Join Jill and Nick as they take you behind the scenes to see where your food actually comes from!

We used to think that you should only use second grade fruit for jam making. Now it is common knowledge that really delicious jam is made from gorgeous fresh fruit.
We used to busily make jam when we had an abundance of fresh fruit on our trees. Now we know we can take the pressure off by freezing surplus fruit at its peak and make it into jam all year round.
However, the best jam is still made from beautiful fresh fruit in season. Slightly under ripe fruit makes even better jam because it has higher acidity; and the faster jam is made the fresher it will taste, which is why we warm the sugar.

Come along to our next Jam Making Workshop with Biddy Maupin on Sun 2 March 2014 and find out how to make delicious jam and more! Recipes and notes to take home.

On arrival enjoy morning tea with local freshly roasted coffee and Biddy's wonderful cake and after the class we finish with a light lunch of crusty bread, cheese and Biddy's famous duck and chicken liver pates.
Time: 10am - 1pm
Venue: The Berrima School Stephanie Alexander Garden Kitchen
Price: $95 pp

To book contact us - foodpath.com.au, info@foodpath.com.au or ring 0419 617 021

Our next Preserving Workshop is coming up on Sun 17 June 2012 at Monreale Bed and Breakfast in Burradoo. This month Steve is going to tell us about pickling and fermenting food - another way of preserving our food in ample times to use during the year.
These workshops are popular and Steve is very knowledgeable. We always have fun.
The day finishes with a light lunch of crusty bread, cheese and some of Steve's pickles.

If you are interested contact us from the website www.foodpath.com.au and we will send you a booking form.
Monreale is a fabulous venue and we are grateful to Gail who owns the premises and who is a generous host.
Date: Sun 17 June 2012
Time: 10am - 1pm
Price: $95

• Next Sunday 27 May – Celebration Sunday at Biota where we celebrate local food. This is a regular event on the last Sunday of the month. FoodPath are collaborating with Biota and very happy to do so because, as you know, we are passionate about local food and supporting our local producers. This month we have found fresh hazelnuts from Werai, apples from the 100 year old Tennessee Orchard at Yerrinbool (the large apple you see from the Hume Highway) and a large range of potatoes at Wildes Meadow. You are welcome to come on a FoodPath Market Tour in the restaurant garden at Biota and join us for lunch at the FoodPath table.  $55 per person.
• Sat 2 June – A Food Lovers Walking Tour in Bowral where we set up with about 5 specially food shops to have a talk and tasting. Includes coffee with our local coffee roasters. Price : $55
• Sun 3 June – a Pasta Making Class with Gail Wilson at her beautiful B&B in Burradoo. We will be making pumpkin ravioli with sage burnt butter sauce and will then enjoy this as part of our lunch with a glass of wine. Gail has grown the pumpkins herself and they are currently being cured in preparation for the class. Price: $95.

To book contact us from the website www.foodpath.com.au.

Well, what an interesting afternoon it was at Howards Lane vineyard for the Gelato Workshop yesterday.

I had trouble visualising what Olive Oil Sorbet would be like - but it was delicious, with a smooth oily "mouth feel" at the end.

We ended up with a group of fourteen plus Kym who came to tell us about her olive oil business - Sutton Forest Olives. She had fun and stayed the whole afternoon. Included one very good child who has been to four FoodPath activities this year with his Mum!!

Can't believe we have had four FoodPath activities in the last six days - and we are not even exhausted. That's what happens when you enjoy what you are doing :)

After nearly a year Steve Hogwood has decided to move his Preserving Workshops to Sydney. Sad news for us. However he has agreed to run workshops for FoodPath in the Highlands if we have a corporate or a group booking - minimum 12 people.
Our workshop next Sun 23 Oct is to be our last - so if you have been meaning to come, this is your chance! A Pickling Workshop from 10am - 1pm. Will be fun. Let us know if you want to book?

www.foodpath.com.au

Another very successful Cheese Appreciation Workshop today this time held in a beautiful setting at Sturt, Mittagong.

The group was mixed with members from Coffs Harbour, Sydney, Yass, Berry, Kangaroo Valley and the remainder from the Southern Highlands. Three  women had come from various directions to have a weekend together as a school reunion - and they came to TWO of our activities over the weekend! What a great idea and good for us too :). Another four were friends from the South Coast.

