The head chef of Melbourne’s Hope St Radio looks to her mixed Jewish heritage and Italian travels for meals filled with ‘immigrant grandma energy’

I haven’t had formal training as a chef; rather, my food background lies in my blended Jewish culture, my family’s food heritage and what I have learned on my travels and in past restaurants and kitchens, and continue to learn day to day with my team at Hope St Radio in Melbourne.

In my world, the food of home is everything. I was raised in a mixed Jewish family, with immigrant parents and grandparents always hovering about. My father and his family are from the Sephardic world, specifically Morocco. My mother and her family are Ashkenazi Jews, from Germany and eastern Europe.

When MasterChef Australia winner Julie Goodwin met Mick, she thought he was ‘too cool’ for her. Then one moonlit night, she realised he was a keeper

In the weeks between school ending and university beginning in Sydney, I ran into my friend Chris who was flat-out with a new youth group he had started under the banner of St Vincent de Paul. I asked if I could come along and rocked up to my first meeting in January 1989.

The other people in the room were all guys who had gone to St Leo’s Catholic College, including Micky G, the tallest boy I had ever met, standing at six foot seven inches – 2 metres. There was colourful language and boisterous laughter. These guys were rough as guts, but here they were organising blanket and food drives for local people who were struggling. They were distributing sandwiches in Sydney city in the dead of night. They had hearts of pure gold, and they became my people.

Why tie the knot with someone you have lived with for years – and what happens next? Three women share their stories

On the surface, marriage might not appear relevant to many Australians today. Indeed, most women and half of men say that’s so . De facto couples enjoy the same legal rights as their wedded counterparts, one in seven Australians are in a de facto relationship, and a new survey showed a 15% drop in marriage rates among young Australians between 2001 and 2021 . Yet sometimes even long-term de facto couples are choosing to marry, even after decades (and multiple children) together.

Why? And more pertinently: after such a long time, does it change anything?

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The sexual wanderings of a partner don’t always spell the end. Readers share their experiences of how their relationship came out the other side

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What counts as infidelity varies from couple to couple and how they choose to handle it is also unique. A drunken kiss on the dancefloor might be innocuous to some; for others, a relationship-ending catastrophe.

How readers chose to approach their straying partners varied dramatically depending on the length and nature of their relationship and what shape the outside encounter took. If families and mutual assets were involved – and other relationship factors were stable – readers tended to double down on commitments, opting to frame such transgressions as an opportunity for growth and refreshment. And the further down the road couples had travelled together, the more likely they would stay together post-infidelity.

This omission demonstrates a troubling facility with concealment, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith . To move forward, you need to be satisfied there are no more big surprises

After several months of dating, my partner revealed he had another ex-wife and three teenage children. He’d only ever mentioned one ex-wife and two small children. He explained his rationale and I decided to continue with the relationship. I had been single for 15 years and I feel I’ve really connected with him.

We have the best time together, and although he’s away a lot with work, he’s communicative, considerate and has given me the sort of relationship I never thought I’d find. I feel he genuinely loves me and wants the best for me. He’s always saying how much he appreciates me. But I am nervous about the future as he has so many commitments (I don’t have children but hope to one day, and he’s on board).

In this quick and easy midweek recipe, the cookbook author goes big on flavour – with minimal washing up

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One-pan pasta recipes can be a little hit and miss. While one pan implies you won’t need to boil the pasta separately – meaning one less item to clean up – some people find the pasta has a tendency to overcook or undercook. Others are put off by the starchiness, but I like to think of this dish as a risotto-paella-pasta situation, where the starch should be embraced and mitigated with cheesiness and acid.

You can totally add frozen corn, or even peas, to this pasta for bonus veg. Just pour some boiling water over half a cup of them while the garlic is sauteing, and wait until they thaw before adding once the pasta’s done. If you’ve got any zucchini or golden squash about, you could add these in, thinly sliced, with the burrata.

Elizabeth Quinn raids her cutlery drawer for the indispensable – but underrated – utensils that make cooking a breeze

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Most of us have our go-to kitchen gadgets: the occasionally battered tools with the familiar feel that give us the confidence we might otherwise lack. My choux pastry never quite reached the same glossy consistency without the ancient enamel saucepan and “special” wooden spoon combination I had used over 20 years of making croquembouches.

The kitchen utensils we automatically reach for are as idiosyncratic as our thumbprints. A friend once gave me a replacement for my beloved old choux pastry spoon: an “indispensable” alternative stirring implement known as a spurtle. I kept my old spoon and used the spurtle to prop open the door.

After her brother’s death, Mary-Anne O’Connor never thought she’d meet someone who could carry her grief. Then, at a 21st birthday party, Anthony walked through the door

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My brother Matthew was the closest person in my world when I was 16 years old. He was 17 and we were part of the same social group, always off having adventures. He was incredibly wise for someone so young and he used to solve the problems of the world for me as we played one-on-one basketball together after school.

“You worry too much,” he’d often say as we’d walk home and watch the sunset. “Just enjoy living in this great country, Australia, and family and friends and stuff, you know?” We were like two halves of a whole.

From dress shopping to weight-loss pressures, nuptials can open a Pandora’s box of body-image issues. Experts share advice on reducing the risk of new or worsening symptoms

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It’s often expected to be the “happiest day of your life”, but the preparation for Brianna Woodward’s wedding had her crumpled on the kitchen floor, sobbing.

The 36-year-old has struggled with body image and eating disorder symptoms since her early teens, but only received targeted psychological treatment briefly several years ago, after a dentist noticed the enamel of her teeth was eroding due to purging behaviour.

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