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What I've Learnt - Autumn Series Gems (March - April) · WHAT I'VE LEARNT

0:09
SPEAKER_02: Well, chef Elia Donati is a passionate young entrepreneur who has a deep appreciation for his Italian heritage and the power of food to bring people together.
0:19
SPEAKER_02: Recently cooking for the rock star Harry Styles as he traversed our country to sell out shows, Eliot is used to feeding and entertaining.
0:27
SPEAKER_02: Whether it's a celebrity or a private dinner, it's about nurturing others.
0:31
SPEAKER_02: Having spent the past nine years in Australia, he's blended his cultural background with his experiences to create a unique and very creative approach to food service and entertainment.
0:42
SPEAKER_02: Eliot believes that food is not just about nourishment but also about evoking emotions and creating memorable moments.
0:48
SPEAKER_02: He takes pride in using his culinary skills to create dishes that not only taste amazing, but they also have a story to tell.
0:54
SPEAKER_02: Whether he's catering for a small gathering or hosting a large event, Eliot is committed to providing his guests with an unforgettable culinary experience that brings people together meaningfully.
1:06
SPEAKER_02: Well, we're thrilled to have Elia join us on the What I've Learned podcast.
1:11
SPEAKER_02: Welcome.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: Hello, hello.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me.
1:15
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for the beautiful intro.
1:18
SPEAKER_02: Oh, yes.
1:18
SPEAKER_02: Well, I certainly I love what you do, and I think it actually appeals to a lot of people who love the idea of nurturing, which is a big theme of what you do.
1:28
SPEAKER_02: So arriving in Australia from Italy almost a decade ago, tell me what you missed when you got here and and how it got you thinking.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so at first definitely there was a bit of a cultural shock.
1:40
SPEAKER_00: Um, many things are different.
1:42
SPEAKER_00: I really like different, by the way, but they're just different.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, we we we're humans, we like things to be the same, and uh when they're different, we go like, oh okay, what's going on?
1:55
SPEAKER_00: And I didn't have my friends and I could not speak the language, and definitely I did not have my mom holding my hand.
2:06
SPEAKER_02: She wasn't there, she she's still back in Italy, yeah?
2:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah, she is, and she still holds my hand in um in a way.
2:15
SPEAKER_00: She's always, always, always available for me anytime for anything, which is I'm very lucky for it.
2:22
SPEAKER_02: And also I note that some of the dishes that you do were inspired by your mom and and cooking with her.
2:28
SPEAKER_02: So I think in a way you've carried her with you, you've brought her with you to our shores in your heart.
2:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yes, absolutely.
2:35
SPEAKER_00: Even part of the experience, what I say, how I structured it, and uh the actual core reason of why I do what I do, it's because of her, because of my dad, because of what they uh allowed me to um to experience when I was younger, and you know, in in their home.
3:00
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's what you bring to the table, literally.
3:03
SPEAKER_02: There's a sense of nurturing and caring for others, and really the notion which which you and I have spoken of of bringing everybody around a table is a very special thing.
3:13
SPEAKER_02: And it's it while it comes culturally, it's something that you come from, not everybody does.
3:18
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, it's a it's an homage to that.
3:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
3:22
SPEAKER_00: That's what I try to do because every chef has his own way to cook, to present dishes.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: Um my own take.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's definitely in the food, but also in the experience.
3:37
SPEAKER_00: So the way I engage with the people at the table, the way I provide extra value to the night, and um and all the service from the time that I uh buzz uh because I've arrived at your house to the time that you shake my hand and you say you thank me um for the beautiful night.
4:00
SPEAKER_00: Everything in between must be taken care of.
4:04
SPEAKER_02: And you clean up as well, which is pretty impressive.
4:07
SPEAKER_02: Because actually, we talked about that because, and obviously, it's the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival coming up, so it's very relevant that you and I talk about the power of food.
4:16
SPEAKER_02: And food and culinary wisdom is very much a thing in Melbourne, particularly, but obviously in Australia and Sydney as well, and in many of our states.
4:24
SPEAKER_02: So you've sort of arrived in Australia at a very exciting time with the opening of lots of restaurants, but obviously you were hit by the pandemic like everybody else.
4:33
SPEAKER_02: During that time, did you find that?
4:36
SPEAKER_02: Um, and obviously it's great we've got the festival coming up and we've got everybody out and about again.
4:41
SPEAKER_02: But do you find that during that time you had a lot of need for private dining in homes?
4:48
SPEAKER_02: And and how did that affect your business?
4:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so there was a big need.
4:54
SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, there was no way I could proceed and do that and do that because um people couldn't gather and I couldn't be in in their home.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: So it was just not possible.
5:08
SPEAKER_00: So uh I've offered some some food and uh I found a job in a local delicatessing and it needed some help.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: And so I went there and I actually learned even more about uh Italian ingredients and Italian cheeses.
5:29
SPEAKER_00: They've got over a hundred cheeses, and you know, you never stop learning, you know, because I'm from Italy and I'm a chef, I know all about every single ingredient.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: So it was a really, really nice experience, and I got to learn some recipes.
5:44
SPEAKER_00: I uh didn't know, um, especially for the variety of chefs that were there.
5:50
SPEAKER_00: It was what it was an interesting time, but it was really cool that it was on and off as soon as people could gather, I was able to book in people.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: That was a really good sign, and um that kept me going for sure, uh, not just uh financially, but also you know, in my in my mind, and um and uh then in November when uh they released us from the final toughest lockdown ever.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: Yes, um, yeah, it has been uh uh basically booming.
6:26
SPEAKER_00: I had to uh give up the other job and just do this full time and make sure I bring all I have to my customers.
6:36
SPEAKER_02: Well, it's to your credit, actually, Elia, because what you did is you took that window of time, which was tough for many people, particularly in hospitality, and you used it as a time of learning and growth.
6:46
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's to your credit because it is actually not easy, and a lot of people fell through the cracks.
6:53
SPEAKER_02: And it's great to see that you're you know, you're now embracing and doing what you love to do.
