How Does Food Shape Your Life? | 069

So earlier this year, Sharon Flynn introduced me to Wendy Hargreaves. You may remember Sharon from Episode 10 when we talked about fermented foods, and she said to me, Oh, you and Wendy, you are going to get on like a house on fire. And I was really excited, because I love Wendy's work as a

journalist. For decades, I have read her articles in the top newspapers in Australia, and my dad and I really enjoy listening to her three aw radio show on the road again, where she celebrates rural Australia. I'd also watched her short film series about women in hospitality that won a bunch of

awards in America, particularly the story about Kate read, which was everywhere, because lune chrysanteri has become a phenomenon in Australia. And when I met Wendy, I was just captivated by her energy and enthusiasm for food and life and her unending curiosity about everything. And then Wendy

joined our 60 day reset because she wanted to make some changes with her health. And I got to know her even better, and we had some fantastic conversations about how her early childhood experiences and work as a food critic influenced her relationship with food, and it was inspiring to watch how she

flipped the switch and actively changed her relationship with food. It was a story that many people in our community related to so I had to have her on the podcast to share it with you. I think it's really going to resonate, or you are in for a treat. So let's get the skinny. From Wendy Hargraves, oh,

Wendy, thank you for having this conversation with me. I'm excited to talk to you about your relationship with food. It's been a really fascinating, ongoing conversation. And dear listen, I'm so excited that we can bring you into it. So I want to start with what it was like growing up in a small country

town, and how that shaped your relationship with food and story and journalism.

It's um, it's an odd one, because I started life on a farm, but my neither of my parents were farmers, my grandparents were

so but I spent my first few years chasing chooks around, which I knew would become chicken dinner. And, you know, collecting eggs and feeling really connected to that place. And I think that's it's really important the first few years of your life, right? Like where you eat your first food and and

drink your first water, and it just becomes part of your whole body, and you carry it around for the rest of your life. So whenever I go back to that funny little place called irrawa, southwest of Melbourne. It's not even a town, it's just a postcode. Whenever I go back there, I just feel this. I

understand what Australia's Aboriginal people are talking about when they talk about their land. Okay, I can't, I can't even begin to experience what, what they've gone through, but that feeling of of all of your cells, knowing they're in the place where they where they started. So then we moved into

town. My dad was a barber, and he he loved a beer, and he was never home for dinner, and he'd come home with a with the evening Herald back when we had those blissful evening newspapers. Yeah, a couple of chocolate bars tucked inside for my brother and I, because I think it's feeling a bit guilty

about not making it home for dinner on any given night. And so therefore, the smell of newsprint and the taste of cheap shit chocolate basically driven my entire career. I can't I find, like, Cadbury, crappy Cadbury, just absolutely irresistible,

because it's delicious.

It's all tied back to my, you know, the way my dad expressed love and, oh yeah, and he was also on the radio, doing football commentary, because so I ended up in radio like it, and I didn't even think about it when it was happening. It's only been in the last little while looking back. And

at the same time, I spent a lot of time with my grandmother on the dairy farm and my grandfather, you know, feeding the the little Sookie calves and and helping with the dairy and but I'd be happiest in the kitchen with my grandmother, who was the sort of woman who could see that someone was turning

into the driveway of the farm and have a batch of scones whipped up and in the oven by the time they got to the front door, so that she'd have the fresh, freshly whipped cream and the teapot warming. And yes, yes, come in and she might take me to a good room. And to this day, I'm able to do that magic

scone thing without using recipe. Just chuck butter in Rub, rub, rub and milk oven. And so they were two big influences on my food. It's like finding everything you need on the farm, which is what yeah mother did. And and then, from the other extreme, getting totally sucked into corporate confectionery and

but

food as a reward, yeah? And food as comfort. Food is communion. Food as well a welcoming invitation. And that gets modeled to all of us.

And that's the best thing about being in your 50s, you sort of have, you're able to be a bit more circumspect about what's been driving you. And I've been really fortunate to work with some amazing people in the last few years to help me see what my drivers are and and that, that

little egoic dysfunction that keeps me slipping back into my normal, what seemed as normal ways. But then look at the same time, I had a mum who was a working mom. She was the first artificial inseminator who was a woman in Australia. Wow. So she was a bull. She was a bull for a living. Oh, and she worked hard.

She went around lots and lots of farms through the Otway Ranges. And I used to go, if I ever had a sickie from school, like I'd travel around with her and see how she interacted with the farmers and but she always wanted to have something ready for us when we got home from school, even though she was

working and working her ass off, there'd be like, a ginger fluff or a tea cake or something waiting for us when we got home from school. That's how she expressed love as well.

So it was sugar, like so many of us going through a bad day. I'll bring you a cake when somebody dies. People show up with cookies and yeah, I mean, this is just modeled and modeled and modeled. I

think there's a little bit of genes in it as well. Because, I mean, I, I raised my two daughters with, like, hardly any refined sugar in in their lives, like I just, you know, they might have it every so often at a birthday party or something like that. And now they're 20 and 22 and

and my youngest blames me, because as soon as she got to school and university, she's like, I just was able to eat everything, and you didn't teach me how to control it. Oh,

that's so interesting.

Yeah. But, but

this, this relationship with food and desire and comfort and love and connection. It just it constantly comes up every day, and it is something very interesting to look at, and of interest, not because I can't think of a better word, and you and I have continued to speak

about this. Really have.

It's been fascinating. And the

addiction to sugar to sweetness in life.

