As I'd travelled, I'd seen more and more people drinking rose. Given the amount of grapes we grow in Australia, I just said, 'Why wouldn't we be making rose?'
I want people to throw on a hat, head out into the outback and see the real Australia. You can do it how you want - independently in a 4WD, camping under the stars, or being treated like a king in a luxury homestead or on a cruise.
Restaurant kitchens are highly pressurised environments, with lots of young men, and that means one thing: testosterone. It's not brutal - it's military. It is regimented, tough. People are put into compartments and have to do exactly what they're told or the whole thing falls apart.
There is no way in the world that a vacuum cleaner will ever be obsolete - they use them for swimming pools, they use them for houses, they use them for industrial purposes. They're fantastic things.
Street stalls, be they in Korea, Thailand or anywhere else in Asia, in a covered market or simply on a street corner with a few brightly coloured plastic stools and tables, are my favourite places in the world to eat.
Australia is an extraordinary country full of people who eat extraordinary food. There are Greeks, Italians, Vietnamese, Koreans, Chinese, Brits. It's so varied.
I don't worry about the camera adding pounds, I am who I am.
I love Moroccan food, but I don't want to eat a goat or sheep's head, thanks.
I never use organic vegetables. Why would you want to? The idea of taking a courgette grown in a third-world country in an organic field, packed into a polystyrene box, flown across the oceans, washed in chlorinated water, packed into a foam box, driven halfway across the country, wrapped in plastic and stamped 'organic,' what's the point?
Those who know me well will tell you that I love a market, and when I say market, I mean food market. No matter where in the world, they allow me to soak up the culture, to hear the rhythmic chattering of the local people and traders, and take in the all-important smells, pungent and intoxicating.
I grew up in a world with my father where you learnt to iron, you learnt to cook, you learnt how to clean the toilet... I want my children to be the same... I want them to be anywhere in the world and be able to cope.
Growing up in Australia, we didn't really go on holiday. We lived beside the beach, so when I walked out of the back gate I was on the sand.
Tomatoes and mozzarella work very well together because the milk is rich in summer when the grass is very very green, and makes the best mozzarella in the world, same time as the tomatoes are around and beautiful bushy basil.
Beaches are really important to me, and I love Sennen Cove and Perranporth Beach.
The food I had as a child was not complicated, but by heck it was tasty. My Nanna's cauliflower cheese was awesome, her caramel slice wonderful and I am still searching for a recipe to make her apple tea cake.
I think restaurants and family homes and stuff are about conversation and about chatting. Food is there because you want to enjoy it and have fun with it but I'm not there to study it - I'm there to spend time with my friends.
MasterChef's' about real people and for real people. It's aspirational and inspirational. There's nothing snobbish about it.
The most important ingredient of Sunday lunch is the conversation. Without that, it's dead and gone.
Pumpkin and nutmeg tarts are a small, sweet version of the classic tart, a combination that is a particular favourite of mine.
My food hero would be someone like Elizabeth David, because I think what she did for Britain was amazing. Also David Thompson, an Australian chef who does Thai food and really understands the basis of it, has always been very inspiring.
