Conversations

Monday Morning Cooking Club's Merelyn Chalmers her family's story of survival, and piecing together hundreds of treasured family recipes from Jewish communities around the world, including her mother's top-secret yellow cake recipe.
Merelyn grew up tied to the apron strings of her mother, an Hungarian Jew who had survived Auschwitz and eventually ended up in Western Australia.
In Perth, she met a man who had his own remarkable World War Two survival story, after fleeing Poland and being conscripted into the Polish regiment of the Red Army.
For the couple, Perth became their Garden of Eden, where they raised Merelyn and her older brother in peace.
From her mother, Merelyn learnt how to make the perfect pastry in her pyjamas at midnight; how to fry schnitzel properly; and how to make a succulent roast for Shabbat. 
And from her father, Merelyn learnt how to appreciate both an Aussie barbecue of snags and steaks, as well as the acquired taste of Gefilte fish.
Years later, Merelyn would join a group of women who decided to raise money for charity by putting together a cookbook filled with treasured family recipes from Jewish communities in Australia and around the world.
As a member of the Monday Morning Cooking Club, Merelyn finally convinced her mother to share her secret recipe for yellow cake, a chiffon cake that had become famous in suburban Perth.
A Year of Jewish Cooking is published by Simon & Schuster.
You can find out more about the Monday Morning Cooking Club online.
This episode of Conversations was produced by Meggie Morris. Executive Producer is Nicola Harrison.
It explores cooking, cookbooks, holiday cooking, Jewish cooking, stories of survival, origin stories, Bondi, Shabbat, Jewish holidays, Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, Passover, Pesach, Hanukkah, family recipes, secret recipes, charity, books, writing, Shoah tapes, Holocaust, Auschwitz, refugees, migration, first generation Australians, Kosher kitchen, Judaism, religion, cultural identity, children of immigrants, Communism, Stalin, Hitler, Soviet Union, Spielberg.
To binge even more great episodes of the Conversations podcast with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

Author and classicist Daniel Mendelsohn was teaching a university class on Homer's The Odyssey, when his elderly father decided to enrol in it.Daniel became fascinated by the stories of the ancient world as a child and grew up to study the classics and then write books and essays to share his knowledge with the wider world.
Eventually he began teaching the Ancient Greek epic, The Odyssey, to first year university students at Bard College in New York State.
But when his elderly father Jay asked to sit in on the course, it led to a big change in their relationship.This episode was first broadcast in 2020
Further information
An Odyssey: A father, a Son, and an Epic is published by KnopfDaniel's latest book is The Odyssey: A New Translation 
This episode was first broadcast in 2020.
It explores the Ancient World, Homer, The Odyssey, the Classics, translation, poetry, writing, teaching, parents, family, fathers, students, New York State, memoir, Odysseus, hero, storytelling, siblings, Winnie the Pooh, emotions, love, books.

For writer Richard Flanagan, the political belief that white Australians do not belong in this land is wrong and it's damaging any progress we might hope to make as a collective people.
Richard has spent the last 30 years writing award-winning pieces of fiction and non-fiction, tackling the climate crisis, the meaning of art, free speech and the stubborn necessity of hope.
Threaded through all of Richard's writing is a contempt for power and its acolytes, and a great tenderness for human struggle and goodness.
Richard says that while writing novels is an introspective process, and journalistic writing is very much outward-looking, they share the same fundamental purpose - telling the truth.
His latest book is a collection of speeches and opinion pieces that assembled in order to contextualise and define the rest of his oeuvre as fiercely Australian.
Because Richard says the story Australia tells itself as a nation must change, to include all of us as profoundly belonging to its land and history.
For Richard, the political belief that white Australians do not belong in this land is wrong and it's damaging any progress we might hope to make as a collective people.
Heresies is published by Penguin.
This episode of Conversations was recorded live at the Byron Writers Festival in August 2026. It was produced by Jennifer Leake. Executive Producer is Nicola Harrison.
It explores white history, black history, Australian history, Indigenous, non-Indigenous, Aboriginal Australia, writing, books, politics, climate crisis, black arm band view of history, colonialism, settlers, invasion, national identity, bushfires, natural disasters, early onset dementia, incorrect medical diagnosis, monoculture, multiculturalism, One Nation, fedpols, federal politics, Pauline Hanson, First Nations identity, the Voice Referendum.
To binge even more great episodes of the Conversations podcast with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

Micaela Sahhar grew up hearing stories of her Palestinian family's life in Jerusalem before 1948, and what happened when they had to leave.
There was her grandfather’s tourism business, her grandmother’s wedding necklace, and the dramatic circumstances of her father’s birth.
Most of all there was the house, built by her grandfather for his extended family, at 8 Asa Street Jerusalem.
This was the house her family had fled in 1948.
And one midnight, many decades later, Micaela found herself standing outside its front gate.
Further Information Find Me at the Jaffa Gate, an encyclopedia of a Palestinian family is published by NewSouth books.
This episode was recorded at the 2026 Byron Bay Writer's Festival.
The producer was Jen Leake and Nicola Harrison is the Executive Producer.
It explores family, memoir, Palestinians, Israel, 1948, bombings, violence, mass displacement, Christianity, religion, Arabic, Melbourne, grandparents, Palestinian diaspora, family stories, memories, trauma, history, family home, keys, memory, Nakba, church, Jerusalem, Jordan, maternity hospital, tourism.To binge even more great episodes of the Conversations podcast with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

Micaela Sahhar grew up hearing stories of her Palestinian family's life in Jerusalem before 1948, and what happened when they had to leave.
There was her grandfather’s tourism business, her grandmother’s wedding necklace, and the dramatic circumstances of her father’s birth.
Most of all there was the house, built by her grandfather for his extended family, at 8 Asa Street Jerusalem.
This was the house her family had fled in 1948.
And one midnight, many decades later, Micaela found herself standing outside its front gate.
Further Information Find Me at the Jaffa Gate, an encyclopedia of a Palestinian family is published by NewSouth books.
This episode was recorded at the 2026 Byron Bay Writer's Festival.
The producer was Jen Leake and Nicola Harrison is the Executive Producer.
It explores family, memoir, Palestinians, Israel, 1948, bombings, violence, mass displacement, Christianity, religion, Arabic, Melbourne, grandparents, Palestinian diaspora, family stories, memories, trauma, history, family home, keys, memory, Nakba, church, Jerusalem, Jordan, maternity hospital, tourism.To binge even more great episodes of the Conversations podcast with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.