It's real and it's and when it's not just a physical like, like a crack addict, it's a physical thing. You have a little bit of refined sugar and you just want more, and you don't, you're not even conscious of what you're eating. You're just having. You're just it's just going in your mouth

until it's gone and and

what you're also talking about is safety and comfort, yeah, as well like that. That's something that was ingrained, and you've hooked the taste and the memory of sweet and sugar to those feelings with your key family members,

yes, right? So that, you know. So then I took off to uni, and I did O Week. I couldn't wait to leave the country town. It was just like, it's the only thing I was thinking about, was getting out of there. And I knew I wanted to be a journalist, so I started a journalism degree, did

Orientation Week, and heard that they were hiring at the Geelong advertiser, and went for a cadetship and got it, and it ended up basically being the only job interview I've ever done, because everything after that just sort of rolled into the next gig in media, in newspapers. I was a news

journalist, so I was covering police and courts. I was covering sport, politics, health, education. I'm cursed with being able to read a medical journal and understand pretty much what's going on. And so I think I know what's going on, but like I I'm a master of everything in nothing. As a news

journalist, you've got to know a little bit about everything. And then I was, I was in my happy place. I was going to become the first female editor at The Herald Sun, which still hasn't

happened. Unbelievable, isn't it? Yeah, I know. And

I was that I was on my way, and I had to work in the Canberra press gallery for a little while, because that's something you have to do as as a journalist if you want to rise up into management. So I was on my way to Canberra, everything packed in a in a truck. And at the time, my

parents had recently separated, so it was all a bit hairy, but they'd re partnered as well, which was lovely. Mum was living with cancer, with bowel cancer, but she's like, go. You've gotta go. I can look after this. I've got this under control. And she had a loving partner. And then I get Frank off from dad to say

that he's. Lung cancer, but it's a bit faster and more aggressive. Luckily, he's married, he's become a partner with a theater nurse, so I knew he'd be okay, but I had to turn around and come back with both parents with cancer on opposite sides of the state, and in that moment, I basically realized

that I was spinning my wheels for not just an organization, but an industry that loved me for everything I gave it, but I wasn't actually really getting anything from it, except that kudos of breaking yards. I was a story machine. You know, I could just, I knew I could walk into a room and find a story, and my

bosses loved me for it, but at the same time, made it very clear that I was very lucky to have that job, and there was hundreds of people waiting to take it from you, and so it was like this. It was always very competitive. But anyway, I just ended up moving in with the man that I just met. We were engaged

a few months later. Dad's oncologist said, Oh, if you want to get married, you better get married in the next few weeks, because your dad won't be able to walk you down the aisle. So we were married in another four, five weeks, and then soon as I had unprotected sex, I was pregnant. So it was like, in the

space of a year, I went from this crazy driven, almost a protected species, because you like, you're in a bubble where you used to be as a journalist, it's not so much now. It's a bit more commercial. But if you're producing stories, they leave you alone. You just, you do. You're on your own trip, and to

then realizing that family was much more important. And you know, my parents ended up dying about 10 months apart, and mum passed away two weeks before my eldest was born. And so it was like a big rug being pulled from under me, everything that I'd known for the last for the previous 20 years, basically, I

just had to reinvent myself because it wasn't what I wanted anymore. And of course, I went back after I had babies. Of course I went back to newspapers, because that's what I

knew. But you'd already decided, before you got married and got pregnant, that that wasn't it does not have to be me moment in the current form of your journalistic career. Well, you already decided, and then the rug got pulled further. And so how did you reinvent yourself? What did you decide to

do? Well,

it's interesting because in the newsroom, they'd never been a part time female before. As soon as you had a baby, you worked in features, like in the night, not the hard news bit. So, um, my boss, though he was, he was amazing, and he was a great boss, and he'd say, Look, come

back, come back four days a week, come back three days a week, come back two days a week, come back one day a week. And and I refused it and actually quit, because I knew that I couldn't be the person that I was. I'd been broken and put back together in a different way. I couldn't be that 100% on

Okay, now you do this and who, what, where, why, when, how. Bang, you know, and I wasn't that person anymore. So I left for a while, but then they eventually dragged me back to write columns which was fun, just writing my opinion, which is a

opinion about what, whatever I felt like.

It was quite funny. There weren't any, there weren't many female voices in the opinion pages. So I I'd write silly things like, like men, men who wear brightly colored lycra that are starting to wear out a bit. You really should think about it before you get on a bike. Oh, my God, I

just have a crack at them. And then, you know, the entire cycling fraternity would be and then, oh, I might write about, I mean, I come from a farming background, and my husband grew up on a farm as well. And at the time, vegan politics was huge. There was like I was getting everyone was angry about animal

cruelty. And you know that the whole veganism thing was a strong thing. So I kicked back a bit and said, If you don't do meals ing on sheep, they'll die from fly, strike and just and that, you know, everything I did was confrontational, and it was designed to be as an opinion, and I sort of became a voice of

the country, because there weren't really any country people writing in what was one of the biggest Metro dailies in Australia. So that's sort of how that happened. And

what was it like for you? As you were saying, early on in your life, you were tied to the land. You felt that affinity, but then you couldn't wait to get out of there. Yeah. And then you decided that you were going to be the voice of rural Australia.

