Timeless quality

Annabel Langbein first noticed her precocious palate when, aged seven or eight, she devoured a plate of buttery brains during a summer family holiday to Aoraki/Mt Cook. “The entire dish was so deeply delicious that, if I could have licked the plate clean, I would have.” Though you won’t find a recipe for brains in Langbein’s new cookbook, Bella: My Life in Food, it does contain insightful snippets into her life, including her time as the regular food columnist for the Listener in the 1980s and 90s. She even released a 1988 book, Annabel Langbein’s Cookbook: Recipes from the New Zealand.