Masters of reality

MasterChef might have trailed off in the ratings since its star status in the first season four years ago (at least twice as many people are watching The X Factor in the the same timeslot). But there's no doubt its influence is still felt in the world of food, as former contestants launch food careers apace.

Julie Goodwin, the central coast mum who won the first season, has published three books and is now something of a food celebrity, with a magazine column, a bunch of sponsorships and appearances that keep her busy. She is to appear at Floriade this year, where she will promote her work with Oxfam by cooking with ''rescued'' food.

Adam Liaw, winner of the second season, has a television show and is about to publish his second book.

Michelle Darlington is a lesser-known MasterChef contestant, bundled out of the first series at No.15. But she, too, has used the show to launch her career in the food world. And she, too, is making an appearance in Canberra, as the guest cook at the launch of the Crace community garden on Saturday.

MasterChef gave Darlington cache in the food world. ''It does give you a bit of a golden ticket,'' she says. ''Because the first show was so successful, as much as it's a double-edged sword. It was a fantastic experience, we would never swap it for the world, but it wasn't an easy one.''

Darlington was a photographer and had a bookshop in Berry on the NSW south coast before MasterChef. She says the elimination challenge that ended her time on the show was a dish of chargrilled squid with a stuffing of breadcrumbs, lemon zest, parsley and garlic. All three contestants made mistakes - for one, the squid was uncooked, another left an olive pip in his salad, and Darlington says she didn't follow the recipe faithfully, so any of them could have been bundled out that night. But it was the beginning, rather than the end of her life in food.

She started work at Essential Ingredient in Sydney, and set up a cooking school and cafe at the shop. Then at the end of 2011, she set up an online business selling organic seeds. Seed It Up supplied seeds to the community garden in the new Gungahlin suburb of Crace, a huge garden that covers 2000 square metres and is run by the Canberra Organic Growers Society. Crace is home to Darlington's partner, Joshi Pitman, and Darlington, who lives in Sydney, has bought an investment apartment in the suburb.

She says her seed business is also about encouraging people to follow their dreams, symbolised by planting a seed, and by a ''random act of kindness'' card she includes with her seed packs, suggesting people do something as simple as sharing produce with a neighbour or buying someone a coffee.

''I'm passionate about people growing their own food and attempting to connect to the cycles of nature,'' she says. ''I think it's really important for a number of reasons - you could talk about food security, you could talk about economics, you could talk about the benefits of organic food, but primarily, it's about people finding that joy that comes when you actually grow something from a seed. You're in control of the whole food cycle. To plant the seed it adds another dimension. It's a much richer dimension.''

In Sydney, Darlington has a balcony garden in Balmain, where she has a worm farm and is growing cucumber, zucchini, capsicum, jalapeno chillies, beetroot, tomato, basil, coriander, lettuce, strawberries and a lemon tree. Pots, she agrees, are ''much harder work than garden beds, but I persevere''.

At the Crace community garden open day, she will use the barbecue to cook not chargrilled squid but Hanoi prawn cakes, made with prawns and sweet potato and lots of fresh herbs.

Goodwin is not sure what she will be cooking at Floriade on

September 14 and 15. That will depend on the ''rescued'' food that turns up on the day. It's a cause close to her heart. She and her family - she has three teenage boys aged 15, 16 and 17 - volunteer once a month at a homeless shelter on the central coast where she lives, using donated ingredient to cook Saturday lunch for about 80 people. For some, it's their only meal of the day.

''It's a really good thing for the boys to see and to understand that there are people living around us and among us that need that kind of support,'' Goodwin says. Rescued food comes mostly from the supermarkets, which donate fruit and vegetables that no longer look good on the shelves, and other food near or past its best-by date. Goodwin says the food is fine once you've cut out the spots or bruises from fruit of vegetables. Pumpkin can be turned into a great soup, old bread into breadcrumbs or bread and butter pudding, bruised apples into pie or sauce. Far too much food goes to waste, she says, urging people to find ways to use the wilted fruits and vegetables in the fridge at week's end.

''We're a little bit spoilt here. We expect to eat the same things year-round whether or not they're in season, we expect everything to look perfect. I'd like people to embrace the imperfections. Having travelled to countries where people are starving, it's disgraceful how much food gets thrown into the rubbish bin here.''

Goodwin has recently become an ambassador for Thermomix (for which she is paid, and gets a machine), and says this is a machine that can deal to leftover vegies very easily - you simply throw them in and walk away, returning to a velvety soup. The Thermomix - which is about $2000, so not cheap, and able to be bought only through agents that visit your home for a demonstration first - weighs, chops, cooks, blends, whips and minces food, doing the job of a number of kitchen appliances in one machine. Goodwin says she's getting better at using the machine, using it for the likes of pizza sauce, for which she throws in onions and garlic, turns the mixer to chop, then to saute, then adds salt and oregano and tomatoes and sets it to stir and heat. She uses it also for custard, where the precise temperature control means you don't need to stand and stir the custard.

As for her next move, Goodwin is about to head overseas with Oxfam to visit some of the organisation's food projects, and hints at ''big news that I can't talk about''.

>> Julie Goodwin cooks for 90-minute sessions at Floriade through the day on September 14 and 15. Michelle Darlington cooks at the Crace community garden launch on August 31, where Jason Hodges from Better Homes and Gardens also appears. The garden is the open to the public on the day; all 40 plots have gone, with a waiting list.