It was, it was interesting. I just. I it was a sudden realization that I could speak country. I could actually speak to country people. And I knew that you take little pauses and you stand back a bit and you it's a different way of communicating in the country. You're not as fast and in your

face and and so tell

tell me how you discovered that as you were writing these opinion pieces, you were researching and meeting people and then falling in, falling into that rhythm with them, is that how you discovered that you actually, all along, spoke country I have, I

have a brother who's a country copper, and he's, he's my bullshit detector. Like, you know, whenever you become too much for wanker, he's like, Oh, God, just such a wanker. And it was, it always bring me down, you know, like, okay, yep, this is, this is actually who I am. Why am I

trying to be this person? This is who I am. And, and when I became more authentic about who I was, I wasn't this sort of inner city fast growing journo that I was pretending to be. I was, I was a girl who grew up in the bush and worked hard to get to where she was and understood things about the country that

city people didn't understand. And so I felt like I needed to make that connection and that that was going really well, but like all great things like they get whipped from in the news game. They do anyway that at the time Master Chef

happened. Yeah, it so it's the country.

Yeah, it was a juggernaut. And my editor said that he wanted me to set up a a food section in the newspaper I was working for and and I called him so many four letter words that you probably would, you know, it was very blue. I was very angry, because it's like, you want me to be a effing

cooking writer. You want me to write about cookery after all these years and all the things I've done, it's like, you're not going to ask that bloke over there to do it, are you? You know, like I was

just, yeah,

but he was, he was a sensible, smart man. He said, Look, just treat it like all the other rounds that you've done. It's all about the people. Just get stories. Just treat it like a round. And which I did, and it ended up being a life changing experience for me, because I realized that it was

connecting me back to this food story and and the people in it are just so fun. Chefs and restaurateurs are great fun. I spent had a great time reviewing restaurants and and did that for a while, until lockdown happened, and everything just ground to a complete zero halt. There's nothing happening. And I

did you have this thing test during lockdown where you actually started remembering your dreams and having lucid dreams?

Yes, yes. And so many people I speak to have had the same experience.

It's, it's crazy like I I don't have them now, my brain's back to spinning at a million miles an hour again. I think so my

aperture changed. The aperture changed, and it really was an invitation to see things differently and be present with what is. And some people embraced and took up that invitation, and other people really resisted it, and I saw the dreams as bursts of clarity coming. So what kind of dreams

you've got to tell me now some of the dreams that were happening.

There were two really pivotal, like life changing dreams that I had, and they all happened in the same week. The first one was because I'd been doing a streaming TV show for a service called ticker, which is like Netflix. Had a baby with Sky ings in Melbourne, and I had half an

hour of talking to chefs and restaurateurs about how they were surviving, not how shit it was, but what they were doing to get by, to try and do something, to help. And I was doing auto queue. I was doing I'd never done on camera work before. I'd done some radio, but it changed. I thought, I can, I'm producing

this whole thing myself. I'm putting it to where I can do this. So it gave me this little bit of a leg up, and allowed me to work a little bit in that frame, I've had this dream that I was in the car driving off into the countryside, and I knew I was going to find a story. I just knew it. And I had this

great feeling of anticipation. I didn't know what the story was. I just knew I was going to find it. And it sort of set me back in this time, this blissful time as a young reporter, where I was sent out with photographers for like one or two weeks on end, out into the country, come back with a bag of stories. That was

the that was the brief. And we'd roll into a town, walk into the pub, find out who's who, and end up finding a bloke who wears roadkill and lives in a teepee, you know, like the sort of. Stories that used to be on page one and three as picture stories of newspapers when journalists got out to find things rather

than the following up social media crap that everyone's doing now. Anyway, it got me back into that frame of mind. And the next and I woke up that day wrote a pitch for three Aw, for a show called on the road again, where you where? I said it's going to be like back roads with live talk back I'm going to go to

towns that people drive through to get somewhere else and find out why people live there and why people should visit. And everyone was in regional, regional mode, in lockdown. We were desperate to get out of our houses, but we couldn't leave the ring of steel. So as soon as we were busting out, regional

towns were eaten a bit. So you had 3w bought it, and I'm still on air. I'm still doing it. Yes, fabulous. Yeah, it's a total love job. I'm on air with an amazing broadcaster called Peter grubby Stubbs, yes, ever

yes

and art. Love jobs, just the best jobs,

absolutely and it allows me to, like, travel on massive road trips with absolute impunity and claim it all on tax. It's awesome. And then two nights later, I have a dream that I'm a toddler. I'm I'm back on the farm. I'm sitting in the mud, I'm squishing my fingers and toes in the mud, and I'm so

blissfully happy that I'm giggling like a maniac. And the next morning, I wake up and I bought some clay and just thought, yep, this is, this is actually my mental health plan. This is what I need to get through lockdown, I feel so good. I feel so centered with this mud in my hands, and found

a second hand wheel and set it up on my back deck, and you just started throwing, started throwing, and that was what is it now, five years ago, I really thought it'd be lovely to be in a studio nearby. That happened, found someone with a studio nearby, then this weird thing happened, like, it's Be careful

what you wish for, right? It's one of those things that, but you dreamed it and then and then, now, there's a new studio that's exactly five minutes walk from my front door, where I teach a beginner class once a week, and in return, I have 24 hour access to the studio and the clay and the kiln and

everything. And so there's zero money changing hands. It's a voluntary role, but I get to actually play yeah, it's a beautiful thing, and that happened because of a dream as well. So now I'm figuring out a way to bring my pottery world, which is now I'm getting commissions from restaurants and

people, and it's becoming a business, and I want to draw it into my journalism world by telling the stories of great people on the land, great farmers, great producers, and making something that it's been, it's been inspired by them. So making like butter dishes for my favorite dairy farm and orange

squeezes from my favorite orange farm, and telling their story in, you know, probably something online for people to read with photos, with a little QR code on my on my piece, so they know that this was inspired by them. So I'm hoping that will drag everything together for me, but that's a work in progress.

