Orange Apple Fest (9th – 11th May) welcomes Jacqui Newling, resident gastronomer at Sydney Living Museums / curator of Sydney Living Museums’ Eat your history programs. Jacqui explores our food heritage through old menus, cookbooks and heirloom recipes, and as ‘the cook’ in The Cook and the Curator blog, revives ‘lost’ foods, tastes and techniques. ([email protected]/cook).

Join Jacqui at Orange Farmer’s Market  to rediscover forgotten favourites and share your family’s heirloom apple recipes on Saturday 10th May from 10am (15 mins  talk). Jacqui will also talk about older style recipes such as apple charlotte, apple snow, apple puddings and apples as a savoury ingredient.

At 11am (15 mins talk) : Share your old recipes / stories from childhood / grandmothers’ cooking.

From 11.30am (15 mins talk) Discover  gastronomy in the Villages of the Heart project  as  food reflects society and recognise the importance of simpler cooking, more sustainable approach to cooking, including back-to-basics kinds of dishes. Enjoy!

Local author Sophie Hansen

We love the blog, now love the book. The farm to plate journey is one that we have become fascinated with. Originating from Sophie’s blog, www.local-lovely.com, her gorgeously illustrated book is a celebration of Australian rural life with a focus on fresh, local food and mouth-watering recipes that takes you on many of those journeys. Local is lovely is a seasonal guide to the fruit, vegetables and meat that Australian farmers produce. Beautiful recipes tips for the home and family, and stories and interviews with and about local producers – because local is lovely.

Help Sophie celebrate the launch of her book Local is Lovely at Orange City Library on Thursday 27 March at 5.30pm. This event is supported by Collins Booksellers, Orange. Please let us know you are coming along by calling the Library on 6393 8132.

Judy Nunn celebrated the top spot on the adult fiction books sales list this week with a literary lunch at Orange City Library with her many fans. Judy, known for her TV role as Ailsa on Home and Away, and now as an author has sold over one million books worldwide. During lunch she spoke about Elianne, her new bestseller, a sweeping story of wealth, power, privilege and betrayal, set on a grand sugar cane plantation in Queensland.

In the tough world of Queensland sugar mills, it’s not only cane that is crushed …In 1881 ‘Big Jim’ Durham, an English soldier of fortune and profiteer, ruthlessly creates for Elianne Desmarais, his young French wife, the finest of the great sugar mills of the Southern Queensland cane fields, and names it in her honour.

The massive estate becomes a self-sufficient fortress, a cane-consuming monster and home to hundreds of workers, but ‘Elianne’ and its masters, the Durham Family, have dark and distant secrets; secrets that surface in the wildest and most inflammatory of times, the 1960s.

Judy talked about her love of Australian history and one audience member suggested she would enjoy writing about Orange with its rich historic links to the land and gold. We loved that idea! Thank you to everyone who came along and made it such a success and Collins Booksellers who supported the event.

Here is the next instalment from our F.O.O.D Week event Words on a Plate with guest Sophie Hansen. Writer, blogger, farmer and all round stylish lady Sophie spoke about her background in magazine writing and her stint in Italy working with Slow Food. She described the international atmosphere of the office as “crazy” with so many different nationalities represented in the one place. From there she talked about meeting her husband Tim and the transition from “city girl” to “country girl”. She revealed the vision for her blog Local is Lovely, as well as a highlight in her career the National Year of Reading Writing in Residency (check it out at onefarmday.blogspot.com.au) and then her latest project having just signed a book contract. (Applause, fanfare, red carpet!) And here’s how she announced it on her blog: “A couple of months ago I received a lovely email from publishers Hachette Australia, wondering if I might be interested in writing a book based on Local is Lovely. The answer of course was a big fat yes. So after many discussions about how it might look/feel/come together, I’ve just driven back from Sydney with a contract and a (terrifying) deadline. And am beyond excited. Local is Lovely ‘the book’ will be a seasonal collection of stories and recipes, including some favourites from the blog and lots of new content too. It’s due for release in April 2014 (holy moly!).” Congratulations Sophie and we can’t wait to have Local is Lovely on our Library shelves!

It’s F.O.O.D. Week! Yum! And we are celebrating with some fantastic local foodies  uncovering our obsession with food, recipes, cookbooks and food magazines. The panel guests are (drumroll, fanfare, red carpet…) Sophie Hansen, Mark Logan and Narelle Small. Sophie Hansen of Mandagery Creek Venison fame is also behind the blog local is lovely http://www.local-lovely.com/. It’s gorgeous and we love it! Then there’s Mark Logan former photojournalist at the Central Western Daily and total foodie (and admits to not following the recipes) who has started the blog http://orangepost.com.au/   And Narelle Small, head home economics teacher at Orange High School and on the Centenary Committee which published the popular OHS Centenary Cookbook full of family favourite desserts, slices, cakes and main meals from staff, students and friends of the school.  The cookbook will be for sale on the night ($20) as well as souvenir tea towels and aprons. We’ll be serving local foods with Charles Sturt University Letter Series Wines – “NV” Sparkling, “R” Riesling and “G” Grenache. Come along to Words on a Plate, Wed 17th April 5.30pm at Orange City Library, 147 Byng Street, Orange.  Please book your place on 6393 8132.