6:58
SPEAKER_02: And you you did mention that there was quite there's now post-pandemic, obviously, as everything's just gone pretty full steam, uh, the need for personal chefing and private chefing.
7:11
SPEAKER_02: And can you just talk to me about the distinction of those two?
7:14
SPEAKER_02: Because one is yeah, so so let's just just clarify.
7:19
SPEAKER_00: Even for me at the beginning, I thought it was just uh a choice of wording, and I liked the private chef a little bit more.
7:27
SPEAKER_00: It felt a little bit more exclusive, but then I looked into it, and there's actually uh a bit of a distinction, and apparently the personal chef is mostly what I do all the time, so bring in all the ingredients for one particular occasion, which could be recurring or every now and again.
7:48
SPEAKER_00: But the private chef is someone that comes into your house and uh cooks for just you and your family on more of a weekly basis, uh maybe one or two or three days a week.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: Uh it's not uh a fancy dinner or something, it's more like um I just want somebody to cook really healthy, good meals for us.
8:13
SPEAKER_00: Um we we're busy, we just yeah, like people have cleaners, people can have chefs as well.
8:19
SPEAKER_00: So it's the same thing.
8:20
SPEAKER_02: That's a good point.
8:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and so yeah, we found uh some people need that as well.
8:26
SPEAKER_00: So we we we've been filling that gap as well, but that's the distinction.
8:31
SPEAKER_02: Okay, that's really helpful.
8:33
SPEAKER_02: Now I do know that you did do some private chefing for Harry Styles when he was here, and I I would imagine that that that would have been an incredible experience, and a lot of I'm sure he was reasonably authentic, but you never know.
8:46
SPEAKER_02: But how did you find that that experience?
8:49
SPEAKER_00: Did it did it uh I thought it was gonna be more overwhelming, uh, probably because I was catering for him and his um very little crew that was with him traveling from Melbourne to Sydney.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: I was just like I said, catering for them, and the food was already ready.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: I just brought it to the uh aircraft, um, uh took a couple of photos um with uh the staff uh with the plane and not with them.
9:19
SPEAKER_00: Um and but so it was not as overwhelming as I was thinking.
9:25
SPEAKER_00: However, um, especially when they landed, um the staff texted me and uh she said the manager she said, um, as always, uh, we're very happy with the food.
9:37
SPEAKER_00: Uh and Aristotle and everyone traveling said it was absolutely amazing.
9:44
SPEAKER_00: The taste of it, the quality, and everything.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: They were really, really happy.
9:47
SPEAKER_00: It was a last minute thing, so the Jack company obviously was happy for me to do that.
9:53
SPEAKER_00: And so they said, yeah, we want you every time we depart from Melbourne, and you know, these kind of things, you know, make you feel pretty good.
10:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and you should feel good.
10:03
SPEAKER_02: And I suppose, I suppose the other thing is really whether you're a celebrity or whether you're not, it's about good food, good quality food, and also just nurturing and to have the right person in your home or your aircraft in this in this instance is important and you know, to be present, but not to be, I suppose, um, invasive.
10:24
SPEAKER_02: And you know, I think that's something that I've observed in the brief time that I've spoken to you.
10:29
SPEAKER_02: You seem to be very respectful of the role that you have.
10:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thanks for bringing that up.
10:35
SPEAKER_00: So I always say uh my dad is the uh business side of uh that I've uh um taken, and my mom is the emotional side that I've taken on.
10:49
SPEAKER_00: Um from my mom, I've taken this um very deeply.
10:53
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I can tell how people are feeling, and you know I'm very sensitive to changes and to how they feel and how the night is going, and I have my food on the accelerator and brake the whole time trying to make sure I am fitting because you're not coming to my restaurant where I cook that rest that recipe every single time the same, and that's what you know what you're getting.
11:26
SPEAKER_00: I'm coming to you, so I need to be able to fit in with you and with your guests.
11:33
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes there might be a party where I get offered a lot of drinks and it's all um, you know, doesn't really matter what's going on.
11:43
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's very fine, has to be perfect.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: I can it's not like I can make jokes, but they don't really go with the kind of vibe, or sometimes uh too much or too less.
12:00
SPEAKER_02: So I think the room.
12:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you gotta rate the room.
12:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I find that I can I can do that and people appreciate it because if I was to pay someone to do that and I had some friends over, and I wanted to, for example, uh, or a customer over saying we're talking about business, maybe, and we wanna be sort of relaxed but serious about things.
12:25
SPEAKER_00: I don't want the chef to come and you know joke with us and you know, make sure that's yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
12:32
SPEAKER_00: But sometimes it might be the case.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, that's a pretty big balance, I think.
12:37
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I think from my impression, I can see earlier that's something that you work and have honed quite well.
12:42
SPEAKER_02: In terms of your well, first of all, a very important question, I suppose, is let's talk about like I can see like for working mums, and I know myself working, although my children are older now, but when they were little, to have somebody who could help me with some of the meals at times was great.
12:59
SPEAKER_02: And if I'm working and I can afford it, but how how expensive?
13:03
SPEAKER_02: And I'm I know you have different tiers, and without going into specifics, because I know there's many variables, um, but I know you do try and have also an affordable option for people, you know, particularly the regular private chefing.
13:17
SPEAKER_02: Um, so so how much thought has gone into how you structure everything?
13:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so exactly.
13:24
SPEAKER_00: We have obviously our uh five-star experience, uh, where there's me and only another couple of chefs that can do and that I trust to wear this shirt with this logo to do that to represent the brand and what we stand for.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: And they respect the way and uh we we build the nine and we do everything, and it's a five-star uh sort of experience with all the best ingredients, best uh everything.
13:57
SPEAKER_00: There's no limit of time, you know.
13:59
SPEAKER_00: If you need to go outside for a smoke, if you want to take a break, you know, there's no that sort of pressure.