Well, I mean, it sounds like you manifest your dreams, so it will present itself, and you'll seize the opportunities and go down a road, and if it's not the right road, you'll change course, like you have been your whole life. It's where did this, this passion for telling the specific

stories about the makers and growers come from? Was that also born out of a dream? Was it your brother's bullshit detector a play, was it all of the above? Oh,

yeah, maybe it was a bit of all of the above. I think the dream that I had about going off into the country was very much about connecting the city to the bush, because there's a massive cabin, cavernous hole between the city and the bush, like people in the city think they understand when

they go for little day trips and but they're getting the day experience. It's nothing like what it's really like living in the country where they've got, you know, fewer fewer hospitals, fewer schools, fewer everything. And then they're tenacious and they're they're really good at making do and with what they've

got. And I think that's the thing that I want city people to know, like people in the country, that they're the other thing is, I don't know anyone who's grown up in that country town knows that when they're you can't get away with anything. There are eyes on you constantly. Right? It's this,

yes, it's like, you've got aunties and uncles. It's a blessing and a curse. Yeah, my husband hated it. He just hated it. And he loves being invisible in the city, whereas I really missed that, and I think that especially in lockdown, when everyone did start forming connections in communities and

rediscovering their suburbs and who actually lives next door, and having secret laneway parties and things like that. It kind of reminded me that country towns are much healthier places to live because everyone knows each other's business, and they know to stay out of it. They know not to judge it. They're

just there,

you know, you don't. And there's also an ownership of the community. Yeah, we all take a part in owning, cultivating, nourishing, feeding the community.

Yeah, that's right. And there'll be people that might not be as beloved as others, but they're their people. They're in this town. We look after everybody, and I'm really lucky to have married a country boy, and I'm sure that's why we're married now, like 24 years later, it's because we

have that same set of values, which is that you you look at you look out for people, and you don't bullshit people, because you'll be found out.

Oh, gosh, isn't that truth also championing local people. We're so used to wanting everything at our fingertips all the time, whether it's in season or not, and we don't think about typically, the average person is not thinking about celebrating local suppliers and growers and how

that's better for the environment, better for the community, better for, you know, everything we're just buying it on Amazon or getting it shipped from overseas, or, you know, so this voice of the country, I want to tell these stories. I speak country. It keeps coming back around this, this love of

country folk and what is going on in rural Australia?

Yeah, it really is. Like just yesterday, I was at the Melbourne show grounds where they're judging the meat. They've just finished judging the dairy for the Melbourne show, which is on in September next month, and

which the average person thinks is all about the show bags and

the right, but it's the royal agricultural society of Victoria. The whole thing was set up for rural Victoria to come and and show their produce and show off bit and get ribbons and gold medals and things like that. And I, I just thought, this is this is so disconnected. Even even the

royal agricultural society of Victoria is too disconnected from from what's going on. So I've basically pitched to them, and I will be very soon going into the country and talking to the champions of the show, and so people can see them in their actual environment in a video documentary, rather than just on

a on a podium at the show grounds, and try and make that connection. And yeah, hopefully that should be a bit of fun. There'll be, yeah, I can't wait to see that. I'm hoping it might be a bit like Best in Show, where they're all like, I love

that Christopher Guest movie. I mean, it is so hysterical.

The whole series of those movies is amazing. They're amazing, aren't they. So while you've been doing all of this work around food and telling these stories of people working in food, living off the land, creating things, chefs, restauranteurs, all of these different things you've been

doing. How has that helped you understand your relationship with food? As a food writer, I I'm just fascinated by

this. It's It's so funny that someone who just I've basically eaten what I've wanted, like, and then I would diet, like my whole, you know, pre menopausal life, you know, it you pull the rip cord a bit. You might drink a bit too much, eat a bit too much crap, and and then you go on a

intermittent fasting, or, you know, I'm not eating white food this month, or I was that person. I was like, up and down, like a Yo yo, and getting getting the job as food editor and and restaurant critic at a major metro newspaper, which means that your face is on Dart boards in kitchens or, Oh, and

you get the most obsequious, weird service when you go anywhere, because, oh, chef would really like you to taste this. It's, it's not, it sounds fabulous, but it's actually, it's not fun going out, because you're always working. So you know, it's not as good, even if you're not.

Not fair to review something they know your face and

oh, wow, you have to watch what everyone else is doing and how everyone else is being treated as a marker for their service. But anyway, I don't know. I basically got a job for myself that enabled me to eat for a living, right? So I was, I was just, I was constantly being sent things by

PR companies wanting me to write about this brand new donut that's that's coated in this and then deep fried again, or, or you really need to try this new biscuit that is like they used to make horrific things. I went to a stage up until lockdown where everyone was making freaky, large, sweet things.

Like, it didn't matter.

Yes, eating their sourdough starter and making bread. Yeah, all the carbs.

But I would every time someone delivered something, it was just like, Oh, that's so nice. I'll have to try a bit, even if I want, like, whether I wanted it or not. Oh,

gosh, tell me about that. Eating when you don't want it, eating when you're not hungry, when it doesn't appeal to you. What did that do for your art

form relationship? It was, it was crazy, like I I was working tests. I was working. Of course, I had to eat it. It was my job, and so, and it was almost like it was something I didn't like, like whole heap of like, I did a food tour in Springvale. I actually organized it for the

city of Dandenong, for all of the awful in all the little Vietnamese joints. So it was like a

bit already

of spring Vale. And it's not that I particularly enjoy that food. It's just like I have to try that. It's something I haven't done before. I haven't had the first soup with, you know, all of the bits in it that you can't describe. So what does Wendy do? She suggests doing it for the

council and actually running tours to show people how to do it. So honestly, I had a great time 1015, years or so of this constantly, like being invited to the most fabulous things. You know, getting getting to meet Heston Blumenthal, and, you know, all these amazing chefs. And I rode the wave the Master

Chef wave.

