It has been a very dramatic 24 hours for beloved Kiwi chef Simon Gault when he chats to the Weekly. During a heroic attempt to remove a cricket from his house the night before – at the insistence of his daughter, Hazel, 12 – he slipped, fell face-first and split his eyebrow open.
After spending three hours at A&E that morning to get stitched up and now sporting a blossoming black eye, he remains in surprisingly good spirits.
“My option was to go to Middlemore Hospital, but I thought I’m not dragging my poor daughter to sit there for 12 hours – I’ll survive the night. And here I am!” he smiles.
Out-of-the-blue health scares are something Simon, 61, shares with his Forkin’ Good podcast co-host Kate Fenwick. It’s been just over a decade since the former MasterChef NZ judge transformed his own life after his doctor warned he might not live to see Hazel walk down the aisle if he didn’t start managing his type 2 diabetes better.
He now shares his lessons to support Kate, a waste-minimisation educator, on her health journey, documenting everything on their podcast to help others.
Facing health challenges
“I remember years ago when I found out I had type 2 diabetes, I didn’t want to talk about it because I was embarrassed,” Simon tells.
“But when I did the documentary Why Are We Fat?, all these people emailed me going, ‘You’ve saved my life.’ Grown men would come into my restaurant and give me a big hug and say, ‘You don’t know what you’ve done for me.’ “That’s why it’s incredible that Kate is happy to share her story – we’re trying to make a difference.”
A wake-up call
Last year, the Waste-Ed with Kate founder landed in the hospital when she started having problems with her heart, issues she is still waiting for answers about.
“My pulse was all of a sudden really low, and I found out I had an erratic heartbeat,” the 48-year-old explains.
“It can be due to stress, but I’m still waiting for the results of some scans. And my doctor told me I am pre-diabetic.”
Prioritising health
With a busy schedule and travelling the country to facilitate education seminars, Kate knew she was running herself ragged. But she says the experience gave her the wake-up call she needed to make some major lifestyle changes.
“I’ve had a huge amount of stress and been so busy that I haven’t really looked after myself properly,” she admits.
“I’m not 50 yet, but I need to start making changes. I want to hit my fifties being healthier.”
And then things took an unexpected turn.
The podcast idea
“I’d been wanting to do a podcast for a few years, but I didn’t want to do anything on my own,” Kate tells.
“All I’m going to do is talk about rubbish, which I felt would be short-lived. My friend said, ‘You need to meet Simon – he needs to do a podcast.’”
Simon continues, “He organised a lunch, and Kate and I sat there chatting away. We thought, ‘This is quite good.’”
A growing project
Originally, their goal was to get Kiwis back in the kitchen and teach them more about reducing waste, but the project has already grown far beyond that. As well as documenting Kate’s health journey, they now interview industry leaders and inspirational figures, and recently launched a spin-off series in which they tiki-tour different restaurants to review their food, supporting fellow small businesses along the way.
While they have won many fans, both agree that the best thing to come out of the podcast is their new-found deep friendship. Their families have spent so much time together that even Hazel and Kate’s stepson Lewys, 12, have become a dynamic duo.
Fun and family time
“At the weekends, Simon and Hazel come down to our place in the Coromandel, and we hang out, then the kids go off scootering together,” says Kate.
“It’s been a perfect match.”
They joke that the only downside is people mistaking them for a couple, but it doesn’t bother either of them.
“My husband Aaron, is often the one behind the camera filming the podcast,” Kate says.
Simon adds with a smile, “We’re just really good friends.”
Listen to Forkin’ Good everywhere podcasts are found or follow them on Instagram @forkingoodpod