14:06
SPEAKER_00: While, you know, for something a little bit more affordable or maybe more ongoing, it could be that um we could find uh another chef that uh just comes and serves the food that we have already prepared in our uh professional kitchen.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: So it's sort of um we want to differentiate uh also from the catering because we're not we don't want to go against catering companies.
14:35
SPEAKER_00: Uh we just want to do uh uh catering with some help.
14:39
SPEAKER_00: So you still get sort of the same thing, really good food served.
14:43
SPEAKER_00: So you don't have to do much, uh someone that looks after the kitchen cleaning everything, but it's not a full-on chef experience five-star one.
14:54
SPEAKER_00: Or we can also do the sun catering where we prepare the food and uh we deliver it to you, and it's either already warm or or cold, or these these are the mean ones.
15:08
SPEAKER_02: There's variables, yeah.
15:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, um, and that's why it's good, I think, because you do offer a diversity of experience.
15:17
SPEAKER_02: Well, Alana was nearly 50 when diagnosed with ovarian cancer almost five years ago.
15:23
SPEAKER_02: She says, My birthday was coming up, and I never celebrate my birthday normally, but for my 50th, I said, This is one I want to spend with my friends and family.
15:32
SPEAKER_02: We started thinking about a nice gathering as well as an overseas trip.
15:35
SPEAKER_02: We had so many plans I don't even remember them now.
15:38
SPEAKER_02: Then cancer came and changed things, she says.
15:40
SPEAKER_02: At the time I was going through menopause and there were a lot of changes happening to my body.
15:44
SPEAKER_02: My period was getting lighter and lighter, but it hadn't stopped completely.
15:47
SPEAKER_02: I sometimes felt bloated and I'd lose my appetite.
15:50
SPEAKER_02: I'd forget to have lunch, those kinds of things, but I started to realise that I had some few symptoms like unusual bleeding that I thought maybe I should actually check with my gynecologist.
15:59
SPEAKER_02: Well, the story then became quite complex and quite challenging.
16:06
SPEAKER_02: Alana, you know, we're talking about, you know, a serious topic, but I think this is a very important place to start.
16:12
SPEAKER_02: Maybe, maybe tell us a little bit about your journey and what happened five years ago.
16:17
SPEAKER_03: Um, yeah, I was nearly turned 50.
16:21
SPEAKER_03: Now it's more than five years.
16:23
SPEAKER_03: It's six and a half years now since I wrote.
16:27
SPEAKER_03: Um, and um yeah, I just uh had an unusual bleeding one day.
16:34
SPEAKER_03: It wasn't usual for me because you know, uh you get to a start, you get a stage when you're menopausal that you don't get to have the period you used to have when you were a young woman, and um it was nearly faded almost to nothing, and suddenly I got this crazy uh bleeding, which I wasn't sure why I have it now.
16:58
SPEAKER_03: I I thought I'd done with it, why it's coming again.
17:01
SPEAKER_03: It was really like um I had uh to ask myself, is that okay?
17:07
SPEAKER_03: It's not okay.
17:08
SPEAKER_03: Usually I'm not a person who gets really stressed from um, you know, from not hypochondri.
17:15
SPEAKER_03: You know, this person always think about his health or not at all.
17:20
SPEAKER_03: I was always kind of very uh chilled about, you know, I never thought, I never think about bad things that can happen.
17:28
SPEAKER_03: I always kind of optimistic, I would say.
17:32
SPEAKER_03: So I didn't have anything in mind.
17:34
SPEAKER_03: Actually, I thought maybe I should ask my doctor, which is very unusual.
17:38
SPEAKER_03: Why it's five days, it's it's lasted for five days.
17:42
SPEAKER_03: And then I said it's it's it was a little bit alarming for me.
17:46
SPEAKER_03: Like I thought it's not okay, like how suddenly this is happening.
17:50
SPEAKER_03: Um, after a long time, I haven't seen it.
17:53
SPEAKER_03: So that was the first thing that made me call my gynecologist.
17:58
SPEAKER_03: And uh he, of course, on the phone he said to me, Look, it can be anything, you know, women have all sorts of things, and not always we know why, but the best thing I ask you is to come here and I'll check you.
18:13
SPEAKER_03: And by the way, I just said someone who canceled at two o'clock.
18:16
SPEAKER_03: It was, I remember very, very, very uh vividly.
18:21
SPEAKER_03: I was talking to him at nine o'clock in the morning, and then he said at two o'clock, someone literally just before you was supposed to come here.
18:30
SPEAKER_03: She can't, if you want to come at two o'clock, it's available.
18:33
SPEAKER_03: And he was a very busy doctor, like always, you can't get you can't get an appointment, which is an issue in itself.
18:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
18:42
SPEAKER_03: And I said, Well, it's two o'clock.
18:44
SPEAKER_03: I looked at my calendar because I also had a very busy time at work, and I said, Okay, I can come.
18:50
SPEAKER_03: It's kind of my lunchtime.
18:52
SPEAKER_03: I'll go and just go and see him instead of lunch today.
18:57
SPEAKER_03: And it's and I said, I can't say no to that.
19:00
SPEAKER_03: So I did went to him.
19:02
SPEAKER_03: So he very, very, I would say, in the first few moments as he checked me, he said, Oh, I feel like there is a large insist here and it doesn't look great for me.
19:16
SPEAKER_03: I I can't say anything at this stage.
19:18
SPEAKER_03: I do want you to go and have uh ultrasound.
19:22
SPEAKER_03: And I said, Okay, I'll do it next week or whatever.
19:24
SPEAKER_03: He said, No, no, no, you have to go now.
19:27
SPEAKER_03: And I said, What do you mean now?
19:28
SPEAKER_03: I have to go back to work.
19:29
SPEAKER_03: I just told everyone that I'm coming back to work.
19:32
SPEAKER_03: He said, I would advise you to um tell your work that you're not coming back and just go to do your uh ultrasound.
19:41
SPEAKER_03: So he made all the arrangements for me to go.
19:44
SPEAKER_03: My I went to see him in Brotherton and I went, and then he made sure I went to Hampton to one of his friends who is a doctor who can you know uh conduct the ultrasound.
