Chris Gordon interviews Annie Smithers about her new book,

I’m always struck by how personal your writing is, how you take responsibility for each of your decisions. Where did you learn to keep everything so honest?

Failure. Failure has been the best teacher for me and keeps me honest. I muck things up all the time, but learning from those mistakes makes the experience richer. If I fail a recipe, I look carefully at what I have done and analyse the processes, try it again and try and do better. I have always felt that if you just succeed all the time, there is no challenge, and you become unprepared for stumbling. I have a particular abhorrence for online restaurant reviews, but on reading bad ones I try to take away why someone was unhappy with what we provided and find something to improve. It’s not always an easy task, but a necessary one.

In life, as I mention in the book, it appears that I am living a bucolic dream. A country acreage, a provincial restaurant, family, friends and animals – what could be more perfect? It has been honed by decisions made and learnt from both success and failure, crafting and sculpting a life that acknowledges that there will always be a balance of good times and bad, delightful and difficult. We laugh often in the cooking classes I hold that my only desire to ever ‘do telly’ is to do a show that I refer to as ‘Annie f#*^s it up’. I’d cook and garden and delight in the failures and then show people how to either fix it, or when to acknowledge defeat and start again.

Recipe for a Kinder Life is broken into sections, each seasoned with recipes. I was particularly taken with the chapter on water. Would you describe yourself as a ‘greenie’?

Ah, water. That chapter. When I sent the first draft of this to my wonderful editor Sally Heath, it was the one chapter that came back with more to change than any other. I initially wrote it with quite an angry tone. I get very fired up about water. It is one of the most precious resources that we have, along with air quality, and we have treated it with so little consideration for so long. Sally, in her gentle and guiding way, quietly said, ‘show, don’t tell’, as I was in full soapbox lecturing mode. ‘Show, don’t tell’ has become a new mantra for me, on many levels, softening a few sharp edges.

I would not label myself as anything really, but when you grow food, year after year, you learn about the effect of different weather patterns on yields and successes. Working with the environmental conditions becomes second nature and there is a tendency to become a little vociferous when faced with those who are wasteful or dismissive of the effects of their lack of care.

The irony of having a chapter on weather and then just months before your book comes out, Trentham is hit by the storm of the century. Were you frightened?

The storm that passed through Victoria in June was terrifying on many levels. Firstly, on a personal note, we had ducked out to a friend’s place late afternoon and were unable to get home for two nights, leaving a young adult and an aged mother at home! Thankfully, all was well.

The storm brought enormous devastation to our forest and environs. The good that came out of it was the sense of community. At home, our neighbour came over to check on Mum and Hannah, started the generator, shared some of our petrol. In Trentham, the community pulled together. Being cut off without power, water and telecommunications for three to four days brings a sense of cohesion that you rarely see day to day.

The storm has created a number of problems for the future. As the forest is devastated, the amount of fallen timber will create a huge fire load in the coming summers if the clean-up is not prioritised by government. While many say, ‘it will grow back’, the issues at hand are now the amount of introduced species and weeds that could take over before the trees have time to re- establish. Again, a funding and priority question for government. In the book I talk about a 30-year period where the forest was logged to the point of being declared a ‘ruined forest’ in the late 19th century. I only wish that we could learn from these past and recent events to better manage our natural resources. So when you ask if I was frightened? The night itself was ferocious, but I am more frightened for the possible long-term effects.

You favour French country cooking. When did you fall in love with this style, and have you ever wanted to strike out and create an ‘Annie Smithers’ cuisine style? Will we ever be able to purchase your makings at a local grocer? (I know this will not happen, by the by.)

I have always loved French food. Perhaps it was growing up with a mother who cooked very well and was very proud of her volumes of Mastering the Art of French Cooking sent to her by a friend in America. As an apprentice at Stephanie’s, I was educated in the importance of learning proper technique – much of it classic French – and the role the great French restaurants played in Stephanie’s vision of her own. As I now relish the more homely and simple French country style of food for my restaurant, it is the backbone of classic techniques that make me smile each day. Familiar tasks of bread making, stocks, rouxs, braising, salting, confiting, custards, choux etc. delight me as much today as they ever have.

In terms of supermarket items, I did once have visions of Annie Smithers jams being available, and a line of reduced veal stock! Now, I favour the thought that everyone should be able to make a pot of jam or construct a stock. Educating and encouraging others to find the same joy in cooking that I find is probably more ‘me’ than negotiating with Woolies and Coles.

You write about ensuring that life is balanced and considered. How do you go about implementing this in your own life?

I would say that I have found balance and consideration in my work/life balance. It is just that I prefer to be busier than some. As someone who is naturally touched by anxiety and the fog of depression, I have learnt that being disciplined, busy and adhering to deadlines is very healthy for me. It sounds very dull when put like that, but the deadline parts are not all getting my copy into the Saturday Paper or recording for Radio National. They are the daily things: making sure I let the animals out and put them away on time each day, caring for their needs. Plotting and planning my seed and seedling planting to the deadlines that the moon sets me each month. These are all disciplines and deadlines that are absolute delights.

Recipe for a Kinder Life