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G'day and welcome to My Australia,
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the show about people from overseas having Australian experiences.
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On today's show
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Faye from Fiji goes on her first skiing trip
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Raisa finds out about the Australian tradition of Christmas in July
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and Selby sees where country meets city at the Royal Show.
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So what is Christmas in July?
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Well, in Australia Christmas is a pretty hot time of the year
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so you don't always feel like your traditional Christmas foods like turkey and lamb.
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But hey, in winter, they're great.
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So let's see how our first guest Raisa goes about cooking Christmas dinner in July.
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Raisa grew up in Bandung Indonesia with her parents and younger brother.
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As a baby she was fat.
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She got skinny and liked to dance and play the piano.
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She had a head for numbers and she won a lot of mental arithmetic competitions.
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368 plus 534 plus 235 would be 1137.
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She started a double degree in Indonesia but then won a scholarship
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to study international relations at Flinders University in South Australia.
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She now lives in a share house close to the University.
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When she need s break from study she sometimes goes into the backyard and does the hula hoop.
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I'm living off-campus. I live very near to Uni.
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I just have to walk around five minutes and then I take the loop bus.
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You go to the main campus. So that's really good.
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Living here has definitely made me independent.
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I learned how to cook here whereas before I got here I've never even touched a stove.
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I've never even cooked instant noodles.
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My favourite thing about being in Australia is the relaxed life, I guess.
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Like I can really enjoy my life here. I don't feel rushed to do things.
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I do realise that if you want to blend in and make new friends that you have to sort
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of put an effort to put yourself out,
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like, not only wait for people to approach you but just generally smiling and everything
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and people will approach you, so it's not really that hard I guess.
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I have no idea why Australians like to celebrate Christmas in July
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actually and I'm still wondering why also.
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Hi, how are you?
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I'm fine thank you.
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So what are we planning tonight?
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Is it the reverse Christmas thing?
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Yes, Christmas in July.
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What exactly is it?
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Christmas is usually in cold places in Europe so in Australia, it's really hot
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and people like to have the big traditional lamb roast meal.
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So we have it in July so we can do it properly.
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That sounds interesting.
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So, what exactly do we cook for that?
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What's really good for roasts is actually these tomatoes on the vine.
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In the market we asked for some advice from this nice guy in the organic vegetable store.
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And they were really helpful.
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They taught us like what vegetables to actually put and how long we should leave the meat
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in the oven and everything
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so that was definitely a helpful piece of information.
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What other vegetables do you think we could put in?
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Some of these Jerusalem artichokes. They are a little bit different.
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I didn't even know that they existed.
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I don't know whether it comes from Jerusalem or not,
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and beetroot for a bit of colour.
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The blood red. It's really, really nice.
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Hello. How are you?
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Good thanks.
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How can I help you?
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We're going to roast a lamb, leg of lamb, and we just need to know what to get.
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We're going to be serving about five people.
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We've got a beautiful leg of lamb here and that's got the shank end on it as well.
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You will have plenty of meat there for five people.
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Yeah, that's a lot of meat.
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There you go. Thank you.
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I am very scared actually about how it will turn out because I've never cooked it before
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and I don't know the steps yet to cook it
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but I'm sure Maddy will help me out with that because she's Australian and she knows more
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and everything.
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I hope it turns out okay.
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Pavlova.
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I've seen it in the supermarket but I haven't actually tasted one.
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Yes, but maybe it might be nice I think, yeah.
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The guy said that this is a Jerusalem artichoke right?
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Yep.
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Is it really from Jerusalem, do you think?
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In Indonesia, I never cook at home.
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Really?
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Even instant noodle. I never cooked.
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So I just learned how to cook here.
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Let's do the meat.
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Meat.
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So what do you do with it?
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Put it in the middle.
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Is it heavy?
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Ah, well, quite.
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I've never done this before so ...
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Maddy this is Gary. He's come to help.
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Hello Gary. How are you?
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I've got all meaty hands.
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Preparing the big hunk of meat was interesting.
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We sort of jabbed the meat with a knife..
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Wow, is that hard?
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It's fun.
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I'm pretty excited about this. I can't wait.
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And then we put in garlic and rosemary in it.
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And it was really interesting when we put in the rosemary.
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Looks like we're planting something.
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It could be little Christmas trees.
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First time I did it, and I loved it.
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Got to try and cover all the vegetables in the oil.
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Maybe we can give them to people then they arrive.
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Okay, present.
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I had to wait for Christmas usually once a year but now I just have to wait like seven
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months, so that's cool.
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It's a Christmas tree. It's a strawberry Christmas tree.
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Yeah, a strawberry Christmas tree.
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I'm definitely excited to wait for my friends to come and for them to see the wonderful
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decoration that we've put up.
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But I'm also worried about how the food will actually turn out because,
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as I've mentioned before,
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I'm not exactly the best cook in the world.
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Here's the meat. I hope it tastes as good as it looks.
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It has a nice sound also while cutting it.
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Christmas and snow, you know, kind of all seem to go together.
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As a kid, we never questioned why we were having Christmas in summer, why we were
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having it hot.
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It makes sense.
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Eat hot food in hot weather.
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But now it's different.
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Is it good?
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Awesome.
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The lamb is delicious.
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The beetroot looks great.
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Anybody else want the green stuff?
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A lot of what the meal contained I've never had before in my life, like beetroot.
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and we also had Jerusalem artichokes,
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which is still a question, whether it's from Jerusalem or not.
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Merry Christmas!
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A measuring tape!
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Okay, to keep me slim.
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I'm sure my parents would be proud of me.
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Maybe my grandma would faint if she saw what I cooked.
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Considering that I didn't even cook instant noodles five months ago.
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Propose a toast to our wonderful roast - that rhymes.
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It's our first roast and we hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas in July.
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Cheers!
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I'm very happy with my Christmas in July.
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I'm proud of myself for being able to pull it off, of course with Maddy and Gary's help also.
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And yes, I think people enjoyed the food and everything.
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And it was a lot of fun.
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We pulled poppers and everything. I really enjoyed it. Cheers,
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Merry Christmas Raisa. Fantastic job.
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Okay, now let's see what people here think about Christmas in July.