, she pulled a lot of night shifts growing up.

I didn't see my mum a lot.

And so she was at this.

Mystical place every single night she would get in the car around sort of nine, nine p.m.

I'd hear the door click and off she'd go.

And she spent the whole night while I was asleep in this place contributing to saving lives.

And I was given this unique opportunity to spend some time to get a glimpse into what that must have been like for her.

And why would I say no to that opportunity?

So I got to do that.

I also got to spend.

Some time in surgery.

So I watched a breast reconstruction post mastectomy.

So the patient had decided five years on from having a single mastectomy that she wanted a reconstruction.

And what they do is harvest tissue from the abdomen to reconstruct the breast.

And I was, you know, fortunate enough to bear witness to this transformative.

Operation for her because this is going to give back some meaning to her life.

You know, there was some part of her that she, you know, tangible part of womanhood that she had lost in the cancer.

And so to be there watching two plastic surgeons harvest tissue, reconnect blood vessels under microscopes over a five, six hour period.

I mean, incredible.

And that's a service that's offered in the public health system.

And so to.

Understand.

The care that doctors, nurses, and admin staff in hospitals take for strangers on their worst days and how much pressure is on the system to deliver these services and deliver them happily when there's so much pressure in a post-COVID world, public hospitals, you know, everyone's gun shy, everyone's afraid that someone's going to lose it at them because that's what has happened over the last couple of years.

So to be able to meet these people in their environment, to understand why.

And why they do what they do, why they continue to do what they do.

So you're turning the spotlight on them and bringing it to life.

They're the real heroes.

That's cool.

So to bring voice to that was amazing.

And it's not dissimilar to what I've, what I do on MasterChef or what I've done on MasterChef, which is to be there to create a structure for other people's stories and to celebrate the stories of others.

That's a great privilege.

It's for me, what I'm realizing as I get older and the longer I do this job is it's about the fascination with human stories.

That's really what.

That lights my brain up.

Well, I've got one more thing before we close off.

I think I know where you're going.

So, I mean, how the hell does a petite, you're a petite young woman to me anyway, a petite young woman and I'm just, I was looking at your knuckles and I was looking at your hands and your ears.

I can't see your ears, but your ears don't look too erect.

No, I can't see my ears.

But what's the MMA deal?

Is it Jiu-Jitsu or what?

What is it we're talking about?

Like I said, it's 2024, the year of doing off-brand things.

And I joke about that, but I kind of, I get a little bit of a giggle out of people being surprised by the other things that I'm interested in that don't seemingly connect.

And MMA happens to be one of them.

I do.

I think they all connect.

It's all about human stories.

I want to know what it takes for someone to sacrifice time with family, you know, go into fight camp for three months and then ultimately.

Walk into an octagon, have the cage door shut, and it's you and one other person, stripped bare.

Well, you've got something on.

Well, you've got something on, not literally stripped bare.

It's just you.

So who are you doing it with?

Where are you doing this?

I don't do MMA.

No, but are you going to comment on it or are you writing about it?

What's your role in it or is it something?

It started off, I started off as just being an epic fan.

I've done kickboxing and I grew up with a family who was heavily into martial arts, but that's not what's informed.

This interest for me, I think it started in the pandemic and I started watching UFC and it's like I said, it's, it's a fascinating sport.

It's from a business perspective.

It's the fastest growing sport in the world.

It's only young.

It's only 30 years, 30 years, multi-billion dollar industry, flawless production.

Everything about it is slick.

It's amazing.

It's well thought out and it's dynamic.

And I love that part of it.

So I recently hosted UFC.

UFC 297 fight week for Fox Sports and my very first sports broadcasting gig.

Who were you on with?

Who was on your panel?

I was on with Dan, the Hangman Hooker and Tyson Pedro.

Okay, Tyson, yeah.

And my very first two interviews were with Drikus Duplessis and also Sean Strickland.

He got himself in a bit of trouble the other day.

Well, they have both gotten themselves into a lot of trouble.

But he looked like he was in the receiving end of me, like from what I saw.

Are you talking about the crowd fight?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Yes, that was.

But I thought he conducted himself quite well in the interview after.

He was sort of quite composed.

Well, have you not seen the most recent footage?

They're mates.

They've been hugging it out in Toronto.

So, you know, they've moved past the, you know, the theatre and the drama of it all

and they just want to fight each other now.

But are you going to go and do it?

Am I going to do it with them?

Are you going to go and learn jujitsu or do something?

I feel like.

Do you feel compelled?

The network might not allow me to get punched in the face.

But, I don't know.

I mean.

You heal pretty quickly.

Especially if you eat the right food.

Was it bones heal, chicks dig scars?

Is that the, that's the, that's the saying?

But you do heal quickly.

I can, because I did this morning before I came here.

I mean, I was.

I do, I do, I do other things.

Like I do, I do interval training.

I do Pilates.

I, you know, I, I need to keep fit in this job.

Do you ever feel compelled though to sort of start rolling around the joint and, you know.

Jujitsu is fascinating.

I think that jujitsu, there's tremendous economy of strength and people of small,

stature like myself can still find effective ways of subduing someone in, in that capacity.

