CreateServiceRegistry.java

ServiceRegistry standardRegistry = new StandardServiceRegistryBuilder().configure()
                                                                       .build();

CreateSession.java

SessionFactory sessionFactory = new MetadataSources(standardRegistry).addAnnotatedClass(Author.class)
                                                                     .buildMetadata()
                                                                     .buildSessionFactory();
Session session = sessionFactory.openSession();

hibernate.cfg.xml

<hibernate-configuration>
    <session-factory>
        <property name="dialect">
            org.hibernate.dialect.PostgreSQLDialect
        </property>

        <property name="connection.driver_class">
            org.postgresql.Driver
        </property>
        <property name="connection.url">
            jdbc:postgresql://localhost:5432/recipes
        </property>
        <property name="connection.username">postgres</property>
        <property name="connection.password">postgres</property>
        <property name="connection.pool_size">1</property>

        <property name="hbm2ddl.auto">create</property>
    </session-factory>
</hibernate-configuration>

PersistAuthor.java

Author a = new Author();
a.setFirstName("Thorben");
a.setLastName("Janssen");
session.persist(a);;

pom.xml

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
    <artifactId>hibernate-core</artifactId>
    <version>5.2.8.Final</version>
</dependency>