G'day and welcome to My Australia,

the show about people from overseas having Australian experiences.

On today's show

Faye from Fiji goes on her first skiing trip

Raisa finds out about the Australian tradition of Christmas in July

and Selby sees where country meets city at the Royal Show.

So what is Christmas is July?

Well, in Australia Christmas is a pretty hot time of the year so you don't always feel

like your traditional Christmas foods like turkey and lamb.

But hey, in winter, they're great.

So let's see how our first guest Raisa goes about cooking Christmas dinner in July.

Raisa grew up in Bandung Indonesia with her parents and younger brother.

As a baby she was fat.

She got skinny and liked to dance and play the piano.

She had a head for numbers and she won a lot of mental arithmetic competitions.

She started a double degree in Indonesia but then won a scholarship to study international

relations at Flinders University in South Australia.

She now lives in a share house close to the University.

When she need s break from study she sometimes goes into the backyard and does the hula hoop.

I'm living off-campus.

I live very near to Uni.

I just have to walk around five minutes and then I take the loop bus.

You go to the main campus.

So that's really good.

Living here has definitely made me independent.

I learned how to cook here whereas before I got here I've never even touched a stove.

I've never even cooked instant noodles.

My favourite thing about being in Australia is the relaxed life, I guess.

Like I can really enjoy my life here.

I don't feel rushed to do things.

I do realise that if you want to blend in and make new friends that you have to sort

of put an effort to put yourself out,

like, not only wait for people to approach you but just generally smiling and everything

and people will approach you, so it's not really that hard I guess.

I have no idea why Australians like to celebrate Christmas in July actually and I'm still wondering

why also.

Hi, how are you?

I'm fine thank you.

So what are we planning tonight?

Is it the reverse Christmas thing?

Yes, Christmas in July.

What exactly is it?

Christmas is usually in cold places in Europe so in Australia, it's really hot

and people like to have the big traditional lamb roast meal.

So we have it in July so we can do it properly.

That sounds interesting.

So, what exactly do we cook for that?

What's really good for roasts is actually these tomatoes on the vine.

In the market we asked for some advice from this nice guy in the organic vegetable store.

And they were really helpful.

They taught us like what vegetables to actually put and how long we should leave the meat

in the oven and everything

so that was definitely a helpful piece of information.

What other vegetables do you think we could put in?

Some of these Jerusalem artichokes.

They are a little bit different.

I didn't even know that they existed.

I don't know whether it comes from Jerusalem or not,

and beetroot for a bit of colour.

The blood red.

It's really, really nice.

Hello.

How are you?

Good thanks.

How can I help you?

We're going to roast a lamb, leg of lamb, and we just need to know what to get.

We're going to be serving about five people.

We've got a beautiful leg of lamb here and that's got the shank end on it as well.

You will have plenty of meat there for five people.

Yeah, that's a lot of meat.

There you go.

Thank you.

I am very scared actually about how it will turn out because I've never cooked it before

and I don't know the steps yet to cook it

but I'm sure Maddy will help me out with that because she's Australian and she knows more

and everything.

I hope it turns out okay.

Pavlova.

I've seen it in the supermarket but I haven't actually tasted one.

Yes, but maybe it might be nice I think, yeah.

The guy said that this is a Jerusalem artichoke right?

Yep.

Is it really from Jerusalem, do you think?

In Indonesia, I never cook at home.

Really?

Even instant noodle.

I never cooked.

So I just learned how to cook here.

Let's do the meat.

Meat.

So what do you do with it?

Put it in the middle.

As it is?

Is it heavy?

Ah, well, quite.

I've never done this before so ...

Maddy this is Gary.

He's come to help.

Hello Gary.

How are you?

I've got all meaty hands.

Preparing the big hunk of meat was interesting.

We sort of jabbed the meat with a knife..

Wow, is that hard?

It's fun.

I'm pretty excited about this.

I can't wait.

And then we put in garlic and rosemary in it.

And it was really interesting when we put in the rosemary.

Looks like we're planting something.

It could be little Christmas trees.

First time I did it, and I loved it.

Got to try and cover all the vegetables in the oil.

Maybe we can give them to people then they arrive.

Okay, present.

I had to wait for Christmas usually once a year but now I just have to wait like seven

months, so that's cool.

It's a Christmas tree.

It's a strawberry Christmas tree.

Yeah, a strawberry Christmas tree.

I'm definitely excited to wait for my friends to come and for them to see the wonderful

decoration that we've put up.

But I'm also worried about how the food will actually turn out because, as I've mentioned

before,

I'm not exactly the best cook in the world.

Here's the meat.

I hope it tastes as good as it looks.

It has a nice sound also while cutting it.

Christmas and snow, you know, kind of all seem to go together.

As a kid, we never questioned why we were having Christmas in summer, why we were having

it hot.

It makes sense.

Eat hot food in hot weather.

But now it's different.

It's completely wicked

Is it good?

Awesome.

The lamb is delicious.

The beetroot looks great.

Anybody else want the green stuff?

A lot of what the meal contained I've never had before in my life, like beetroot.

and we also had Jerusalem artichokes, which is still a question, whether it's from Jerusalem

or not.

Merry Christmas

A measuring tape!

Okay, to keep me slim.

I'm sure my parents would be proud of me.

Maybe my grandma would faint if she saw what I cooked.

Considering that I didn't even cook instant noodles five months ago.

Propose a toast to our wonderful roast - that rhymes.

It's our first roast and we hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas in July.

Cheers!

I'm very happy with my Christmas in July.

I'm proud of myself for being able to pull it off, of course with Maddy and Gary's help

also.

And yes, I think people enjoyed the food and everything.

And it was a lot of fun.

We pulled poppers and everything.

I really enjoyed it.

Cheers.

Merry Christmas Raisa.

Fantastic job.

Okay, now let's see what people here think about Christmas in July.