Award winning chef Stephanie Moon has cooked all over the world but she will be returning to her roots when she appears at Skipton Local Produce Festival next weekend.

Miss Moon comes from Tosside and went to Settle High School and Craven College.

She will be cooking with lamb from the Bolton Abbey Estate on the morning of Saturday October 9 - the first day of this new event at Skipton Auction Market. Cookery demonstrations in a specially adapted theatre style kitchen will be a highlight of the festival.

After training at Craven College, she moved to London to work with famed chef Anton Mossiman at the Dorchester Hotel.

She is now executive chef at Rudding Park near Harrogate where she has a policy of using local produce in her menus.

She said: "It's great to be coming back to Skipton and to be involved with this new festival. I have a huge commitment to buying local produce wherever possible. At Rudding we use local lamb, beef, venison and Kilnsey trout. I have faith in the produce and the producers.

"I'm a farmer's daughter so it's important to me to support North Yorkshire's rural economy. This is a fantastic initiative and deserves to be well supported.

"On a personal note I'm hoping to see a few familiar faces from my days at Settle High School and Craven College."

Around 100 local producers will be showcasing a wide range of quality food, drink and specialist crafts at the festival.

Miss Moon is one of several chefs cooking with local ingredients over the weekend.

Celebrity chef and cookery writer Sophie Grigson will be demonstrating in the festival's cookery theatre on the Sunday.

Visitors will be able to taste, try and buy products as diverse as organic meats and glazed pottery, local cheese and watercolours, ice creams and hand-painted textiles and farmhouse preserves and garden ornaments.

In addition to farming and animal displays and a chance for visitors to try their hand at craft activities, there will be music workshops, theatre, traditional rural entertainment and an appearance by the Calendar Girls. All catering at the event will be using local produce.

A park and ride scheme will be introduced to Skipton for the first time to help cope with the thousands of visitors expected at the festival.

Residents of the town will be able to use a free shuttle bus to take them up to the auction mart where there will be a feast of food and rural produce.

Three double decker buses will run every 20 minutes between an overflow car park at Skipton Building Society's headquarters on The Bailey and the auction mart. In addition, a shuttle bus service will operate every 30 minutes connecting the town's rail and bus stations with the auction mart site.