Manjimup’s famous truffle festival to return in 2023 with chef and food expert Sophie Zalokar at the helm

The Lower South West’s famous truffle festival will make a grand return next year with a talented foodie taking the helm. Chef and food expert Sophie Zalokar has been appointed produce and talent manager and is already working on an amazing line-up for the 2023 Truffle Kerfuffle. Ms Zalokar said she was excited about her broad and diverse new role with the prestigious festival. “I will be providing creative direction with the event program and marketplace, curating the talent selection and working with chefs and growers to take full advantage of the region’s produce in their menu development and assisting community groups with creative ideas and involvement,” she said. Ms Zalokar said she would take her well-honed knowledge that she had built up over the past 30 years — in the areas of food, hospitality, culinary tourism and agribusiness — into her new role. “My career as a chef and food writer has been built on making food a language and experience of place,” she said. “The Southern Forests region has so many stories to tell about its produce and its people and in winter, truffles offer great mystery and discovery. “Thanks to the region’s soils and climate and its successful and hard-working truffle growers, black truffles are a natural, gastronomic treasure the Southern Forests is blessed to have in abundance.” Ms Zalokar is familiar with the region having lived on a small property with her family on the outskirts of Pemberton, where she built luxury chalet accommodation, planted a heritage vegetable garden and orchard, raised a smallholding of farm animals and opened a cooking school. She was also a member of several business and community focus groups to develop the Shire of Manjimup Tourism Strategy and Local Heritage Strategy and published her second book Food of the Southern Forests in 2014 that contained stories of 40 producers and recipes developed from their produce. Since then, Ms Zalokar has been commissioned by several primary produce marketing organisations to develop recipes that educate and promote local produce, including the Southern Forests Food Council as part of its 2019 retail marketing campaign. Ms Zalokar said the Truffle Kerfuffle was arguably Western Australia’s most important food festival. “No other festival provides such direct and close contact with the produce and producers of one of its most important food bowls,” she said. “From a boots-on-the-ground experience of unearthing fresh truffles in the field to sumptuous dinners, shopping for artisanal and primary produce in a vibrant marketplace, learning how to prepare this decadent winter treat at home from the chefs and growers, set in the historic and stunning location of Fonty’s Pool.” Ms Zalokar said the Truffle Kerfuffle was a highlight on the eating and drinking calendar year for all West Australians and she felt privileged to be part of the team delivering the experience. She said she was looking forward to reconnecting with the community she still felt very much a part of and would begin that process when she visited Manjimup on November 20 for Matthew Evan’s Soil to Stomach talk at the Tall Timbers Brewery.