Read more - Annabel Langbein

6 Living SEPTEMBER 25, 2011
Annabel’s
grand
plan
Annabel Langbein continues her
quest for world domination
with a new book.
By Shelley Bridgeman.
TELEVISION COOK Annabel Langbein may
have a huge smile on her face when she
says her mantra is: “World domination
by spatula” yet she’s clearly not joking about the
extent of her ambition. With international book
sales nudging two-million copies and her television
show The Free Range Cook running in 79 territories,
she’s already a global force to be reckoned with
when it comes to matters culinary.
It’s all part of a concerted plan to make
unpretentious cooking from seasonal ingredients
more accessible to home cooks everywhere. “I
looked at what I wanted the future to look like and
imagining that future helped set a course. That
future looked at people all around the world being
excited about cooking and wanting to engage in
exploring their own creativity and just discovering
the pleasure of food and that through food it’s
a really simple way to have a good life,” says
Langbein. “What fascinates me now is that idea of
culinary anthropology. Food is a conduit to culture,
to community. It’s the bridge that joins us.”
About five years ago, after seeking and gaining
permission from her family, Langbein deliberately
and painstakingly set out on a path to achieve her
goals. “I hired a couple of brand experts from New
York and worked with someone who used to run
the Food Network in America. And I started looking
strategically at where the gaps were, what people
are looking for [and did] lots of market research.”
When her You Tube video clips of two-minute
cooking lessons caught the eye of executives from
FremantleMedia, Langbein was summoned to a
meeting in Cannes which culminated in the words:
“We want you to be a star.” Seed money funded a
pilot show of The Free Range Cook which was testmarketed
before Langbein was given the green light
to produce a thirteen-episode series. (Filming for a
second series begins soon.)
She seems a trifle overwhelmed at the favourable
reception the series — which is set in and around
Langbein’s photogenic cabin in Wanaka — has
garnered internationally. “Uzbekistan,” she says
with disbelief. “And it’s on in Brazil at the moment
and I get tweets from people in Brazil. I don’t think I
ever understood the power of television; it’s huge.”
Langbein laughs good-naturedly about
the Telegraph review of the cookbook which
accompanies the television series. “That was
quite funny, really,” she says of the somewhat
dismissive review which begins: “Langbein
is the epitome of the modern-day TV cook.
She’s blonde and cheerful, grows her own veg,
spends time in a lakeside cabin and produces
delicious stress-free food without losing
her cool. If you can stand the thought of all
that you’ll like her book which does indeed
portray an annoying idyllic life.”
Idyllic it may well seem yet Langbein
holds that it’s the sheer authenticity of her
work that helps give it such mass appeal.
“It’s real, it’s our cabin, everything you
saw we grew. It’s very honest and it has an
integrity. I didn’t have a squillion-dollar
kitchen. I had a $20 gas-burner. It’s not
about stuff; it’s about engaging with people
and nature.” She attributes some of her
success to good timing in responding to
people’s desire “to feel that they can take
something back from this oppressing industrial
food-chain.”
Her core message about harvesting, cooking
and eating fresh, local, seasonal produce is one that
has been under threat in the wake of globalisation,
the rise of fast-food giants and a yen for readymade
meals. “I think we’re at risk at the moment
because we’ve got this huge global industrial foodchain
taking over so much of what we eat and the
consequence of that is diabetes and obesity and it’s
a huge cost to people personally as well as to the
economy.”
Langbein — who, as a member of the
Sustainability Council of New Zealand, is involved
with concerns such as water quality, bio-security,
climate change and genetic modification — takes
a softly-softly approach to communicating her
views about the politics of food and its production,
distribution and associated issues. “I didn’t use any
plastic on The Free Range Cook but I think people
get really turned off if you shove things down their
throat.” Rather, she hopes that her subtle, almost
subliminal, messages about simplicity and largely
shunning packaged goods, may be absorbed by
viewers and readers.
Activism aside, at heart she’s a true foodie. “I
get withdrawal symptoms if I don’t cook. I am
obsessed about food. I just have to cook.” Even
on holiday in Hua Hin, Thailand, Langbein
needed her cooking fix and spent a few days
observing in the kitchen of the Sofitel hotel.
“I learned to make the most amazing green
papaya salad, pad thai and delicious green
curries.You’re seeing it from the local cooks so
it’s much more real.” Similarly on sabbatical
in Sicily, when her children — Sean, now
19, and Rose, 17 — were little, Langbein
befriended a local restaurateur who allowed
her to “sit up on the bench and watch them
cook. I’ve always had that curiosity.”