THE FREE RANGE COOK THROUGH THE SEASONS

New Zealand’s favourite cookbook author and publisher Annabel Langbein is back with an inspiring new prime-time television series and her most covetable book yet.

Annabel Langbein The Free Range Cook: Through the Seasons screens on TV One in prime time on TV One from mid-September.

The accompanying book goes on sale exclusively at Paper Plus stores nationwide from Friday 29 August and then at all good book retailers from Friday 19 September.

In the new 13-part television series we follow Annabel throughout an entire year of harvests in her lakeside Wanaka garden, and join her as she travels the country meeting Kiwi characters, sampling seasonal delicacies and cooking simple but delicious meals to share with family and friends.

“I wanted to celebrate nature’s growing cycles and the rhythm of a year,” she says. “There’s a real freedom in the idea of ‘cooking the landscape’.”

In each episode she combines seasonal harvests from her garden with a global pantry of flavours and her trademark Fridge Fixings to create easy dishes that are big on flavour while, with a few indulgent exceptions, light on fat and sugar.

Her signature style meshes perfectly with current food trends. Over more than two decades she has earned an international following for her recipes, which transform inexpensive seasonal ingredients into “clean” dishes with the wow factor, many of which are naturally vegetarian and/or gluten free.

The book contains more than 200 new recipes – all the dishes from the TV series and many more – as well as dozens of Annabel’s trademark kitchen and garden tips and tricks, plus substitution suggestions that allow the recipes to be made with whatever fruit or vegetables are in season. 

The luscious food photography (no exaggeration) , dramatic images of New Zealand scenery, stunning modern design and superb production values make this the perfect gift book for Christmas 2014.

      The Book: 320pp, hard cover, 216x253mm portrait. Published by Annabel Langbein Media, RRP $59.95. from Friday 29 August at Paper Plus stores, then at all book retailers from Friday 19 September

About Annabel Langbein

Over more than 20 years, Annabel has written and published 21 cookbooks and starred in and co-produced three seasons of her award-winning TV series Annabel Langbein The Free Range Cook. Her lighthearted, down-to-earth approach, no-fail recipes and clever kitchen tips and tricks have earned her a passionate international following.

Annabel’s books have won numerous international awards, been translated into multiple languages and sold close to two million copies throughout Europe, North America and Australasia. Her best-selling book, Annabel Langbein The Free Range Cook, was named Best TV Cookbook in the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards. In 2013 she won three of the six main honours at the New Zealand Guild of Food Writers Culinary Quills Awards for her work across multiple media – taking out Best Book, Best TV Series and Best Website.

A foundation member of the Sustainability Council of New Zealand and named by the NZ Beekeepers’ Association as the official ambassador for New Zealand bees, Annabel is uniquely qualified as a flag-bearer for the international sustainability movement, having spent her early life living off the land, cooking over an open fire, trapping possums in the Ureweras and jumping out of helicopters to recover live deer.

Annabel grows much of her family’s fresh produce in extensive organic vegetable gardens on the shores of scenic Lake Wanaka, where Annabel Langbein The Free Range Cook is filmed.