My sister worked on MasterChef, and she just fell in love with him. She said, he is delightful. And I was quite jealous, I admit, oh my goodness, like chocolate

and then he brought that up to Melbourne. You know, like, think about, like he brought all of his staff, all of his chattels, all of his plates, everything was brought to Melbourne for a little while. But it was, I did. I drank from the Kool Aid. I actually became part of that

whole machine that was celebrating how wonderful Melbourne was how great Victoria was, and it is, yeah,

having lived all over the world, Melbourne is one of the great cities of the world. Even without being parochial, it is a great food city of the world.

I feel very fortunate to have had the experience I've I've had here, to be able to do that,

and so many beautiful things about it, and I hear you about that, I'm interested in how that influenced and affected and shifted your joy with food.

Well, yeah, yeah. How did that change? What, yeah, touched on before, like it was, it was almost feigned joy, like it was, I had to think about how I was going to write about it, and think about how others would see this. So this is going to be something that really suits that market, I'm

not really sure. Like you're just constantly analyzing as you eat and when you go out, you constantly thinking, Oh, they didn't do that. They didn't do that. Okay, did I feel like I got a warm hug when I walked in the room? No, you know, did that person not like, there was no sitting down? Wow. This is the

most beautiful piece of food I've ever seen that was, like, it was almost like passing muster, you know, like, Oh yeah, that was really good. Okay, what's next? And so I, I did lose a bit of that joyfulness around food. But then, now that you asked that, I wonder whether I ever really had joy around

food. It was an expression of love, but did it bring me joy? It was a habit that it was, it was an expression of love that my little Wendy brain has decided is the way love is, but it's but it's not. I want

to hear more about that. So how have things shifted now, when you can be fully present, do. Just for yourself with what you are choosing to eat. How do you taste food differently now?

Well, I'm I'm now, and in this post menopausal phase where, if you do go for the wine and and the sugar and the simple carbs, my body responds by having a complete weirdo, inflammatory, you know, response. It's it's crazy. No one tells you this stuff, how great your body is that at um

processing poisonous food,

yeah, because estrogen and progesterone, they're predict protective hormones. Mm, hormones. Everything just gets masked a lot when you're younger, that the inflammation is still happening, yeah, of course, resilient. And then as our protective hormones are in free

fall, everything comes to the fore, right? Comes to the surface. I mean, menopause is such an invitation to practice self care

way. Yeah, and that's and so it's all converged. I think I went through menopause during lockdown. I didn't really, I didn't really know I was because I had an IUD in at the time, so I wasn't actually menstruating. But I went through it without any major hiccups, and came out

the other end and and it was only just feeling a bit sore, and it's just it actually built up. It wasn't a sudden thing. It built up. And I realized that I just couldn't, couldn't be the person I was. I just had to switch my whole attitude to food. It wasn't a reward anymore. It wasn't something I

deserved. It wasn't something that I'd earned, or something I'd been a good girl and I got this or it wasn't my job. I stepped right away from all of those stories that I told myself about food and told a new story, which I've been doing since I met you, Tess, actually, thank you. A new story, and that is so

welcome. But you gave that to yourself because you decided it has to be me. Well,

that's right, and but it was, it was literally telling myself, whenever I reached for the crap, telling myself, does this nourish me? Does this get me to where I want to go. Does this fuel my body and make me feel better? And inevitably, the answer would be no. Sometimes the answer would

be Yeah. It

and that's okay too. That's a powerful relationship with food,

yeah. And I so I'm now I've just switched it all to without the last thing I want to do. So hate those people who are really anal about it. It's like, Oh, can't do that. That's got a bit too much this. And have you got enough protein? Blah, blah, blah. And I know, having gone through your program

how important protein is, but I don't want to be that person that counts everything

and, oh, that's no joy. There's no joy to be found in that place. No

absolutely. So it's now figuring out exactly what my body's craving, not what my brain is craving. Ooh,

so how were you becoming more intuitive about that? Just mindfully redirecting yourself, or

it's, it's a really interesting one. Tess actually, because I've always, I've always thought of myself as an intuitive person, but it's been to do with my career, like I call them, my spidey senses, where I can tell when someone's bullshitting me. I Can I feel it viscerally when there's a story,

when the angles just dropped, that's, that's what everyone wants to know. That's the secret that you you've been wanting to tell the world, but never have. Like, I've, I've got that skill. And I also have someone, someone told me I've got cow eyes, which means that people trust me and release information that they

would never have normally released. Like some, I have that whatever that thing is that makes people feel very comfortable to share

warmth and authenticity is what I would say about you.

Well, it's, it's, I've Thank you. I It is. It's all that matters, really to me, is authentic. It's all that matters but and it's all I've got, because I work for myself, and so I only have my own reputation.

Well, also love and respect. You were speaking to that earlier about respecting other people, respecting their stories and being genuinely interested. Yeah,

curiosities

are really Yes, that's what you have. That's your superpower.

It is. And I suppose that, to answer your question, that's what I'm applying to that intuitive thought now is like just asking the question and asking the question. And I've also been doing this thing. I can't even remember the name of the book, someone's I've read something

that you should sit down and write three full pages of. Stream of consciousness, writing before you do anything else, before you have a coffee, before you before you have a shower. The artist way, the honest way. That's it. Yeah?

Cameron that that was a book that went viral all those decades ago.