19:55
SPEAKER_03: Just went there and did whatever he told me.
19:58
SPEAKER_03: And then he said to me, Oh, call your husband, ask him to come.
20:01
SPEAKER_03: I said, My husband is the other side of the city, I don't think he will come with me to you know to a checkup.
20:08
SPEAKER_03: It's fine, I I can handle it.
20:10
SPEAKER_03: I don't even I didn't even realize why he's asking me to go with my husband.
20:14
SPEAKER_03: So kind of my mind didn't want to go there.
20:17
SPEAKER_02: It's like almost like it was sort of in a denial of thoughts that there was something going wrong.
20:22
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
20:23
SPEAKER_03: So I went there.
20:24
SPEAKER_03: Obviously, this doctor looked at the cis.
20:26
SPEAKER_03: I could see that she's not comfortable, and I said, look, just talk to me.
20:31
SPEAKER_03: I'm a big girl, I can take it.
20:33
SPEAKER_03: What is it?
20:34
SPEAKER_03: So, look, it's not a great scene for me.
20:37
SPEAKER_03: There is a cis with the blood flow, and it's never a good sign, which I didn't know about any cis before and any confronting.
20:45
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, had you ever had cis before?
20:48
SPEAKER_03: No, no, no, cis, no nothing.
20:51
SPEAKER_02: No history of any sort in this arena.
20:53
SPEAKER_02: So, this is what is why it's such a challenging cancer, because it's so doesn't, it's not highly symptomatic, and it's not necessarily it takes a you know, it doesn't present itself overtly.
21:05
SPEAKER_02: Is that right?
21:06
SPEAKER_03: It's very yeah, it's it's it's um look at all the sims of the symptoms are hidden, uh hide away from you.
21:16
SPEAKER_03: It's like almost like I'll give you it's it's very vague.
21:20
SPEAKER_03: If I can give you all the list of the symptoms we should uh be aware of, you would say I've got them all, like because everywhere like bloating.
21:28
SPEAKER_02: I read, you know, I read your your article like bloating and all of the things that you can get, as you say, with just even premenstrually or um through menopause, and that's the challenge, isn't it?
21:40
SPEAKER_03: Is because there's such indigestion, like who doesn't have indigestions or doesn't have bloating, or does it like you can't even describe one of them or say, Oh, you haven't had them as a as a woman at least once or twice, or three times a week.
21:54
SPEAKER_03: Sometimes you never know.
21:55
SPEAKER_03: I I would never have any idea, but I did know it.
22:00
SPEAKER_03: All my love that I'm um kind of the high on high risk because we had a lot of um breast cancer in my family, my mom's side.
22:09
SPEAKER_02: Okay, well that's an important factor, very important factor.
22:12
SPEAKER_02: I mean, the history plays a part.
22:14
SPEAKER_03: Yes, very much so.
22:16
SPEAKER_03: Um, it's all who we are and what the gene we are carrying and all of that.
22:22
SPEAKER_03: So my family, it's it's interesting because my journey also I've had to discover a lot about my ancestors, my family, my my at least my mom family, because it's coming, it's coming from my mom's side of the family.
22:40
SPEAKER_03: So uh my I had a sister who had breast cancer, she passed 18 years ago.
22:46
SPEAKER_03: So um she was my older sister, and she was um 37 when she passed.
22:55
SPEAKER_03: She had um very young, and she had three kids at the time.
22:59
SPEAKER_03: Now they're all grown up, but um that's very, very young to lose correctly.
23:06
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, and you to lose your sister.
23:09
SPEAKER_03: So, okay, so that was that so we we always knew that in my family there was aunties, my grandmother, my mom had cancer.
23:20
SPEAKER_02: Um was it ovarian cancer or breast cancer?
23:24
SPEAKER_03: Right, so my mom was lucky because in her last when she had the last baby, they removed her ovaries because she had some complications.
23:36
SPEAKER_03: So this is actually what saved her.
23:38
SPEAKER_03: So I discovered that we carried the I'm the first one in my family to be diagnosed with the BRACA gene.
23:45
SPEAKER_03: And so nobody before me knew that we actually, or in my mom's side of the family, knew there is any gene issue.
23:56
SPEAKER_03: They they knew there is a lot of women dying or having going through a rough time with breast cancer.
24:05
SPEAKER_03: Uh, but uh in at that time when my sister was uh diagnosed, it was um because we so the bracket gene is really related to the Ashkenazi Jews.
24:17
SPEAKER_03: And because what was really confusing for us was because we all um Sephardic, which we my my my my mom is from Casablanca from Morocco, and the reason I'm saying that because I didn't know how far they're gonna check the gene.
24:37
SPEAKER_03: So because it's interesting, it's very related to the times we live right now, because you know, this is how I've been, you know, in in my mind was my my late sister Nita.
24:49
SPEAKER_03: She was they told her, Oh, you can't be part of this statistic because you come in.
24:55
SPEAKER_03: Ashkenazi.
24:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so that's yeah, it was for our listeners.
25:01
SPEAKER_02: Can we just clarify for our listeners who don't know the difference?
25:05
SPEAKER_02: So the Ashkenazi and the Sfadi, can you give some little snapshot just to explain so people understand?
25:12
SPEAKER_03: So basically, Jews were living in Eastern Europe or in Europe, European Jews, or there is the one who lived in the East, uh, in the in the in you know, in the Middle East or or in North Africa, like my parents.
25:30
SPEAKER_03: Morocco, yes.
25:31
SPEAKER_03: Uh so um different places.
25:34
SPEAKER_03: Jews were, you know, they were all over the place, or or European.
25:39
SPEAKER_02: So there's the Middle East heritage, or there's the European heritage.
25:43
SPEAKER_02: So you come from the Sfari, which is the Moroccan African heritage, so you didn't see there was no radar to say, well, you may be the bracket gene may be an issue, yeah, and that you'd be susceptible.
25:57
SPEAKER_02: Whereas this is why it's interesting too that nobody raised that issue with all of the history that you're describing.
