Stimulate your mind and appetite with some of Australia's most influential cookbook authors and food writers at Food & Words on 19 October.

It's a feast of foodknowledge and philosophy, featuring 14 food writers, including Peter Gilmore from Quay and author Gay Bilson, in an intimate and limited-ticket festival day at The Mint, Sydney.

Presented by Barbara Sweeney's Food & Words and supported by Sydney Living Museums, the festival is designed for those who live on a diet of cookbooks, devour food magazines, feed their minds with food stories, and savour the written word.

The program features renowned chef, Peter Gilmore, from Sydney's Quay restaurant, authors
Gay Bilson and Belinda Jeffery, bakers David McGuinness and Paul Allam from Bourke Street Bakery and the Bread and Butter Project and the man who never shops for food in supermarkets, hunter gatherer Rohan Anderson. Also on the program is a soil scientist and plant ecologist, five food historians and blogger LemonPi.

Featured speakers spend the day at the festival alongside the audience, so participants could find themselves sitting beside their cookbook hero over lunch, a perfect moment to exchange cooking tips.

Topics that will be covered in the four talk sessions that make up the program include the dissection of a recipe, the intricacies of creating a blog, the 'art' of domestic management, the 'branding' of apples and the relationship between soil and elite vegetables. 

The Food & Words 2013 featured speakers includes:

• Peter Gilmore, Quay on seed catalogues, gardening and gastronomy 

• Gay Bilson

• Rohan Anderson hunting, gathering and putting food on the family table 

• Belinda Jeffrey on what it takes to write a recipe that works 

• David McGuinness & Paul Allam on social dividends and their Bread and Butter Project 

• Dr Robert Edis, soil scientist, on elite food and soil-plant partnership 

• Jacqui Newling & Scott Hill on the art of domestic management 

• Yu-Ching Lee/LemonPi on writing and creating a food blog 

• Bruce Auld, plant ecologist, on the world of edible weeds 

• Christopher Cowles & David Walker on the art of apple branding 

• Sarah Benjamin on the authors who came before Mrs Beeton 

Other features of the day include:

Coffee brew bar by Single Origin Roasters

Gorgeous Ovvio Organics herbal teas on tap

The librarian at the Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection at The Mint will exhibit rarely seen food and cookbook collection for the audience

The Food Writers Festival full-day program costs $185 (includes morning and afternoon tea, plus gift).

At lunchtime, enjoy a picnic on the grass with fellow food lovers. Either bring your own picnic lunch or enjoy the picnic prepared by Alex Herbert of Bird Cow Fish, Martin Boetz from Cook's Co-Op and The Mint's Brad Jones (picnic costs $60/optional).

To book tickets go to www.foodandwords.com.au

Contact details, Barbara Sweeney 0413 259 535

Images for print, IG and FB are available

Food & Words features in the Good Food Month program - www.goodfoodmonth.com.au and Sydney Living Museums' Eat Your History program www.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/food

Food & Words 2013 partners are: Principal partner, Sydney Living Museums / Catering partner, Trippas Wgite Group / Out of town guests stay at QT Sydney.