Doing it, yeah, I heard about on a podcast, and let me listen to the first couple of chapters, and then I've been doing that for the last three weeks, Tess, and it's extraordinary, the shit that's coming out. Yeah. Oh, that's a great way of

thinking about it. But it is a form of meditation. It's a form of meditation where there's room to explore what's going on in in, in the stillness, among the chaos. Yeah, I really, yeah. It's, it's a beauty. It's a beautiful practice. And why it, you know, took took off in the world

because people were experiencing what you're experiencing.

Well, for me, I've always tried to journal, and because writing has been my trade for so long, I just found it a chore. Like writing is what I do, and I don't get much joy from it. I just it's just something that I know how to, I mean, automatic pilot, and I can turn a complex Situ situation

issue into something simple and condense it. That's That's what you learn as a newspaper journalist, and it's something that's dying, unfortunately, but to sit down and just rave on about whatever my long hand, because I did shorthand when I was a cadet, half shorthand, half long hand, so I have no

worries about anyone actually reading my intimate thoughts, because no one will be able to understand it.

But it brings up something that's really interesting to me about celebrating other people's stories and telling and interpreting the story for others, and then stories that are just yours, just for you to precious. It's sacred. Yeah,

absolutely. And I don't think I've allowed I've been so busy telling everyone else's stories that I've never really sunk into it. So I

want to hear more about that. I want to hear more about being in your own story. And what's coming up for me is what you were saying before about how many of the next it has to be me. Moments for you were born out of dreams that happened in solitude, when you were fully present inside your

own story and listening to that stream of consciousness, yes, whether you're writing it

down or not, no, it's when I'm still, because I've never, ever been still my whole life. There's no stillness. If I'm still, there's something wrong. Why is it so quiet? Is

that why the throwing and the pottery resonated with you so deeply? Because you're there with the movement of the clay, and you you can control it, but sometimes you can't, and it's sort of taking on a life of its own, in a way, and evolving in the present.

Oh, for sure. Like, if you can't, if you're not still, you can't center the clay on the wheel like if your brain's busy, you can't send to the clay, it'll be wobble, wobble, wobble, wobble, wobble. There's no you have to have stillness in your mind in order to have stillness in your arm to

hold it there. And it taught me so much like that I wasn't ever still in my mind. And I actually have been doing some breath work at this new gym that I'm going to, which has been fascinating, and I want to actually collaborate with them and do breath work sessions in a beginner pottery sessions. Oh,

fantastic. Drop into it and feel what it's like when when you when your hands and the clay are centered. It's a blissful thing when the wheel's going full power, and it's completely still, and then you start pulling the clay up into a shape, and you've still got, it's complete stillness, but

you're creating this, this whole new form. And it's from the earth. There's something really primal about it as well. And you a potter who I love, who's taught me so many things, she came up with the best phrase ever for pottery, for someone who cooks for the hospitality and makes things for the

hospitality industry. She said, chefs and potters are the same. They take from the earth, add water and heat and give back with love. Oh, I love that. And it's like, it makes me tingle now. It's like, Gee, I wish I'd thought of that.

I love those words. But you know, what's so great is the words don't have to be ours. That's right, to share them and to leave them

That's right,

and sharing them. Because, yeah, that really resonates with me as well.

Yeah, it's a beautiful, it's beautiful way of thinking about it. And, I mean, we've recycled everything in our studio. And we, you know, all the stuff we make is made out of recycled clay, you know, like this it, there's this lovely, lovely circular thing happening in there and and I'm now getting

so much joy out of teaching beginner Potter's how to be centered. It's um, it's amazing. I never would have thought that that's where I'd find my happy place, but part of it is hopping in the car to go bush and talking to people and collecting stories. And I still love doing that. But yeah, the I've got a

two sided coin going on at the moment. It's flipping all over the joint.

Oh, I like that. I think that's what makes life interesting. I've got, I've always got, a flipping coin. I'm telling you, it's no two days are the same. And

I can't believe how many sides to your coin you've got doing some performance with a play and doing standing ovations, and then you're doing a podcast, and then you're leading a health revolution

like Whoa, no. It's fun. It's fun, but But to your point, it's all about story, and it's all about living your own story, celebrating the stories of others, and what happens when your story and the story of others collide and meet and all this beautiful magic happens. It's It's really

incredible, and what we learn about ourselves through that process. So what else have you been learning about yourself the last few years, while you've been making these changes to the way that you eat, really with curiosity, exploring your evolving and changing relationship with food, where

you want to be spending your time, and how you want to be engaging with yourself. What else have you been learning about

yourself? I I've realized that I haven't been a great friend to my female friends like that. I've been shallow because I've been so busy, you know, and I've loved being busy. I've loved everyone thinking that I was busy. I'm sorry I'm so busy all that crap like, you know when, when when

everything grinds to a halt and you have a chance to take a breath, you realize that that cult of busyness is just such an Unhealthy, Toxic way to live. And so in the last few years, when people have an idea to do something, I just say yes. I don't even think about it. If it's someone I love, I'll just

say yes, and I'll figure out how to do it

later. So you're reprioritizing, yeah, you choose to spend your time. Was that a realization that was smashed in your face during lockdown and covid when you weren't as busy? Or did you actively seek that change out.

Tim, it's really odd because I'm, you know, if you haven't noticed, I'm, I'm a bit of an extrovert.

No, really,

I married an introvert who's to the right of Genghis Khan in the political spectrum, and I'm an extroverted lefty, you know, like, it's, it's hilarious, but during, during that time, when we hate using the old word, it's just such a shitty time. It feels like a long distance memory.

