My Country Childhood
MARION GRASBY
Marion’s mother, Noi, taught her to cook and fostered a love of food.
Marion Grasby of MasterChef fame, credits her mother, Noi, a professionally trained chef, with teaching her how to cook. Her deep love for food reaches back to early childhood experiences in Darwin, where Marion was born and where, as a young girl, she would help Noi prepare food to sell at the popular Parap Village Markets.
Today, the mother and daughter still work together, with Noi the resident ‘quality assurance chef’ for Marion’s meal kit company Marion’s Kitchen. “Nothing gets past her tastebuds!” says Marion with a laugh. A few years after Marion relocated to Bangkok, Noi and Marion’s father, Charlie, also moved there. “They’re living about 500 metres down the road now, to my husband’s delight!” Marion says.
“My parents met in Thailand — my day has worked in construction and project management for most of his life, and he was sent to Bangkok in the 1970s to work on the German embassy there. He’d been living in Darwin so, when the project ended, that’s where they moved. Mum had never been to Australia and had no idea where Darwin was. They arrived, and then I arrived!
“In Darwin, my mum was very involved in the Thai and Asian community and a large part of that was helping her friends with stalls at the Parap Village Markets and Rapid Creek Markets, both of which are still going
