{"id":536869,"date":"2026-07-11T21:39:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T21:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/536869\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T21:39:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T21:39:10","slug":"adam-liaw-the-most-famous-person-ive-cooked-for-gordon-ramsay-my-wife-spilled-a-jug-of-water-over-him-australian-television","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/536869\/","title":{"rendered":"Adam Liaw: \u2018The most famous person I\u2019ve cooked for? Gordon Ramsay. My wife spilled a jug of water over him\u2019 | Australian television"},"content":{"rendered":"

What\u2019s the oldest thing you own and why do you still have it?<\/p>\n

A teddy bear that\u2019s actually a dog named Ralph. I\u2019ve had it since I was two years old; it\u2019s something I can\u2019t throw out. That\u2019s the oldest personal thing, but I do have a plate that\u2019s 600 years old. So it\u2019s either a pretty ratty stuffed dog or a 600-year-old Edo period plate. I serve food on that plate sometimes \u2013 I\u2019m sure antique collectors would be aghast, but I think it\u2019s only right to use those things.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve filmed nine seasons of The Cook Up with Adam Liaw so far. Which guest have you been most excited to have on the show?<\/p>\n

I was genuinely chuffed about meeting Martin Yan<\/a> from Yan Can Cook<\/a>, because I watched him for so many years, long before I was ever on telly. That was a real thrill. I remember I was nervous about it. We cooked kung pao chicken, or gongbao jiding.<\/p>\n

Do you have a food memory you\u2019d most like to forget?<\/p>\n

My dad asked me to cook a very expensive steak and I was relying on a thermometer that did not work, so the steak ended up being very overcooked. I stopped using thermometers for like six or seven years after that. I got a lot better at cooking meat by feel, but it did require the destruction of a $300 steak.<\/p>\n

Before winning MasterChef you were a lawyer for Disney. But what\u2019s the strangest job you\u2019ve ever had?<\/p>\n

My very first job was selling ice-creams at the Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide. I did not enjoy that job. I was 14 years old, it was about 45 degrees every day, and I had to walk around with about 20 kilos of ice-cream in an insulated container. It was an awful lot of work over four days. I think I earned about $30 a day.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the most chaotic thing that has ever happened to you on set?<\/p>\n

We have literal fires regularly, but probably the most chaotic thing was while filming [SBS show] North American Fan Feasts. We were going to fly to Guadalajara but our fixer was sending videos of Mexican cartels literally shooting up the airport, so we decided not to get on the plane to fly to the airport that day. We met mariachis in Mexico City instead, and I learned a lot about mariachis.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the best piece of advice you\u2019ve ever received?<\/p>\n

It was from my old boss and I think about it often. Basically, when you feel the urge to write an angry email, write it so you get all your thoughts down, but then wait before you send it. His view was that once the anger leaves your fingers, you actually feel a lot better, and if you wait for like an hour you\u2019ll want to send a much nicer email. I reckon that\u2019s saved me a lot.<\/p>\n

Is it true that you\u2019re scared of bamboo?<\/p>\n

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Yeah. It\u2019s sort of a Chinese ghost story. We were always told never to go play in the bamboo because there\u2019ll be a witch with long nipples who will use those nipples to drag you up into the bamboo and you\u2019ll never be seen again. We had bamboo near where we lived when I was growing up, so we got told that story a lot.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the most useless kitchen utensil?<\/p>\n

A garlic crusher. It takes more time to clean a garlic crusher than the time that you save by using it. You can crush garlic with the skin on in 0.1 of a second. It will take you way longer to peel the garlic, get the crusher, use the crusher, then clean the crusher.<\/p>\n

If you could have a dessert named after you, what would it be and why?<\/p>\n

Cr\u00e8me caramel to me is a near perfect dessert. There are all these fantastic dessert names for fluffy meringue things, or chocolate desserts, but anything in that caramel space is just so functional; burnt cream, English cream, caramel cream \u2026 So maybe some sort of caramelly custard dessert.<\/p>\n

Who is the most famous person you\u2019ve cooked for?<\/p>\n

Gordon Ramsay. We were both at a food festival in South Africa years ago, and I made something that we ate backstage. I don\u2019t remember what I made, but I remember my wife spilled a whole jug of water over him. He was fine about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What\u2019s the oldest thing you own and why do you still have it? A teddy bear that\u2019s actually…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[458,146,85,46],"class_list":["post-536869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}