Now, doesn't it like it's so long ago,

but people still seem pretty angry about it. The residual effects are still alive and kicking in this city.

Oh, it was pretty it was pretty evil at the time, but the the thing that happened was that I I became an introvert, and I loved it. I loved it. I was at home, I was baking and cooking, and I had my two daughters and my beautiful husband and my little dog, Murphy, who needed to be walked

10 times a day because it actually fucked up my dog more than anyone, because he thought that that was really he was only a few years old when, and he thought that that what was normal when everyone would be there at his beck and command. And now life's got back to normal again. He's

like, Oh, I'm so anxious. Oh, gosh. But it brings up something that came up for me years ago, where I always identified as an extrovert, until I understood that it's what we recharge as. And I don't recharge from other people. Even though I enjoy them, when I choose to be with them, I

recharge very much on my own. So I'm an introvert that presents socially as an extrovert, so lockdown wasn't challenging for me at all. It was like balm for the soul, really, because I just, you know, instead of traveling all over the world and being gone for pretty much three weeks of every month like you

had been, I was suddenly sleeping in the same bed every single day for two years in a way that I never had my entire life. And it really was a. Effective shifter. And then, obviously, as you move into your 50s, you it is an invitation to become more interested in sense of self and less interested in

Persona construction. Yes. Well, you know, there's that swimming around for both of us as well.

Absolutely. So it's funny though Tess, because I, I I was really digging on being introverted in lockdown, until I started getting sick. I actually, and it wasn't like a sick like a flu or auto immune thing or it was just complete lethargy. And because I wasn't, I thought I was being all

wholesome and good and everything you know, sparkly and lovely. And aren't we great at home as their little family? And this is beautiful, but I was actually being drained without knowing it at the time, and that I really needed to step out and meet new people, and that that's how I get my energy. And so you

are a true extrovert? Yeah, yeah, I thought I was an introvert, and I enjoyed, really enjoyed playing in that Sam pit for a little while. But no, it affected, actually affected my health, which was bizarre,

and I look but it brings up another really important point, that we can swim in both ponds, even though we may gravitate and feel more comfortable in one, we don't have to identify as such. And when you need to be by yourself and top up and regenerate and rest and shut out the noise of

others, you can and then when you're done, you're done, and then you can emerge again. You know which is exactly what you did. What else have you been learning about yourself,

that that I'm not a good employee?

Oh, you and me both

like dropping out. Dropping out of being an employee in newspapers is the best thing I ever did, and having a well honed bullshit detector as a journalist has enabled me, as a business woman, to just only work with people who give me good energy and, like, get rid of all the energy

drains from my life. And that's been probably the single best thing. Like when I first went out in business on my own, it was just like, Oh, you want to give me money? Yeah, sure, let's play and and it was very different. And I was busting a gap for people for whom I would never be able to give enough to,

you know, those people that just constantly want what you've got, and it's an endless supply. And so learned that, and and now, if I can smell even a little bit of energy drain on someone, I'll just, you know, smile and wave,

yes. That does not have to be me, is what I say to myself, right? And look again, the wisdom of age plays such a major role in that, and it's a beautiful thing when you just decide you're just going to live on your own terms and only have people you know around you who elevate and celebrate and make

you better than you'd ever be on your own. You know how I look at it now? It's just you absolutely want to be around people that celebrate others.

Yeah, which you do in this is it's amazing. Do you know, after all this time, I've done podcasts for other organizations, I've hosted podcasts. I've never done my own podcast like you're doing, and I've got nothing but admiration for you. Batting up with this all the time. I can see you get

a lot of good energy out of it.

Oh, I love it. This is a passion project. I love it so much. You'd be so wonderful at it. I mean, we don't know what's coming for you next and and who knows, right? I you know, I may be listening to your podcast one day, you know? I mean, this is the thing we do things when we decide it has to

be me, you know, like, I've always wanted to do a podcast, but it just wasn't the right time because I decided it wasn't the right time because I was so busy and traveling so much, and when would I have ever recorded anything that's the truth and and also didn't really know what I wanted the podcast to be. And

then it just became so clear to me a couple of years ago that I wanted to celebrate people, you know. And there it has to be me moments going, yeah, it has to be me to do that. And you don't second guess it, and you just do it, you know. And you are very much that way. I mean, you just embody that. But and the message

of what you were saying earlier about so many of your choices being born out of dreams. Now you were talking about two literal vivid dreams while you were sleeping. But we're living with dreams every day in consciousness, and we don't, we don't give ourselves permission to listen to those dreams. Just

dreams. Tess, it's, it's actually I, I really believe the closest thing that I would get to being religious, because I'm not. I'm an atheist. I wasn't raised in a church, but I believe that the closest thing I get to religion is dropping into that moment. Moment where it's an obvious sign that that's

where you need to be and where you need to go, and I've realized I've been so lucky my whole life that I've felt well as a young journalist, I was 17, I didn't even have my license, but I was able to walk into any room with my notebook and say who I was, where I was from, and you need to talk to me, because

this story is coming out tomorrow, and it was like a superpower. It was actually something that was bit hard to give up. It was like I had my Supergirl cape on, you know, and I could, I could, I could go. I could talk to Prime Ministers. I got to interview George Clooney. I never pants.

Well I would have too. He

was so beautiful just looking at and he's waiting for a question, and I was just going, so gorgeous, I lost my words.

Oh, listen, you, and I'm sure 1000s of journalists, were you

being a journalist at such a young age and having that power and that authority help you claim and recognize the agency that you had?

