Ever wanted to sit down with Matthew Evans and chew the fat?

Now you can. Once a week, the Tassie farmer welcomes gourmands to his Fat Pig Farm and hosts a “leisurely, sumptuous feast” around the kitchen table. “It’s an authentic paddock-to-plate meal,’’ he says. Depending on the season, and what might be growing on the farm, Evans and partner Sadie Chrestman could be serving you parsnip and leek soup, slow-cooked brisket and a sticky blueberry pudding with Tassie wines and beers.

Alternatively, you can grab a copy of his latest book. For The Love Of Meat, a companion to the SBS TV series of the same name, contains 60 recipes geared to “conscientious carnivores’’ and advances Evans’ mission to have us opt for ethically reared meat.

“There are times when we should eat less meat or no meat without compromising satisfaction,” he says. “This is the book that can help you do that.”

Cook, writer, farmer, consumer advocate – Evans has done it all since he gave up his day job as a restaurant critic 10 years ago and became a small landholder in the Huon Valley, south of Hobart.

“I wanted the quiet life,” he muses. “Gone ahead and ruined that.”

But Evans, author of 11 books on food, has no regrets. Raised in a household where the pleasures of the table were limited to Christmas and birthdays, he wants the average person to enjoy their meals all-year round. “Good food can be on their table three times a day. Not posh food. It can be as humble as brown rice,” he says. “The other thing is, I’m a glutton. I want to eat really well.”

His property, Fat Pig Farm, is productive enough to ensure that will happen. But having now filmed two television programs about fish and meat, Evans thinks it might be time to savour something sweeter … like cake.

“That’d be a lovely antidote to some of the stuff I’ve seen lately,” he says, shuddering at the memory of industrial farms. “Best of all, I’d get to hang out with all the CWA ladies. Wouldn’t that be fun?”