I think that jujitsu is an amazing sport, but you know, MMA can be so many different.

Oh, totally.

Different disciplines, which is brilliant.

Everything from boxing to Muay Thai and, and all the rest of it.

And I think that's what I love about it is it's like chess with dire consequences.

Yeah, a lot of strategy.

That's the way that I read it as you have a kit bag of different disciplines, your opponent

has a kit bag of different disciplines and what's the strategy going into that like how do you win

that I think the the unpredictability of the outcome is what makes UFC such an exciting sport

and I I'm a huge fan like I said I'm not I'm not a fighter myself and I am still learning

the technical elements of what it is but what I feel like I can speak on and what I feel like I

can contribute to is teasing out those stories of I mean you've got to have a chip on your shoulder

right to be a fighter why do you fight it's not just money you're trying to prove something I

interviewed Sean Strickland and he'd gotten to the point where he did not want to talk about

his childhood trauma anymore he did not want to talk about beef between him and Duplessis but

he just sort of said oh you know like they just hand you stacks of cash and that's you know that's

why I'm doing this fight and

that's utter bullshit money is not the ultimate motivator if you're if you're only motivated by

money you are going to be very disappointed in life because it's hollow and it's fleeting

and if you don't have more to fight for than that then life is not worth living so I want to know

what it is like what it is about that person you want to bring this story up yeah again it's like

you do a master chef it's funny you talk about

bam bam the entire two of us are set right there and uh he just said to me like uh if I don't do if

I hadn't have done UFC um I would never had the opportunity to build a brand which is all about

a brand the whole shoeie thing is a brand and I wouldn't be able to get my own beer brand and all

the other stuff that he's doing out there at Penrith and uh and get my family to have a better

life um it's just opportunity which you would never have otherwise had that's exactly it and

for some people it's um

they're working out their demons and had they not had the the environment the safe environment

like UFC to work out their demons might be done somewhere else they would be living a very very

different life and um in many ways UFC might have saved them so there are so many different reasons

and purposes for why people do what they do and the more I go down this road of of meeting people

of all different sorts of backgrounds I want to know what their reasons for living are it's like

what you do with this podcast it's why are you here that's something I'm trying to find out from

you today and I think I found out a lot of really cool stuff and I mean I you have you're a little

bit random in that in that you sort of can I put I'm putting that on my seat but you are a little

bit random in terms of things you do but um but equally there's a common denominator yeah and the

common denominator on all of these is uh what's someone's story how can you bring that to life

yeah and that's pretty cool and that's actually a

real privilege it is it really really is having someone trust you enough to share

is incredible and that's what I get out of it is the honor that I feel that someone

would feel like I'm safe enough to to bear what they have to say to hold who they are

that's really cool I mean it's it's all about human connection you know there's lots of different

complexities that have um I've experienced in life that have led me to feel the lowest lows and the

highest highs and if that's me in my very random life I mean my career has been incredibly

piecemeal there's no strategy to it other than to feel my way through it and feel what is true to me

and hold on to that and chase it um if I can feel that then I want to meet people that are

open enough to want to share in real life and I think that's a really cool thing to do and I think

that's a really cool thing to do and I think that's a really cool thing to do and I think

why they are the way that they are it's interesting that um you get a great deal of um

satisfaction and joy out of someone trusting you enough to tell to feel like they're in a safe

they they are safe enough to tell you the story because that becomes an affirmation of your own

morality um for me because I do it that's what I do every day but um it just means that um Mark

you act properly um and I think that's a really cool thing to do and I think that's a really cool

thing to do and I think that's a really cool thing to do and I think that's a really cool thing to do and

no one feels like you you know you're going to pull their shorts down in public you know like

they are happy enough to tell you what they what's what drives them yeah what they feel good

about and in a selfish way um it's important to me because it sort of um confirms some of my ethics

about myself yeah and uh and I go back to that you know point I made very early in the discussion

today sometimes we do these things for selfish reasons which aren't aren't bad selfish reasons

good selfish reasons because everybody gets something out of it and it always comes back to

our ethics what what we value in life yeah ego is really important I think that ego can run

rampant and you know when it's disproportionate to what else you fit into your life that's where

danger can happen but the ego is still our our our guiding principle it's what protects us is

what keeps us safe and gives us a sense of individuality um but

it's it's it's all it's all part of it and to the selfish part of it is the inevitable comparison

of questioning and comparing your morality and your code of ethics against other people and I

think the more self-aware you become the more you're able to kind of do that in a in a healthy

context and the hope is always that you can learn something that will take you to the next level of

I don't know understanding appreciation of life whatever it happens to be

contentment peace and awareness aware but awareness I mean it's it's a it's a two-edged

you know it's can be scary it can be really scary it can be dark um and it can make you feel lonely

depending on what room you're sitting in um I've learned that the hard way you cannot expect people

to meet you where you are and you can't resent them for not being where you are you have to just

accept people for who they are and you can't resent them for not being where you are and you can't

make peace with that sometimes well Melanie that is that is a pretty good way to end this off

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