Annabel Langbein
Annabel Langbein is a New Zealand celebrity cook, food writer and publisher. She is also a regular radio guest and TV presenter, and has fronted her own TV series, Annabel Langbein The Free Range Cook, which launched on the TV One network in New Zealand and now screens in over eighty countries. She is known for promoting organic food, primarily using seasonal ingredients and is a member of the Sustainability Council of New Zealand. The program is also distributed to PBS stations in the U.S.
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Family
She is the daughter of Fred and Anne Langbein and is married to Ted Hewetson with whom she has two children. Her father worked in a city office but was a keen vegetable gardener and beekeeper, while her mother Anne was a cook and home science university graduate. She credits her mother as the inspiration of her cooking. She first met husband Ted while working as a possum trapper on his family's farm on the East Cape of New Zealand. By chance she later shared a flat with her future sister-in-law Debbie who helped orchestrate their relationship. She claims to have attracted Ted with the help of a bacon and egg pie. He proposed three times before she finally said yes and they married in Wellington.[1][2]
Early life
As a teenager in the 1970s she says was a fully-fledged hippie and feminist, railed against domesticity, consumerism and the urban world in general, and left home and school at the age of 16. Her mother took her to Europe in the hope of showing her the 'real world' but on her return she moved up the Whanganui River with some friends to enjoy an alternative lifestyle growing vegetables, cooking over a fire and living off the land. For several years she hunted and fished for much of her own food, and it was during this time that she honed her skills through endless experimentation.[3]
She started to cook for a living when she went to Gisborne to work as a chef in a friend's restaurant. She realised that she couldn't cook the same food every day and used the opportunity to save some money for an overseas experience. She travelled the world experimenting with different flavours but got sick in South America. She didn't want to return home, but developed a strong desire to cook and eventually made her way back to New Zealand.[2][4]
Career
She never formally trained as a chef but has a Diploma of Horticulture from Lincoln University in New Zealand. She has also attended residential cooking courses at the Culinary Institute of America in upstate New York.[1][3][5]
Since 1984 she has worked as a food writer. She has written for several magazines including NZ Life & Leisure since its first issue, a fortnightly column for the NZ Listener, as a feature writer for Cuisine for 11 years and as food editor for Grace. She also is a regular guest on New Zealand's Newstalk ZB radio network.[6][7][8]
She has authored 18 cookbooks which are published in numerous languages and have been sold all around the world. Her 2010 book The Free Range Cook was available in more than 70 countries and sold more than 110,000 copies.[8][9][10]
In 1991 she established the Culinary Institute of New Zealand, a specialist food marketing consultancy, and was responsible for marketing and media campaigns for New Zealand food manufacturers, retailers, and exporters, as well as promoting New Zealand food offshore for Trade New Zealand.[6]
For seven years she was a director of New Zealand gourmet cheese company Kapiti.[8]
She is the principal of Annabel Langbein Media Limited, an Auckland-based company that provides food and lifestyle media services, including book publishing and TV and video production.[9]
Television
In August 2010 TV One debuted her show, Annabel Langbein The Free Range Cook, a 13-part series filmed at her holiday cabin. She co-produced the series and worked with a seven-person TVNZ crew over a six-month filming schedule. It was the first time she had fronted her own cooking show and series on television.[11]
UK-based company FremantleMedia Enterprises first noticed her presenting skills in 2008. To accompany her cookbook Eat Fresh, she made a series of how-to cooking features that she posted on YouTube.[1] The series has also appeared in Australia on the ABC network and has been distributed worldwide by FreemantleMedia. As a result, the series has appeared on networks in France, Belgium, Sweden, Poland, Israel, UK, Canada, Asia, Brazil and Japan.[11] In Brazil the show airs on the GNT cable channel under the translated title A Cozinha Caseira de Annabel (Annabel's Homemade Cooking).[12]
| Year | Programme | Episodes | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | The Free Range Cook | 13 Episodes | 30 minutes |
| 2012 | Simple Pleasures | 13 Episodes | 30 minutes |
| 2014 | Through the Seasons | 13 Episodes | 30 Minutes |
Honours
She has won NZ food writing awards. The Best of Annabel Langbein: Great Food for Busy Lives won the 1999 NZ Guild of Foodwriters 'Recipe Book of the Year' award while Savour the Pacific: A Discovery of Taste won the 'Best Photography in the World' award at the World Cookbook Awards in Périgueux, France, as well as a Ladle at the 2001 World Food Media Awards.[6][13] Annabel Langbein The Free Range Cook was named New Zealand's best celebrity cookbook for 2010 in the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards.[14]
For three years, she was a judge for the International Association of Culinary Professionals' Julia Child Award for the best First Cookbook.[6][15]
Bibliography
- Annabel Langbein's Cookbook: Featuring Recipes from the New Zealand Listener (ISBN 0-908829-00-0, 1988)
- The Outdoors Cook Book: Favourite Barbecue and Grill Recipes (1989)
- Smart Food for Busy People: Stylish Food for New Zealanders (ISBN 9780-4730-2228-0, 1993)
- More Taste Than Time: Fast Track Food for Busy People (1994)
- With Fork & Spoon: Easy Imaginative Food for Time-Hungry People (ISBN 0-473-03976-1, 1996)
- The Best of Annabel Langbein: Great Food for Busy Lives (ISBN 9780-9582-0290-9, 1999)
- Savour the Pacific: A Discovery of Taste (ISBN 9780-9582-0292-3, 2000)
- Savour Italy: A Discovery of Taste (ISBN 9780-9582-0293-0, 2001)
- Cooking to Impress Without Stress (ISBN 9780-9582-0295-4, 2003)
- Assemble: Sensational Food Made Easy (ISBN 9780-9582-0299-2, 2005)
- Desserts: New Healthy Kitchen – Colorful Recipes for Health and Well-Being (ISBN 9780-7432-7860-7, 2006)
- Grilling: New Healthy Kitchen – Colorful Recipes for Health and Well-Being (ISBN 9781-7408-9611-5, 2007)
- Eat Fresh: Cooking Through the Seasons (ISBN 9780-9582-0297-8, 2007)
- Celebrate: A Calendar of Cakes for Special Dates (ISBN 9780-9582-0296-1, 2008)
- Anyone Can Cook: Fresh Ideas for Busy Lives (ISBN 9780-9582-6680-2, 2009)
- Anyone Can Bake: Home Baked Treats Made Easy (ISBN 9780-9582-6683-3, 2010)
- Annabel Langbein The Free Range Cook (ISBN 9780-9582-6684-0, 2010)
- "Annabel Langbein Free Range in the City" (ISBN 978-0-9582668-5-7, 2011)
- "Annabel Langbein The Free Range Cook: Simple Pleasures" (ISBN 978-0-9582668-6-4, 2012)
References
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- ↑ http://www.keanewzealand.com/united-kingdom/news/annabel-langbein-uk-tv-february-7-2011
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