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Annabel Langbein has had a busy year so far, travelling through the Europe and the US over the past few months to launch her TV series (now syndicated in 74 markets around the world) and cookbook, The Free Range Cook. You may know her as a friendly face on television or perhaps as the woman on your mum's Christmas present. She's a delightful cook, a bit of a storyteller and, as Georgie Fenwicke found out last week, quite an astute businesswoman.

You're in Wanaka at the moment, what is keeping you busy down here?
I am doing some filming and my garden is in the most amazing shape. It’s harvest time and we haven't had a frost here yet so everything is going mad.
 
What is coming up nicely at the moment?
I have a whole row of zucchinis and some of them are these lovely paella ones. I have been picking chillis and artichokes. I’ve harvested my big crop of onions and corn! First corn yesterday, it was so sweet. It is just so good. I boiled it for just three minutes then I rolled it in olive oil, coriander and chilli.
 
How did your arrangement with the international media company Freemantle come about?
I did this book called Eat Fresh about four years ago when Youtube had just started. I thought, “Gosh! There are 24,000 cookbooks published every year. I am going to make something that stands out. Why don't I make some little clips and make the book interactive so you could go online?” If you look at Eat Fresh there are about ten recipes in there with little symbols which mean that you can go online and get a little two minute cooking lesson. It starts in the garden and finishes around the table. Freemantle saw them and they said, “you've got something really great there.”
 
You’ve done a lot of travelling throughout your life, not just this year. Is this where you discovered what you have termed “the universal language of food”?
I think so. I hadn't ever imagined that I was going to be cooking and I think my mother knew that I was a cook well before I did. She wanted me to do Home Sciences down in Dunedin as she'd done that. I, being a rebellious teenager, certainly wasn't going to do that. But it didn't matter, wherever I went I was always cooking and food was kind of the central thread all the way through. Food is a bridge between community and nature and our family and friends, and it is also a really powerful way to explore your own creativity.
 
You have listed your mother as one of the major culinary influences in your life, but also Julia Child with whom you communicated quite a bit. How did you get in touch with Child?
I wrote her a letter and said I am mad about food and I have done this and I have done that but I don't know what else to do. She wrote back and said there is this organisation called the American Association of Culinary Professionals. I went along to the conference in Seattle and I didn't know anyone but the people were so welcoming. I networked like crazy and five people I met there are still really good friends with whom I regularly keep in touch. One of them was President Mitterand's private chef; she was a French woman and has been a mentor right through. I met another woman who had a big catering business in Toronto, and another who was into supermarkets, and another who was into styling. It opened up a world of where you could take this as a career because then, in the mid Eighties it hadn't really started.
 
What is the one recipe that an Otago student should know how to cook?
You probably need something that doesn't cost too much money. I wonder if you should think about something like a potato gratin. You could make a meal out of potato gratin. If you want, you can put bacon in it, peas and all kind of things. It is one of those things that you can have in the face of a long, cold, Dunedin winter.