Food & Wine Events at the AWRF

THE DELIGHTS OF FOOD, WINE AND STORY This year’s Auckland Writer’s & Readers Festival features a number of special sessions involving, or about, food and wine, providing great opportunities to expand your festival experience and/or present the perfect gift to family and friends.  Listen to fabulous writers over a sumptuous lunch, hear Lauraine Jacobs and Joelle Thomson talk about their love of food and wine, and attend the Festival’s much-loved annual afternoon tea event.

 

SIR MAX HASTINGS One of the most fascinating, accomplished and eccentric journalist families of Britain comes to life in a special lunch event complete with three course meal, a complimentary glass of Crossroads wine, presented by renowned foreign correspondent Sir Max Hastings of whom a headmaster once said, “[He] resembles a Chinese firecracker, which we expect to explode at any minute.”  Hastings made his name as a correspondent during the Falklands war,  edited The Daily Telegraph, was Boris Johnson's boss, and is author of more than 20 books, with the world wars a specialty.

 

His father was the journalist, adventurer and man-about-town MacDonald Hastings, acclaimed for his courage and rashness in equal measure, and who counted amongst his friends  J.M. Barrie, G.K. Chesterton, and Hilaire Belloc; his mother was Anne Eleanor Scott-James, Lady Lancaster, one of Britain’s first women career journalists and editors, including for Harpers’ Bazaar, and latterly the author of classic gardening books.   Hastings will talk about the effect they had on him, and why, as a boy, he shot the television with his father’s pistol while watching Perry Mason.  Unmissable.

 

SIR MAX HASTINGS LUNCH THURSDAY MAY 16 – 12.00-2.15PM HAMMERHEADS RESTAURANT TICKETS $95

 

THE WORLD OF CRICKET Gideon Haigh is an Australian journalist. He has written 26 books on cricket, and is a life member of the South Yarra cricket club where in a “triumph of availability over ability” he holds the record for games played. His latest book On Warne is a highly acclaimed examination of Shane Warne, one of cricket’s scandal-magnets and a stellar proponent of that most refined art - leg-spin bowling. Join Haigh for a lunchtime innings on Warnie, and the changing face of cricket besides, complete with three course meal and complimentary glass of Crossroads wine.  Introduced by journalist Eric Young.  Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts.

 

WICKET MATE!  – GIDEON HAIGH LUNCH FRIDAY MAY 17 – 12.00-2.15PM THE NORTHERN CLUB, AUCKLAND TICKETS $95

 

THE QUEEN OF FOOD WITH THE KING OF BOOKS The Festival’s food queen, Lauraine Jacobs, communes with another foodie Graham Beattie in the wake of her recently published memoir Everlasting Feast. Interweaving food with her life story, Jacobs sheds light on both.

 

EVERLASTING FEAST: LAURAINE JACOBS FRIDAY MAY 17 – 4.00-5.00PM LOWER NZI ROOM, AOTEA CENTRE TICKETS EARLYBIRD $20 / STANDARD $25

 

AFTERNOON TEA WITH NEW ZEALAND’S FOOD HEROES Celebrating the love and energy that goes into bringing food to the table, in our afternoon tea event this year we tuck in with four artisan producers, each of whom feature in Simon Farrell-Green’s book Food Heroes. Characters Paddy Griffiths (Ringawera bread), Amanda Hellier (Farm Gate Produce meats), Chris Ludbrook (Ludbrook House preserves) and Mark Tugendhaft (Coffee-LaLa beans) share their foodie tales. Enjoy a complimentary glass of bubbles and a delicious afternoon tea in the surrounds of the Heritage Grand Tearoom with inimitable food writer Lauraine Jacobs and four of New Zealand’s food heroes.

 

AFTERNOON TEA: FROM FIELD TO TABLE SATURDAY MAY 18 – 2.30-4.00PM HERITAGE GRAND TEAROOM, AUCKLAND TICKETS $55

 

CELEBRATING WINE The way journalist Joelle Thomson tells it in her new book The Wild Bunch, the pioneers of New Zealand’s wine industry - now worth $1.2 billion in exports - are mavericks brimming with ambition, vision, and tenacity. She discusses the movers, shakers and groundbreakers of New Zealand wine in conversation with wine lover Eric Young.

 

WILD WINEMAKING SUNDAY MAY 19 – 4.00-5.00PM LOWER NZI ROOM, AOTEA CENTRE TICKETS EARLYBIRD $20 / STANDARD FROM $25