Guest Speaker Annie Smithers

This years Fair will showcase a fabulous range of specialty stallholders, speakers and demonstrations. Following the success of Maggie Beer's attendance last year, we are absolutely delighted to announce that local Cook, Author and Farmer extraordinaire, Annie Smithers of Du Fermier & Babington Park will be our Guest Speaker at this year's event.

Annie 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 30 years, Annie has spent the last quarter of a century in the wonderful 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, starting with baking her own baguettes each morning and offers a menu du jour that features vegetables picked that day from her kitchen garden and meats and poultry from the surrounding area. She carefully sources all products to ensure their environmental and animal husbandry credentials.

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.

Her masterclasses are held in the restaurant and are demonstration in style. Her honest, inclusive and no-fuss style of teaching means her annual season of masterclasses are booked out within weeks of their release.

Annie has written two cookbooks and writes for The Saturday Paper monthly and Country Style seasonally. She appears regularly on ABC Radio National Blueprint for Living. Her latest book, Recipe for a Kinder Life, released in July 2021 is part meditation, part memoir, the book offers practical advice and wisdom gleaned from a life dedicated to seasonal food and living lightly on the ground beneath her feet.