Writers @ Stanton: Annie Smithers

When we cook for others, or ourselves, the deepest hunger we feed is love.

In her new memoir, respected chef and paddock-to-plate pioneer Annie Smithers answers the question she is asked most often: why cook?

Annie takes us on a journey through every significant kitchen in her life, both domestic and professional, sharing with engaging honesty her personal development, her surprisingly complex relationship with food, and the lessons she has learned along the way to find her niche in the culinary world.

About the author

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 thirty years, Annie has spent the last quarter of a century in the 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, offering a menu du jour that features vegetables picked that day from her kitchen garden and meats and poultry from the surrounding area.

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 has written two cookbooks and writes for The Saturday Paper fortnightly and is a seasonal contributor to Country Style magazine. Her first memoir, Recipe for a Kinder Life, was published in 2021.

Organised in partnership with Constant Reader Bookshop.

Host or Publisher Stanton Library