If there’s one thing that can rival Stephanie Alexander’s enthusiasm for food and cooking, it’s her delight in good conversation.

In fact, conversation has been front and centre in choosing recipes for her book, The Cook’s Table. ‘I want to be away from the table as little as possible, so I have kept last minute stovetop cooking to a minimum,’ Alexander has said. ‘I don’t want to miss the best stories. I am hungry for the latest news and opinions.’

The Cook’s Table is an especially personal collection of recipes and reflections, with Alexander revisiting memorable meals from her own life and travels in each chapter. There’s plenty there to draw from; over the course of 50 years, Alexander’s career has seen her open several celebrated restaurants as owner-chef, write 14 books including the modern-day cooking bible The Cook’s Companion and launch the pioneering Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation, which has seen food education take off in school gardens across Australia.

In conversation with writer and food critic Larissa Dubecki, Alexander talks about her food, foundation and five-decade career. 

Books and Ideas at Montalto series sound design and music: Jon Tjhia.

Activated charcoal, sound baths, coffee enemas, adaptogens – wellness trends continue to rise and rise, and many of them are totally (wholemeal) crackers.

While it’s easy to make fun of the more bizarre notions floated by self-styled wellness gurus, there’s no escaping the fact that the wellness industry is serious, multimillion-dollar business. How much of it is harmless nonsense, how much is actually helpful and how much is exploitative and dangerous? And to what extent does the rise in the wellness industry reflect real deficiencies in traditional medicine, especially in the treatment of women?

We ask these questions of Nick Toscano – one of the journalists who exposed Belle Gibson’s cancer hoax – as well as nutritional scientist and dietician Tim Crowe, writer Clem Bastow and host Jacinta Parsons.

Jacinta Parsons, Nick Toscano, Clem Bastow and Tim Crowe

Rain comes. In his voice messages, Aziz sounds unwell – but speaks at length about how, in spite of their living conditions, the men finally feel they have some control over their lives. He tells Michael about how they're cooperating with each other, too – splitting duties like security and the daily cleaning of the compound.

'We don't always want to get the attention of the people about the hardship,' he explains. 'We are just paying the price for our freedom.'

'We are managing our lives. You know, it's been 21 days now, three weeks … it's become normal for us.'

Abdul Aziz Muhamat

Photo: Manus Alert

In this update

Abdul Aziz Muhamat

Michael Green

Our theme music was composed by Raya Slavin.

Further reading

'The situation is critical’: cholera fears on Manus as water and medicine run out', by Ben Doherty, Guardian Australia, accessed 21 November 2017

'Refugees Trapped Far from Home, Farther from Deliverance', by Damien Cave, New York Times, accessed 21 November 2017

More information

The Messenger is a co-production of Behind the Wire and the Wheeler Centre. It’s produced by Michael Green, André Dao, Hannah Reich and Bec Fary, with Jon Tjhia and Sophie Black at the Wheeler Centre.

This short update was edited and mixed by Jon Tjhia.

Thank you

Dana Affleck, Angelica Neville and Sienna Merope. Also to Behind the Wire’s many participants and volunteers. Behind the Wire is supported by the Bertha Foundation.

Three days after the official closure of the detention centre, several hundred detainees remain barricaded inside the gates without water, power or food supplied. Aziz describes the scene, and explains some of the ways the men are getting by.

'It's really hard to get water from outside, so we dug a well.'

Abdul Aziz Muhamat

Without water and power, detainees at Manus Island Regional Processing Centre shower in the rain — Photo: Manus Alert

In this update

Abdul Aziz Muhamat

Michael Green

Our theme music was composed by Raya Slavin.

More information

The Messenger is a co-production of Behind the Wire and the Wheeler Centre. It’s produced by Michael Green, André Dao, Hannah Reich and Bec Fary, with Jon Tjhia and Sophie Black at the Wheeler Centre.

This short update was edited and mixed by Jon Tjhia.

Thank you

Dana Affleck, Angelica Neville and Sienna Merope. Also to Behind the Wire’s many participants and volunteers. Behind the Wire is supported by the Bertha Foundation.

Jacinta Parsons, Jenny Valentish, Chris Raine and Jill Stark

In our backyards, balconies and beer gardens – Australians get along famously with booze. Drinking is an entrenched part of our national identity: it’s a recurrent theme in our pop culture, a scene-setter for friendship, a supposedly inherent part of work and play.

Lately, though, as the personal, social and public health costs of drinking become clear, many Australians are reconsidering our indulgent traditions. Some have even suggested that alcohol will go the way of the cigarette once its connection to chronic or life-threatening illnesses is fully acknowledged.

Jill Stark is the author of High Sobriety: My Year Without Booze. As an Age reporter, she’s written extensively about the escalating toll of alcohol abuse in Australia. Writer Jenny Valentish’s book, Woman of Substances, tells her own story (as well as those found in rehab facilities, halfway houses and AA groups), as she explored the paths people take into and out of addiction. In the process, she’s discovered that women’s experiences of substance abuse and treatment differ greatly from those of men.

Along with Chris Raine – founder of Hello Sunday Morning, an online initiative aiming to refocus drinking behaviour on individual choice, rather than cultural expectation – and host Jacinta Parsons, they join us for a fresh discussion about Australia’s changing relationship with alcohol, and how we can anticipate and deal with the side effects.