26:03
SPEAKER_02: But that's very important too, because it shows how we as women sometimes just, you know, like there's a system that maybe it's something should have been picked up earlier.
26:13
SPEAKER_02: And what can anyway, so continue.
26:15
SPEAKER_03: So make it short because it was it was really long because the whole thing of the gene came later on.
26:21
SPEAKER_03: So first I was diagnosed with uh ovarian cancer, and then in Cabrini, here in Australia, they said they advised me that I should go and have the gene tested.
26:33
SPEAKER_03: And I said, No, that's not possible because I'm you know I'm not a Shkenazi.
26:38
SPEAKER_03: And then one of them said to me, right, and I said that I and now I feel like so ignorant.
26:43
SPEAKER_03: Why would I what why did I say that?
26:45
SPEAKER_03: It should have been uh something that I said because he he was right.
26:49
SPEAKER_03: He said, but how do you know when did your ancestor arrived in Morocco?
26:54
SPEAKER_03: Or you know, you don't you don't really know because it couldn't go you know generation.
26:58
SPEAKER_03: Correct, yeah.
26:59
SPEAKER_03: And and no, and that was very smart.
27:02
SPEAKER_03: And I said to myself, how in Israel they didn't pick it up that actually it could have been a case that my ancestor came from Europe because there was some war in Europe or the pogrom or something bad happened, then they had to migrate to you know uh North Africa or Spain because my ancestors actually came from Spain, literally from Spain.
27:24
SPEAKER_03: And so probably along the line, you know, they came maybe from Europe, and then you know, they ended up in like today, you know, immigrants are there is immigrants all over the just think about exactly exact think about Ukraine now, like you know, all these immigrants or sorry, all these uh refugees going from Ukraine and now they end up in Germany or I don't know in other countries or coming even to Israel or to the Middle East and you know, establish a new life and not coming back to their origin country.
27:55
SPEAKER_03: So things are changing, and you can't say you don't know who you are actually.
27:59
SPEAKER_02: This is what's actually I actually agree with you, Alana, and that's a very good point you raised because in some ways that becomes uh the migration issue means that you're right, we don't know where what our heritage is.
28:11
SPEAKER_02: And so for you, it it basically opened up this whole journey and world where you not only had to explore historically what was going on, but at the present and when you were dealing with the fact that you had been diagnosed in this way.
28:27
SPEAKER_02: What was your what was your first response and how did you cope with the news and what were the resources you felt you had both around you and medically in order to cope with such a challenging time?
28:43
SPEAKER_03: So medically I was literally I started my chemo sessions when they the die the result came from the gene testing, which was interesting.
28:54
SPEAKER_03: I was on already diving into the next or third chemo, third round of chemo, and then I get this news.
29:01
SPEAKER_03: Oh, not just that, you are also happened to carry the bracket in.
29:06
SPEAKER_03: I said, Oh, great, another good news.
29:08
SPEAKER_03: Uh so what's now?
29:11
SPEAKER_03: Um, so that was something that um so I was the first in my family because nobody, so that's by itself opened a Pandora box because um none of my siblings in Israel or other places, some of them live in America, and none of them were tested or for the bracket gene.
29:32
SPEAKER_03: So luckily, my my doctor here, she's brilliant, uh Jenny Senior, that she's really understand all the gene, the the whole genetic uh issue in families, and she knew about my sister.
29:49
SPEAKER_03: The one thing I did when I came to Australia 18 years ago was uh 19 years ago now.
29:56
SPEAKER_03: So it was really a few months after my my sister passed, was the doctor who came to visit us when my sister passed.
30:05
SPEAKER_03: She said to me, I know um my sister told her that I'm going to Australia with my husband.
30:11
SPEAKER_03: She said to me, So I have one question for you.
30:14
SPEAKER_03: I have one, I ask you for to do one thing for me and for yourself, is to find someone who's really great in that area in Brest, because we didn't think about ovarian cancer.
30:25
SPEAKER_03: She said, just go to the best expert in Australia, and I can give you some names because I see them in conferences in Europe.
30:33
SPEAKER_03: So she already before I came to Australia, I already had in my name I go to Jenny Sr.
30:39
SPEAKER_03: Because uh Professor Peretz from Hadassah told me you have to see her, she's the best, and tell her that your sister was my patient, and I can exchange any knowledge that she needs about your family.
30:51
SPEAKER_02: So that was that was already uh her sort of like I suppose noting that there may be a genetic component.
30:59
SPEAKER_03: Yes, which I didn't know.
31:01
SPEAKER_03: I mean, there was no evidence.
31:03
SPEAKER_03: I knew that there is high risk.
31:04
SPEAKER_03: I didn't know that in fact that we are, and you they don't test you unless this is also something I've learned.
31:11
SPEAKER_03: They don't test you unless you become uh you you become sick.
31:15
SPEAKER_03: You see, it's not no one will give you any uh maybe I could pursue it myself, but I never thought it's an issue because why?
31:23
SPEAKER_03: I mean, they told us that there is no way I can be, so I just left it.
31:28
SPEAKER_03: I didn't even, I don't what I said before, what you read about me before or said before before that it's true.
31:34
SPEAKER_03: I didn't want to be defined by all these things, you know.
31:37
SPEAKER_03: So what I if you and then you start getting into all you you fear from getting sick, and then you start thinking about it too much.
31:46
SPEAKER_03: So I was also conscious, I think, not to go too much and and and just know the fact that I need to know.
31:53
SPEAKER_03: I'm in good hands.
31:54
SPEAKER_03: I go to the right doctors and the right gynecologist, the best gynecologist I could find.
31:58
SPEAKER_03: And he was really the best because he literally saved my life.
32:02
SPEAKER_03: I could something good I did.
32:04
SPEAKER_03: I listened to someone who told me 20 years ago, go to a great one, don't compromise on any mediocre, whatever, someone who just started to be a gynecologist, go to someone who's really good.
