It takes a village: behind the scenes with Annabel Crabb and Leigh Sales

Salas is renowned for his undercover investigations of neo-Nazi soccer supporters and prostitute trafficking. Most famously, he passed himself off as a radical Islamist and became the personal webmaster of the infamous international terrorist Carlos the Jackal.

He invented an elaborate backstory involving a dead wife, learned Arabic, he even underwent a circumcision in his mid-30s. I did not go that far.

But I did go as far as becoming a Chatter. A devotee of the podcast Chat 10 Looks 3, presented by Annabel Crabb and Leigh Sales, two journalists with far more impressive credentials than this budding investigative reporter.

More than 45,000 people are Chatters - that's like the whole population of Dubbo.

It's a Facebook community group devoted to the podcast, where members are invited to "share interesting articles, photos of cooking, or recommendations about books, TV, film, and recipes".

If only it was that benign.

There are rules, you see, although the group insists they "don't want to be burdened by rules": be kind, no politics, no divisive content, no professional advice, respect privacy, no promotion of charities or fundraisers.

They're not particularly keen on journalists turning up to poke about either.

So I start poking about. I get reined in by one of the Brendalings, a term used for the gang of volunteers who work as moderators, when I dare suggest a woman, who posted about how she hated going to the hairdressers because it saddened her to look at her ugly reflection, was perpetuating self-loathing.

"I hope no one's daughter reads this post," I wrote. I may have called her vain. The comment was deleted.

Yet when I posted that I had interviewed Yotam Ottolenghi - who almost has God-like status among the Chatterati, the chef is the only guest to appear on the podcast and he's known as "the boyfriend" - it received more than 400 likes.

I know I should scroll on by - that's another rule - but I can't understand why a seemingly intelligent collection of women - and the group is predominantly women - post about the most inane things.

Why they can't seem to make a decision for themselves, why they need advice from strangers.

I get it. I really do. It takes a village and all that. But there's something about it I just don't understand. I'm sure now I'm going to be evicted.

So, I decide to go straight to the top - almost like Salas with Carlos the Jackal on his speed dial.

Annabel Crabb and Leigh Sales are Zooming from their homes in Sydney.

Crabb's on the couch, there are some photographs on the wall behind her I can't quite make out, and her hair looks as fabulous as always. She's drinking coffee from a rather large mug

If I'm honest, this undercover operation goes back years; I've been grooming - if that's the right word - Crabb since 2015 when I invited her to my house for a cocktail and some nuts.

She'd released one of her cookbooks and was in town. Since then we've talked regularly, for her television programs and her books.

Sales, on the other hand, scares me. Just like she scares Prime Minister Scott Morrison when he appears on 7.30, the ABC current affairs show she hosts. That glare.

The idea of interviewing one of Australia's best interviewers is nerve-wracking. She's Zooming from what looks like a spare bedroom (is that bed even made?). Her hair and make-up look like they're television-ready, she occasionally looks down at her phone. Maybe Morrison's people are on the phone early in the morning?

While there is some disagreement about how they first met, the pair first started circling each other around 2008 when they were both working in the Press Gallery, Crabb for The Sydney Morning Herald, Sales for the ABC.

"Crabb claims we met at Aussies Cafe at Parliament House but I have no recollection of that whatsoever," says Sales.

"I knew of Annabel Crabb because of her writing which was very funny and clever and insightful, and when we met she was the same in person.

"Very warm and easy to talk to, very smart and just somebody who's very sparky and fun to be around.

"The kind of person that when she walked into the room, you'd think oh, it's going to get more fun now."

In 2009, Crabb moved to the ABC and, the origin story continues, Sales invited her over for a cup of tea.

"And six hours later I was still there," says Crabb.

"The initial invitation was for morning tea, and, from my perspective, we had this amazing conversation that went on and on.

"I arrived at 10 o'clock and then my phone went off and it was my 4.30 radio cross and I ducked into her bedroom and did my thing.

"I'm sure she was thinking, 'When is this fuzzy-haired lunatic ever going to leave?'"

And she hasn't left. The pair have been firm friends ever since.

But it might come as something of a surprise that they are not besties. They have their own small circle of friends - we all agree that as middle-aged women, friendship is about quality not quantity - but they do love it when they do catch up for a natter.

