"You come home from Woodford with that feeling of, oh, okay, maybe the world's not so bad after all." — Matt Golinski

Matt Golinski grew up on a tropical fruit farm in Palmwoods on the Sunshine Coast — pawpaws, avocados, mangoes, bananas, and enough tomatoes and zucchinis to know instinctively what a good one looks like. That early understanding of where food comes from and what it takes to grow it has quietly shaped everything he's done since.

He spent nine years on Ready Steady Cook, which is how most of Australia came to know him. He'd rather you call him a cook than a celebrity chef. He still cooks every day, he sources almost everything he uses directly from the farmers who grow it, and he'll drive hours into regional Queensland with a car stuffed full of pots and pans to cook a dinner for 300 people in Roma if that's what's needed. He does it alone, he does it happily, and he considers the friends he makes along the way as much a part of the job as the food itself.

Harley Breen sits down with Matt for a conversation that covers a lot of ground — the farm, the TV years, the philosophy behind cooking with local producers, the honest economics of running a one-person catering operation in a tough industry, and what it actually means to care about where your food comes from. They also talk about what happens to the kitchen culture when the head chef is a psycho, why there should never be such a thing as a food trend, and the 50,000 pasta machines currently sitting unused in the backs of Australian cupboards.

And then there's Woodford. Matt has been coming since the very first festivals at Maleny — living on home brand baked beans and a $20 tent that collapsed on the first night, surviving on very little and loving every minute of it. He's watched the trees grow from saplings to the canopy they are now, including some he helped plant. He lines up on Christmas Eve every year for his favourite camping spot. And he describes driving through the gates as feeling, simply, like coming home.

This episode is for:

• Anyone who has ever stood in a paddock or a farmers market and felt that something was missing from the way we talk about food
• Woodford lifers, and anyone who wants to understand why people keep coming back
• People who believe the best meals are the ones with a story behind them

Dive in to hear about:

• Growing up on a tropical fruit farm in Palmwoods and what it taught Matt about ingredients before he ever set foot in a kitchen
• Nine years on Ready Steady Cook, why the term celebrity chef makes him cringe, and what he thinks most celebrity chefs stopped doing years ago
• Why Matt refuses to give anyone a menu more than a week out, and why that's actually where the creativity lives
• Cooking an 80th birthday dinner sourced entirely from the local producers the birthday boy spent a lifetime championing
• The First Offenders, the Woombye Hall, Maleny in the early days, and a $20 tent that didn't survive its first night
• Why Matt stopped cooking at Woodford, and what he loves about just being a punter
• Watching trees he helped plant grow into the canopy that shades the festival today
• Pizza Loca: a thirty-five year love affair, and the most unexpected celebrity endorsement in festival food history

Key topics: Matt Golinski, Ready Steady Cook, local produce, farm to table, Sunshine Coast food, Woodford Folk Festival, Maleny Folk Festival, Australian food culture, community, seasonal cooking

To come to the Woodford Folk Festival this year visit: https://woodfordfolkfestival.com/

FOR MORE:

Harley Breen: https://www.harleybreen.com.au

Matt Golinski: https://mattgolinski.com.au

https://www.instagram.com/mattgolinski

https://www.facebook.com/ChefMattGolinski

CREDITS: Host: Harley Breen | Guest: Matt Golinski | Executive Producer: Benny Wallington | Producers: Cameron Scurrah, Bree Hickson-Jamieson| Video Editing: Nick Haddow | Music by: The East Pointers | Recorded on Jinibara Country | Recorded November 2025

Join the Woodfordian Citizens:

Perks -

- Bi-Monthly emails sharing the ins and outs of the world of Woodfordia and the people who keep the heart beating.

- Special invites to special events on site at Woodfordia. Super special.

- Bonus podcast content

- Early early bird access to Woodford Folk Festival tickets

- Early access to workshop bookings at Woodford Folk Festival

Visit: woodfordia.org/woodfordia/become-a-citizen

More information at www.woodfordia.org

For the festival: www.woodfordfolkfestival.com

For Harley: https://www.harleybreen.com.au/

Credits:

Host: Harley Breen

Executive Producers: Bree Hickson-Jamieson, Josh Weier, Benny Wallington

Audio mastering: Kieron Atkinson

Music by: The East Pointers

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