32:18
SPEAKER_03: Um, and that was a uh a golden advice because I think that's what kept me alive because he was the one who made me go and keep check.
32:28
SPEAKER_03: Uh otherwise, I would probably not really uh check my symptoms.
32:39
SPEAKER_02: Well, three decades into her marriage, journalist Kate Legg discovered that her husband, the Maserati-driving media executive Greg Highwood, was cheating on her.
32:49
SPEAKER_02: Well, if that was bad, it gets worse.
32:51
SPEAKER_02: Highwood, for many years chief executive of Fairfax, publisher of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, and now the chairman of Free TV, admitted when confronted that he had been cheating on and off with different women pretty much since the wedding, it was pretty challenging for Kate, a very well-respected and renowned journalist herself.
33:08
SPEAKER_02: In fact, one of the mistresses was one of Leggy's close friends, a fellow parent at her son's school.
33:13
SPEAKER_02: She only found out because the other woman's husband was threatening to blow the whistle.
33:17
SPEAKER_02: Well, Leggy at 66 is a vivacious and attractive writer who for many years worked at the Weekend Australian magazine and has now published a book about her experience.
33:25
SPEAKER_02: It's called Infidelity and Other Affairs by Thames and Hudson, and it is not fiction.
33:39
SPEAKER_02: Because I think the resonance is just so powerful, both historically, the way that you talk about not only your husband's history, but about the history of women and men, but focusing on women who have been really betrayed and their trust abused.
33:58
SPEAKER_02: So this took a lot of guts, but I can see that you've taken both a private approach but also a scientific research approach.
34:05
SPEAKER_02: Tell me how you came to decide about how you were going to write this book.
34:10
SPEAKER_01: Well, it was it was difficult because initially I thought about a fictional treatment, because of course it's much easier to delve into these very private personal emotions in the imaginative realm.
34:24
SPEAKER_01: And as I was going through this, because it was 13 years ago when I first discovered the infidelities, I that was my first therapeutic writer's reflex.
34:35
SPEAKER_01: I just I started taking notes and I approached my then literary agent for advice on what to do, and she was discouraged me strongly.
34:44
SPEAKER_01: She said, do not write about this now.
34:46
SPEAKER_01: So I put it aside and got on with life trying to rescue the marriage, and I wrote another novel and I kept on working, and of course, the work was an enormous source of distraction for me.
34:57
SPEAKER_01: And then after the second lot of infidelities, and after we'd tried to hold ourselves together and had failed, I hadn't actually decided to write about it then.
35:08
SPEAKER_01: It was only when I discovered our son's relationship had broken down through infidelity, and then it came across this research which suggested that it can be passed from one generation to the next that I decided to write about it.
35:22
SPEAKER_01: Still with the idea of doing a fictional treatment of it.
35:25
SPEAKER_01: But as I went into lockdown and I I started looking at it more deeply, I felt that it I wanted to have the authenticity of the personal approach.
35:39
SPEAKER_01: I wanted to use that to delve into this universal issue.
35:43
SPEAKER_01: And so I decided to change tack.
35:46
SPEAKER_01: And I remember telling my husband when he came to visit one day that I was thinking of doing this, and then there was this very, very long, awkward pause because of course he would have preferred that it had stayed in the imaginative realm.
36:00
SPEAKER_01: But I said, just let me let me see if I can do this.
36:03
SPEAKER_01: And I would never have published it without the support of everyone in my family, because the first third of the book, which deals with my husband's family, it was very important to get that um support and um endorsement of the people who are not named, but their stories are in there.
36:20
SPEAKER_02: Just to clarify, your husband being, when you refer to your husband, you mean your husband.
36:25
SPEAKER_02: Well, he is still my husband.
36:27
SPEAKER_02: That's what I wanted to clarify.
36:28
SPEAKER_02: You haven't got divorced.
36:29
SPEAKER_02: So when you say that, I'm really interested in technicality.
36:32
SPEAKER_02: Right.
36:32
SPEAKER_02: Just clarifying.
36:34
SPEAKER_01: We both have separate relationships, but we just haven't got tied that, untied that knot yet.
36:39
SPEAKER_01: That little bit of thing.
36:40
SPEAKER_01: Which is really interesting.
36:42
unknown: Yeah.
36:42
SPEAKER_01: Well, but I'm I'm sure it probably will probably happen one day, but just hasn't happened yet.
36:46
SPEAKER_01: Very important in the writing of it, really, as a journalist, you'll understand this, because I, knowing that everyone was going to read it, held my pen to the fire and I think made it a story that took account, deeply took account of other people's perspectives in this story.
37:03
SPEAKER_01: Because as we know, there's never just one version, there's my version, your version, and somewhere in between lies that sort of blurry grey area of truth.
37:12
SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, as a journalist, I towards the end of my career, I used to often show my subjects a magazine story that I'd written because I wanted them to be comfortable with it.
37:23
SPEAKER_01: And I also felt that it made me more honest as a journalist because I didn't let myself run away with my own exaggerations or interpretations of what was happening.
37:31
SPEAKER_01: And so that was very important.
37:32
SPEAKER_02: Well, I think that's interesting because what I, well, first of all, the notion of hereditary infidelity is fascinating anyway, to let you explore going back into your husband's history and his father and the family, which I found really interesting.
37:46
SPEAKER_02: And then obviously your son having also had his own exploration in that field as well.
37:52
SPEAKER_02: But I think also in some ways, what I've what I'm gathering is you used the best tools in your toolkit, which were your which was your capacity to scientifically in a way deal with something extremely painful and emotional, but to make sure that you used your framework.
38:08
SPEAKER_02: And that do you think that framework helped buffer you a little bit, or did you still find it just as raw?
38:14
SPEAKER_02: Or did it give you sort of, you know what I mean, like the the um the platform on which the scaffolding, exactly.
38:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, scaffolding to build the story around without hanging it completely off your own feelings.
38:27
SPEAKER_01: And the other point about waiting, which I feel is really important, is that it that that leaches the a lot of the raw emotion out of what you're talking about.
