When Sophie Hansen and her deer farmer husband Tim brought their first child home 11 years ago, there was a gift basket at the door that inspired her latest book.
It contained an apple cake, a tray of lamb shanks and wine to soothe the bewildered new parents as they contemplated one of the biggest moments in their lives.
"It was a gesture I'll never forget and a care package that inspired me to write," she wrote in the book's foreword.
Now the former Australian Rural Woman of the Year is coming to Leura to talk about that book A Basket at the Door with Edible Garden Trail founder Suzanne Rix.
Hansen, who is a farmer and food writer from Orange in the Central West, will be at Megalong Books on Saturday April 6. The 140 recipes are designed as thoughtful gifts for others "to cover life's big moments".
There's a ginger tonic, her son's Tom's chocolate cake, "an incoming love bomb" (goat cheese souffle, lamb shanks and salted caramels), a sturdy apple cake and her personal favourite the four stage chicken pie.
The freelance writer has edited or contributed to some of Australia's best feature magazines including Australian Country Style and Outback magazine. She is also the Treechanger columnist with The Sydney Morning Herald and has a podcast My Open Kitchen. Hansen has covered "food media" for years - and even met her husband while working for the now defunct Hoofs and Horns magazine.
Hansen said she writes to support and celebrate farmers. In Orange they are not doing it as tough as those further west and were celebrating some recent rain, she added.
Hansen calls the book a "playbook of what to cook for all kinds of situations... collected season by season".
"There's so much of our life in it I do feel exposed," she said. "But the lovely thing about the book is it sparks lots of beautiful conversations about when people have made, or given, or received, baskets by the door."
Tickets to the event are $10 and include wine and cheese. Email the bookstore at books@megalongbooks.com.au.
