ANNIE SMITHERS - AN INTERACTIVE PADDOCK TO PLATE EXPERIENCE
Thursday 12th May - 11am - 1pm - 10 MacKenzie Street, Bendigo
Celebrate the opening of this year's Bendigo Writers Festival with special guest chef & author Annie Smithers.
Annie Smithers is one of Australia’s most highly regarded chefs and one of the first chefs to truly epitomise the paddock to plate ethos. With a career spanning well over 30 years, Annie has spent the last quarter of a century in the wonderful Macedon Ranges and Hepburn Spa region of Victoria.
Her restaurant du Fermier in the small village of Trentham, is a tiny establishment. Annie does all the cooking, starting with baking her own baguettes each morning and offers a menu du jour that features vegetables picked that day from her kitchen garden and meats and poultry from the surrounding area. She carefully sources all products to ensure their environmental and animal husbandry credentials.
Annie lives on a small farm in Lyonville - Babbington Park - only ten minutes from Trentham, where her kitchen garden and orchard are planted and producing a bounty of produce for the restaurant.
Annie's new book, Recipe for a Kinder Life, is part meditation, offers practical advice and wisdom - plus recipes -gleaned from a life dedicated to seasonal food and living lightly on the ground beneath her feet.
This is your opportunity to witness Annie in action, with the help of first assistant Sonia Anthony from Masons, as they cook up a storm in the beautifully restored MacKenzie Hall. Watch and learn the tricks of the trade with Annie as she demonstrates how to prepare morning tea, lunch and dessert with fresh local produce from her very own kitchen garden.
This will be an intimate relaxed demonstration with plenty of scope for discussion and questions. Attendees will also have the opportunity to sample the delicious delights Annie cooks up over the course of the demonstration.
Tickets: $55 or with a copy of Annie’s book ‘A Recipe for a kinder life’ $80