Dietary requirements, food intolerances, religious decrees and plain old proclamations of personal dislikes are now all in a day’s work for anybody in the food service industry. More than ever before, hospitality workers need to be able to decode dozens …

There’s nothing like a change in seasons to send you longing for treats banished due to lack of seasonality. When I put out a call in the kitchen the other week for what sort of sweet thing I should write about, my lovely dishwasher replied with, “Oh, …

Australian sporting culture has its own traditions, especially in the month of September. As the AFL and NRL reach their zenith, there is many a function being planned that involves large television screens and a lot of shouting at said screen. I have …

“This is the most beautiful fish soup recipe – it hails from Provence, France – which uses the bones and, sometimes, the head of the fish. It’s easy to forget when you buy an expensive fillet of fish that there’s a whole head and skeleton going …”

“For years I had hoarded a recipe clipping for these buns, and at last I had a good excuse to trot it out and make some. After they were removed from the oven and had cooled a little, I slathered them with butter. The crumb was close, the texture was drier …”

“I know I’m courting controversy and might even lose some of you immediately with the next statement, but here we go. Candied peel is absolutely delicious. I can hear the howls of horror in my head. I’ve come to conclude that it must be one of the …”

“There are times when I really feel my 20th-century Australianness, and not always in a good way. Often it is when I am thinking about, or cooking, offal. With my suburban Anglo-Saxon upbringing, I was not brought up with even a notion of nose-to-tail …”

“I think the basic technique of choux pastry is a prime example of why cooking never loses its shine for me. It reminds me of the continuous mirror images that fascinated me as a child, a constantly repeating effect. But with choux it is always tumbling …”

For one half of The Saturday Paper’s food editing team, the gruelling hours and stressful conditions of cooking for others eventually took its toll – both mentally and physically. Then she decided it was time to regain control.