Well, I never felt resistance. So when and when you're crafting a story. When you've got a sniff of a story, you know, someone's up to no good, or you know something really interesting is happening, you've got to sniff. And this is something that you can use in whatever, whatever you're doing

in life. You've got a sniff of something you want, right? And you just go, okay, who'd know more about that? I'm going to ring them, and they, they open up a whole new set of doors, and then, and then you think, who's going to be the next most obvious thing? What's going to be the next most obvious? Okay,

I'll go in that direction. And that's how your mind works. As a journalist, it's like hitting T intersections and deciding left or right constantly, and

and asking questions, yeah, yeah, asking how we get answers

exactly, just always being curious and, and so in my non work life, I've always been like that as well. It's like, why can't I do that? I'm just gonna ask. And I find it really odd for that my daughter's generation who can't pick up a phone and, oh my God, how could she possibly put

yourself out there? Only you know, like this, the sense the fear of ridicule is so pervasive now in the social media world that this it's not just social media, just generally in you know, kids under 25 they've got this fear of looking bad, which we were blessed to not have a little bit this teenage

God, I'm glad you didn't have it. I'm so happy for you, but I've always had that.

But you're an actor, darling. It's true, like it, it's like this, this thing that's it stops you from lurching into something that you really want to do because of fear. And I suppose I've been so lucky that I haven't had any of, any of that fear. I just go, that looks interesting. I'm

going to dive down that rabbit

hole. You're a chaser, aren't you? Like you chase the story, you chase the opportunity, you chase the next experience. You're seeking it out. You're actively pursuing it. It's got such a like, a kinetic energy. It's so full of vitality. Oh, there's also a

yin and a Yank to that, like, there's that side and there's the other side, which is, oh, bright, shiny thing, I'm going to go over there, and then I'm going to go over there, and it's like, this whole full on dysfunction, because you don't allow yourself to actually sit in and really

work on something. There

it is again, what you were talking about, about being present in your experience. So you're yeah that so your superpower is your Achilles heel. We're not held, yeah, yeah. We're not held in balance. And when it's not in balance, you are always looking at the next thing, looking at

the next thing, and and you're not fully present with what is did being a journalist, help you hone your intuition like you were talking about this bullshit detector, this all sniffing, sniffing, you know, and trusting that that's where the lead is, and just following the lead, you know, how does that bleed over

to the rest of your life in terms of trusting your intuition?

Ah, it's, it's so hard to sort of explain how intuition feels. Isn't

it good news, but I'd love to have you try.

It's um, for me, it's just a stop sign or a go sign. Like, honestly, it's that clear to me, like, when I'm sitting, if I really just sit and think in. That moment, what's right? It's obvious, but there's no sometimes there's oscillation. If it's a really big financial decision, or if it

involves other people that you love, you know, you'll you do the, you know, the chart of pros and cons, and you go through all of that. But I, I always have a very instant reaction, and sometimes I've made the mistake of ignoring it, and it always I'm always wrong. Oh, you and me both.

Yeah. I mean, you've pretty much just, in a sense, answered the question that I always close every episode with, but I'd love to hear what you would add to it when I ask it to you directly, which is when you have a dream in your heart and you feel like you don't have what it takes to

make it happen. What do you say to yourself? What do you do

when I have a dream in my heart? I actually I usually drop in and say hello to little Wendy. I just, I like to put myself through this little filter of, what would little Wendy do? What would little Wendy think of this? She had everything. She had, the heart, she had the energy, she had the

world of defeat, this little person who hadn't been formed into anything yet. And I just think if you can drop into that innocent, pre formed person that you were, you'll always get the answer. It's all very woo, woo. It's, it's quite if you asked 20 year old or 30 year old Wendy that same question, I probably

just say, Oh, just

know, stop and the go is pretty clear, as you

said, yeah. But you

know, I think what is the fifth what is the 50 something year old Wendy. Say, yeah,

it's definitely asking. I call her LW, little Wendy. Yeah. It's like, how does she feel about this? And you get an in, you get a feeling. You get a feeling of like, you know, if you drop away all of the hoarding and all of the the padding. I mean, I'm still carrying my food, food

journalist, patting on me. I don't know if I'll ever get rid of that. Carry your life padding on you and your scars and everything that's happened to you. And we all make decisions through those filters, right? Yeah. They're antennas, yeah. And so if you can find a way to drop out of that and into that.

Play, Doh, that you were like that unformed play. Doh, the clay. The clay Exactly. Why didn't I say that the ball of clay? It's like it hasn't been made into anything. And if you can drop into that, then you then it just becomes a little bit more obvious, at least it does for me. And I've I've also

got three, three filters. I'm calling them my sieves, and it's come out of doing my three pages every morning, getting up with my stream of consciousness, writing and all of my decisions have to pass through these sieves. And one is, is it playful? Does it give me a sense of joy? Does it give me

vitality? And that not necessarily health, but just a feeling of health, you know, like, whether it's, you know, it's food and exercise and all those things, but it's bigger than that, right? And does it? Does it give me a connection to other human beings. If I get two out of three of those filters,

I'll consider it. If I get three out of three, I'm all in.

Oh, I'm stealing that from you

with pleasure doll, take it and run with it.

Oh, I will, and I'm going to make it my own now that old saying of good actors borrow, great actors steal and make it their own.

There's nothing new in this world. It's no new stories. Everything's been written before. Like we just have to get over ourselves. You're worried about, you know, having to be new at everything. It's it's crap. You acknowledge people, you learn from and share. That's what I reckon.

Anyway,

I agree. Oh, thank you for this beautiful conversation.

It's been my pleasure. I've really enjoyed talking to you. Tess, thanks for the opportunity.