They talk, as friends do, about books and their children, what they're binge-watching, what songs are on the playlist, what viral recipe they've tried.

In 2014, they decided to bring a microphone - albeit a very dodgy one - along to one of those chats, and the podcast was born.

"Making the commitment to the podcast was just an excuse to catch up," says Crabb.

Chat 10 Looks 3 - which I've only just discovered is a reference to a line from A Chorus Line (Sales is known to spontaneously erupt into show tunes) - is now one of Australia's most listened-to podcasts.

Each episode - and they're up to 172 - is downloaded close to 100,000 times, and it drops every fortnight, or thereabouts. While they've been approached by commercial networks, that side of it has never appealed to them.

"The way it is now we have absolute freedom to talk about whatever we want, there's no pressure, there's no one telling us we thought you went on a bit too long about, you know eggs, and didn't talk enough about chickens," says Sales.

"If it were more, professional, for the want of a better word, then maybe it would feel like work. But to this point, there's never been a day where I've felt like this is work, I don't want to do it."

It's spawned not only the Facebook community group, which in turn has spawned groups for Chatters who love to sew, or are looking for house swaps, or have teenagers (there is even a Chat 10 sub-group for people who love their Thermomix. Talk about the meeting of cults).

Their live shows sell out across the nation and when COVID quashed plans this past year, the Chatters were shattered.

There's also a range of merchandise such as aprons and doormats, tea-towels and cotton pandemic facemasks made in a Chatter-endorsed fabric. I joke they could put their name on a range of period pants and they would sell out, but I don't think they hear me.

The latest product is a book: Well Hello: Meanderings from the world of Chat 10 Looks 3.

It's kind of an instruction manual - or should that be an induction manual? - to the world of the Chatter.

In the Facebook group, people were posting photographs of their copies as they arrived on the doorstep, excited that, even despite the delay - thanks Australia Post - they could now pore over every word.

Is there no end to the Chatter-verse?

"We've always said that in terms of the core project, if it's not fun, then we wouldn't do it," says Sales.

"We both have other commitments and our families and our jobs, we don't need to be doing anything extra.

"But at the end of the day we both love doing it. Even if we're hassled by the idea of having to fit it in to our weekly schedule, when we leave we're always in a better place."

For both of them, the podcast is a welcome break from the politics of the week.

"I love it," says Sales. "When I'm not at work I don't tend to sit around with my friends and discuss politics and currents affairs, I talk about this stuff, most of us do."

Crabb sees the podcast as another way of feeding her brain, a way to look at different things from a different perspective.

"It's nourishing for the soul," she says.

Writing up this interview weeks after our chat, I come to the conclusion that this is the secret to their success - the key to the whole Chatter community, even.

I've reluctantly turned on the podcast during a few walks for research purposes, and always walked away with recommendations for a new show to watch, a new book to pick up.

I've enjoyed listening to the banter between two intelligent women, who, forgoing their collection of vintage frocks and knowledge of federal politics, are probably very much like me. I have enjoyed spending time with them.

If I stop looking at the Facebook group posts with such a cynical eye, I can see friendships being formed and women helping each other find solutions to problems, be they about body image, or how to remove a bundt cake from that tricky pan.

Women have a tendency to be a little critical of each other, and themselves.

Crabb hates it when Sales changes her recipes; Sales gets annoyed when Crabb doesn't stick to time limits.

"She's never used five minutes to tell a story when 15 minutes will do," Sales says.

But the whole of the Chat 10 Looks 3 universe has this sense of generosity and acceptance to it. And perhaps that's a wonderful thing right now.

So too, do Sales and Crabb. Two women, who could have easily become rivals in the cut-throat world of political journalism, have found a place to just be themselves.

Sales might grill a politician one night, belt out a show tune the next. Crabb might write an article, with a profound sociological insight, and then share a recipe for a cake which cheered up a friend.

They've both found that by maintaining this friendship, they are able to, "replenish" is the word Sales uses, both themselves and each other. They just bring out the best in each other.

And perhaps, in a way, that's the purpose of the whole Chatter-verse, it's a place where we can just be ourselves and be replenished.

And maybe that's the tonic we all need right now.