Get to Know Besha Rodell. And Maureen Dowd Is on Her Way to Sydney.

The Australia Letter is a weekly newsletter reflecting the experience (and quirks) of our Australia bureau chief. Sign up to get it by email. Here’s where to find all our Australia and New Zealand coverage.

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I’m in Melbourne this week and once again, I’m struck by how different this city is compared to Sydney — and by how much fun it is to eat with Besha Rodell.

She’s our Australia Fare columnist, of course, the award-winning writer of many gems, including a nostalgic essay on milk bars, a glowing review of a hidden taco joint near Adelaide, and this candid takedown of a Rockpool failure in Sydney.

Eating with Besha is always a joy, for her ordering and her conversation, but this time, I got to thinking about how you, our readers, don’t know enough about her nor all the other interesting people on our growing Australia team.

So here’s an attempt to fix that.

Every month or so, I’ll introduce someone from the bureau, with a format adapted from a feature internal to The New York Times, in which employees share a bit about their roots and interests.

Here goes (and don’t forget to scroll down for our global and local stories of the week, plus how to get discount tickets to an upcoming event in Sydney with the New York Times Op-Ed columnist Maureen Dowd).

Besha Rodell

Job title: Columnist, Australia Fare.

What it means: I write restaurant reviews and essays on the intersection of food and culture for the New York Times Australia bureau.

Hometown(s): Melbourne, Australia. But also New York, Atlanta and Los Angeles.

College / University and what you studied: New School University, writing and literature with a minor in religion and philosophy.

First job and how long it lasted: Telefunder for the Hartford Stage Company. Less than a month.

Funniest on-the-job journalism experience: The shenanigans that have to do with maintaining anonymity (which I strive for in order to review restaurants) are by far the silliest part of the job. Important! But silly. The best was probably when a food gossip website published a photo they thought was me, but which was actually a friend of my mother-in-law’s named Brenda Pollard. Brenda had the most amazing and recognizable haircut … and she’s about 25 years older than me. I was really hoping it would stick, that people would forevermore think I look like Brenda Pollard.

Interesting personal fact: I was born in a bungalow on a farm in East Gippsland. The farm (as named by my father) was called Narnia.

Favorite quote: “Don’t hate the media; become the media.” ― Jello Biafra

Favorite book: “The Left Hand of Darkness,” Ursula Le Guin.

Favorite movie: I don’t know. I like movies, but I’m not obsessive. The only movie I was ever obsessed with was “Heathers,” when I was 14. Ask me about bands instead.

Favorite food to cook: Chicken livers.

Favorite place to eat anywhere in the world: Mexico. This includes Los Angeles.

Most interesting place ever traveled: Borneo.

Inspired by: My mother, a great writer and journalist. My husband, a great cook and hard worker and good man.

Hobbies: Kitten fostering. Thrift store obsessive. Tireless seeker of tiki drinks on beaches.

What you love about Australia: I mean, it’s stunningly beautiful. But also the relaxed ease of social interactions here, the pubs, the people.

What you would change about Australia if you could: Um … racism? Is that too obvious? Like saying “world peace”? It’s absolutely what I’d change though.

Most important lesson learned about journalism: When done well, lifestyle reporting can be beautiful and impactful and meaningful. It’s only fluff if we let it be fluff.

Most important lesson learned about life: Be nice.

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Echoing some of the findings by Australia’s royal commission on child sexual abuse, the broadest examination yet by a government agency in the United States of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church found this week that bishops and other leaders in Pennsylvania covered up child sexual abuse by hundreds of priests for decades.

The details are horrible, the victims’ struggles immense, the problem global.

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This Op-Ed on how little girls are steered away from math even though they are just as good at it as boys made me think.

Larry David made me laugh with his imagined meeting at Trump Tower between the Trump team and the Russians.

And I couldn’t stop staring at these prehistoric English cropmarks drawn out from all the dry weather.

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You can always find all our Australia and New Zealand coverage on this page. But here are a few stories you shouldn’t miss:

• In a Town of 11 People, Mysterious Disappearance Turns Neighbor Against Neighbor: Jacqueline Williams hung out in the remote Australian town of Larrimah and attended the inquest for the murder mystery that just doesn’t want to be solved.

• Indigenous Australians Use Tech to Expose Police Abuse: A program called Copwatch teaches Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples how to use their cellphone cameras to battle police brutality.

• In New Zealand, Avocado Shortage Leads to Orchard Crime Wave: With prices for the fruit soaring after two years of low harvests, orchards are experiencing a raft of thefts, and black markets have sprung up to distribute the spoils.

• Australian Senator Calls for ‘Final Solution’ to Muslim Immigration: Best response we heard: “Every society has pluses and minuses. It’s just that people judge the negatives first and leave the positives aside,” said Maria Faiq, 29, an immigrant from Pakistan who works at the Immigration Museum in Melbourne.

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… And We Recommend

We still have tickets available for Maureen Dowd’s appearance on Sept. 2 at the Antidote festival at the Sydney Opera House. Click on this link to get a 10 percent discount.

She’ll be in conversation with Julia Baird, the host of “The Drum” on the ABC. More information on that can be found here, but suffice to say, they’ll be discussing everything from politics to #MeToo.