38:36
SPEAKER_01: I think the distance that the shifting perspective that time allows is is really important.
38:44
SPEAKER_01: And I I often use the metaphor when I walk in the morning, I I I'll go through this park and I go always go clockwise.
38:51
SPEAKER_01: And recently I went counterclockwise for the first time, and it's like you see a completely different landscape.
38:58
SPEAKER_01: And that's what um you know the panorama of distance allows.
39:02
SPEAKER_01: And if you compare it, for example, to Prince Harry's memoir, Spare, you know, you know, he's written it in the raw moment of this extraordinary family conflict.
39:10
SPEAKER_01: And I wonder what his story would be in 15 years' time when some of that you know muddy water has clarified.
39:17
SPEAKER_01: And that's what I felt the distance gave me.
39:20
SPEAKER_01: It tempered it and tamped down some of the sort of you know uglier, raw emotions that you feel when you're in the heat of it, and it brings it brings more light than heat.
39:31
SPEAKER_01: And going back to your point about the tools in the in your toolkit, it's also that capacity, as you know yourself, to put yourself in another person's shoes, which is what journalism does.
39:41
SPEAKER_01: You know, it gives us this enormous privilege.
39:43
SPEAKER_01: We tour people's lives, we tease out often really painful stories, and we often go to other sources, other observers in that story, you know, to flesh it out, to put sinew and muscle tone on the bones of whatever we're we're carrying.
39:59
SPEAKER_01: And I think that that that all of those things helped me tell this story.
40:03
SPEAKER_01: The other point is that I was dealing, and this is why I decided to cross the train tracks from fiction to non-fiction, was I wrote this book in lockdown when I decided to go through my father's personal papers that have been sitting in my garage for about seven years.
40:19
SPEAKER_01: And that started me on a journey of looking at the curses in my own family.
40:24
SPEAKER_01: And that was the, you know, when you talk about the scaffolding, it gave me another bit of architecture to look at the curses and the scenes of temperament and circumstance and genetic traits that run through families.
40:39
SPEAKER_01: So on the one side, we've got the infidelity that goes from my father's grandmother to his father, to himself, and to our son.
40:47
SPEAKER_01: And then on my side of the family, we have this river of mental illness and depression running through many generations.
40:55
SPEAKER_01: And I was really interested in unplatting those strands to discover more about myself and the mystery of becoming who we are.
41:04
SPEAKER_02: I just found it, I have to say, brilliant.
41:07
SPEAKER_02: And both of those strands you refer to were very potent.
41:11
SPEAKER_02: And you, I think you did it really effectively because I've actually read it a few times because I go back and go that.
41:17
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I just want to read one of the paragraphs, just interestingly.
41:20
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I've got a few that I obviously control myself, going, Oh, this is great.
41:24
SPEAKER_02: I've got to use this because there were so many little gems and very potent um pieces in there that really resonated.
41:32
SPEAKER_02: I loved this.
41:33
SPEAKER_02: This you wrote, My heart was broken.
41:35
SPEAKER_02: I felt gaslighted and idiotic and completely mortified.
41:39
SPEAKER_02: Sylvia Plath dispatched herself after Hughes left her.
41:42
SPEAKER_02: She taped up her kitchen, turned on the gas, and laid her head on a folded cloth atop the oven door.
41:47
SPEAKER_02: Weevil had a daughter with Hughes and later gassed herself and their offspring.
41:51
SPEAKER_02: Catherine Graham's husband shot himself, Margaret J's husband, etc., etc.
41:55
SPEAKER_02: And it goes on to talk about all of these very intelligent, incredibly um revered people who really were gutted by the betrayal of trust.
42:08
SPEAKER_02: But then you also talk about, and I'll continue this little bit, and this isn't a separate part of the book, but just contextualizing.
42:15
SPEAKER_02: So that's sort of a historical reflection on how many people are impacted and how common it is.
42:20
SPEAKER_02: Our elders was about, this is you and your story, our elders was about to embark on his final year of school.
42:25
SPEAKER_02: I would not be party to sabotaging his prospects.
42:28
SPEAKER_02: First you staunch the bleeding, then you falter forward as though you've always got around with stumps where your legs used to be.
42:34
SPEAKER_02: Shrapnel pinged my consciousness.
42:37
SPEAKER_02: Moments were re-examined in a molten light, their weight shifted.
42:41
SPEAKER_02: I kept returning to a recent conversation with the Countess, who is one of the people that her husband had had an affair with for our listeners, at the kitchen bench of a holiday house we'd rented along the Great Ocean Road.
42:52
SPEAKER_02: Our husbands were at work in the city, and it goes on to talk about just the fundamental need for you as a woman, as a mother, even as a wife, to continue, even if it meant you were like traumatized walking around what felt like on stumps, and just the extremity.
43:08
SPEAKER_02: So you talk about while the tools help you with the scaffolding and the architecture, the emotion of your book is raw, guttural, visceral.
43:17
SPEAKER_02: So to your credit, you didn't just hide behind the framework.
43:21
SPEAKER_02: You went right in there and you exposed it and also showed the historical context.
43:26
SPEAKER_02: Was that hard?
43:26
SPEAKER_02: Because I'm thinking, God, we can all relate to that.
43:29
SPEAKER_02: You'd want to protect your family, your son, your kids, whatever it is.
43:34
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I for 40 years I'd been a journalist asking others to um unburden their soul.
43:41
SPEAKER_01: And in that spirit, I guess I felt it was beholden on me to bear mine and to be as honest as I could because that's what I've asked again and again of other people.
43:52
SPEAKER_01: I also find the most powerful writing is that which is not curated for appearance's sake.
44:00
SPEAKER_01: And I knew I'd be authentic.
44:01
SPEAKER_01: It's authentic.
44:02
SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, that it is the most revealing that is often the most helpful for other people because that's why we write.
44:10
SPEAKER_01: We write in order to make sense of what's happened to us and to share it in the hope that others might be able to learn from the experiences we've gone through.
