As the sun beams down on the abundant, wild growing produce, a film crew captures this slice of Central Otago for her 13-part, internationally-bound series Free Range Cooking with Annabel Langbein.
FreemantleMedia Enterprises (FME) in the United Kingdom saw some of her work and said "we think you have got something here," Ms Langbein said.
To come up with a theme for the series she asked herself "what makes a good life" and decided on what Central Otago encapsulated for her.
"It's really about celebrating the community and discovering some of the incredible things being grown here and the people who are making and growing them."
Using Wanaka as her "hub and base camp" she has been on foraging and filming missions to Cromwell this week, the West Coast recently and has Dunedin and Geraldine on her agenda.
FME, which has marketed series fronted by Jamie Oliver, Martha Stewart and Australian cook Bill Granger, is working with a seven-person TVNZ crew that has been filming since November.
As filming finishes in April, the series' first episodes will be launched at the MIPTV 2010 conference in Cannes, France, where FME will market it worldwide to multiple television outlets, including Europe and the United States.
It is the first time the company has marketed a New Zealand talent, Ms Langbein said.
She will then travel to the London Book Fair, where she will promote a book which is being produced as a companion to the series.
Author and publisher of 15 cook books, her work is distributed in nine countries and she sees television as an opportunity to further promote her style that "combines the best of what nature has to offer with a global pantry of flavours to produce the simplest, most delicious dishes".
"What we are trying to do is take New Zealand out to the world and showcase the amazing food we've got and the incredible lifestyle we've got and the beautiful scenery and actually, in a way, to show a simple way of cooking, using fresh ingredients."
Shot in high-definition, the series is expected to air in New Zealand sometime after mid-2010.
Ms Langbein spends about a quarter of her time in Wanaka, which also influenced her to base the series in the lower South Island.
"I just felt there's so much to share here, with people doing wonderful things and living a really simple life."