44:19
SPEAKER_01: And so it was important to be as honest as I could.
44:22
SPEAKER_01: And I think that honesty was magnified in the solitude of lockdown because I wasn't involved in any social engagement.
44:30
SPEAKER_01: It was really just me unpeeling, stripping off these layers, burying myself in my study where I write and getting to the bottom of things.
44:40
SPEAKER_01: And I had the time and I had the silence and I had the isolation and the solitude to do that.
44:47
SPEAKER_01: And that was my aim, and that is what I tried to do.
44:51
SPEAKER_01: And knowing that it really wouldn't be helpful to anyone if it was a half-assed, half-baked job, that it really had to get to the bottom of things.
44:58
SPEAKER_01: And I'd like to, if I could, just to recite to you the last verse of this W.B.
45:04
SPEAKER_01: Yates poem, The Circus Animal's Desertion.
45:07
SPEAKER_01: Because I'm hoping in my own small way I can do for this poem what Four Weddings and a Funeral did for Auden's funeral blues.
45:14
SPEAKER_01: And it gets to the bottom of where I was going and where I wanted to dwell.
45:18
SPEAKER_01: And the poem was written late in his life when he's losing perhaps some of his proficiency and he's looking for what were the sources for his muse.
45:26
SPEAKER_01: And he says, These masterful images, because complete, grew in pure mind.
45:32
SPEAKER_01: But out of what began?
45:34
SPEAKER_01: A mound of refuse or the sweepings of the street, old bottles, old kettles, and a broken can, old iron, old bones, old rags, that raving slut who keeps the till.
45:46
SPEAKER_01: Now that my ladder's gone, I must lie down where all the ladders start, in the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.
45:55
SPEAKER_01: And that's where I wanted to dwell.
45:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
45:58
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's that's such a visceral image, isn't it?
46:01
SPEAKER_01: The foul rag and bone shop of the heart, because that's where our memories, our resentments, you know, all of the sort of purple, sometimes twisted emotions lie.
46:13
SPEAKER_01: And it's and you know, it's it's it's often a dark place.
46:16
SPEAKER_01: But I do find the darker side of love and caring as fascinating as the joy and wonder of, you know, apple pie.
46:23
SPEAKER_01: I agree.
46:24
SPEAKER_02: I am with you.
46:25
SPEAKER_02: In other words, we all love the suniness, but boy, it's so interesting when when it's dark and when it's yeah.
46:30
SPEAKER_02: And I think that is, it tends to be a writer or an artist.
46:32
SPEAKER_02: And I resonate with that very much.
46:34
SPEAKER_02: And maybe that's why your book was so, I mean, particularly that image when you talk about that, you know, you were in the news, you were in the newsroom and you went into the bathroom and you saw in the fluorescent light that you had physically attacked yourself, you know, quite physically to the point where there were bruises, purple and blue bruises all over your body or all over the top of your chest.
46:53
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, it nearly made me, you know, cry.
46:55
SPEAKER_02: It was very powerful image because I think as every woman or every person who who it's it's sort of like the worst thing you think could happen, or one of the worst things happened, you had to deal with it.
47:08
SPEAKER_02: You had to find a way through it.
47:10
SPEAKER_02: But also your bravery in the way that you talk about your vulnerability is really impressive because that takes a lot of courage.
47:19
SPEAKER_02: And as you talk about, now you're telling us how you wrote this very reasonably isolated.
47:23
SPEAKER_02: Do you think that was in a way how you spoke so how you managed to be so raw?
47:28
SPEAKER_01: I think so.
47:29
SPEAKER_01: I mean, when I I got when when I I sort of was was thinking about you know the approach I was going to take, I it was like a fishbone dislodging from my throat in a way.
47:41
SPEAKER_01: And I yeah, I wasn't thinking about the consequences.
47:46
SPEAKER_01: I mean, obviously I would never have published it if it hadn't been supported by my family, but I wasn't thinking of the consequences when I was writing it.
47:55
SPEAKER_01: And and uh, you know, my husband says that he could actually see me healing as I was going through the process.
48:02
SPEAKER_01: And that's you know, it's the putting one word in front of another, trying to make sense of it that um you know is worth, makes the journey worth its while.
48:12
SPEAKER_01: And that's the thing when you talk about what have I learnt from this?
48:16
SPEAKER_01: I guess I've learnt that you know the beauty of acceptance and forgiveness, you know, you that you you you can get there eventually.
48:24
SPEAKER_01: It is so much better and healthier than acrimony, vengeance, suspicion, which it which are all the first emotions that come from betrayal and a breach of trust.
48:36
SPEAKER_01: And it's a it's a very difficult thing to work through in a relationship, and we weren't able to overcome it, although we have subsequently become very good friends.
48:45
SPEAKER_01: But that was just toxic.
48:47
SPEAKER_01: And when you described that, that I'd actually physically abuse myself at the time, you know, grief scores us in strange ways.
48:55
SPEAKER_01: And you do learn through journalism, you touched on something before, you know, damage begets damage begets damage.
49:02
SPEAKER_01: The Sylvia Plath, the Weevil, the, you know, Margaret J's, Catherine Graham's husband shooting himself.
49:08
SPEAKER_01: I mean, the damage that these things can unleash.
49:11
SPEAKER_01: And the the violence I did to myself, I talk about experiencing an ire murderous enough for me to understand how vi how treachery and betrayal can unleash terrible physical violence.
49:26
SPEAKER_01: And it does, you know, we read about it, don't we?
49:30
SPEAKER_02: We do, we do, and I think I think that to your point also.
49:41
SPEAKER_02: Thanks so much for listening.
49:43
SPEAKER_02: The What I've Learned podcast will now be coming to you weekly with new episodes released every Tuesday.
49:49
SPEAKER_02: I'm blessed to have so many wonderful guests coming on the show.
49:53
SPEAKER_02: So check out my What I've Learned Instagram for updates.
49:56
SPEAKER_02: Meanwhile, stay tuned, kind, and curious.
49:59
SPEAKER_02: Love Deb.