We focused on local cheese makers again because that has a special appeal to visitors to the area. We were able to source 11 cheeses this time from 3 cheese makers - 2 cow's milk and 1 ewe's milk. One cheese was even infused with truffles from Braidwood - how special is that!!

Nick shared his vast knowledge of cheese generally and these cheeses in particular and the feedback from the group was excellent! (See our commendations page on the website)

We will be scheduling another workshop in November. Unfortunately October is fully booked with other FoodPath tours and activities.

Tracy from Gumnut has done it again. We had a group of ten at our Croissant Workshop this morning and they all had fun! Lots of note taking and they all went away with a bag of croissants and pain de chocolate - and knowing how to make a croissant at home. They also know how to pick a good croissant when they buy and how to appreciate it and savour the qualities of the soft centre, the crunchy tips, the good colour (the stronger the colour the better the taste).
Tracy uses only the freshest top quality ingredients and no chemicals (I didn't know chemicals are often used to speed up the process)! He took us on a tour of his commercial kitchen and explained all the processes and equipment. We saw the different stages of the croissants being made and the group rolled their own. These were then proven? (proved?), cooked and enjoyed with an espresso coffee to finish up.
It takes Gumnut Patisserie six days to make a croissant - including all the rolling and resting!
The group today was especially lucky because Tracy also showed them how to do some sugar work - making some flowers and shapes. This was fascinating. Some lucky people got to take these home too.

If you can get a group together and want to do a Croissant Workshop let me know. I can't promise but I can try.

I forgot to tell you about our Croissant Workshop on Tues 7 June - things have been pretty hectic if that is an excuse?

Tracy Nickl owner of the Gumnut Patisserie ran this for us and it was booked out by a private group.

They were a bunch of friends from Burrawang who contacted me to say they are unable to do things outside school hours - so I came up with something that they could do on a weekday, within school hours!

We are very flexible and happy to put things together to suit your needs.


Tracy has kindly agreed to run another Croissant Workshop for us and this is scheduled for Tues 26 July!
10am - 12.30. Includes coffee and croissant of course!
Let us know if you would like to come?

Today we had another Fruit Bottling Workshop with Steve Hogwood from the 1910 Bottling Company and again everyone had a ball. The feedback was excellent! Some want to come back for more!

Steve has a range of topics he can teach - preserving lemons, pickle making, etc. Today they bottled tomatoes. It was nice to see everyone roll up their sleeves and get to work and have fun doing it.

The people in the group to-day came from far and wide - Huskisson, Falls Creek near Nowra, Currajong in the Blue Mtns, Sydney and on local - and you should have heard the chatter! They got on very well.

There is a real move back towards learning the old traditional skills and adapting them to or current times. Steve was full of information and all comments were extremely positive.

We are looking forward to the next one - on Sat 30 July, 10am - 1.30pm. Contact us from the website if you would like to come.

Our FoodPath Fruit Bottling Workshop on Sunday 29 May with Steve Hogwood of the 1910 Bottling Company was a great success. We have lots of great photos which speak for themselves.

Have had great feedback from the participants which was very gratifying.

The next workshop on Sun 26 June is almost full already. We have to limit numbers to 10.

During the workshop we had coffee from our local coffee roasters Rush Roasting and fresh roasted hazelnuts from our Farmers Market tour yesterday.

Plans are afoot to change the time of these workshops to accommodate those who are driving from far away. We plan to start this in July.

The new time will be 10am - 1.30 with a lunch break - and a lunch option for purchase, or you can bring your own. The lunch option is likely to be a Ploughmans lunch with Steve's pickles and local cheese, bread, wine.

More details about that when it is finalised.

Just coming up for air after an amazing few days! Sydney Weekender on Saturday included a FoodPath workshop with Stephen Hogwood from the 1910 Bottling Company. Steve is passionate about bottling only organic fruit that he sources locally wherever possible.
The enquiries from the FoodPath website have been coming thick and fast - which is very exciting. There has been great interest in all of our workshops - fruit bottling, cheese appreciation and wine education!
It is always great to have the opportunity to showcase the Southern Highlands and Mike Whitney certainly made it fun! He loves his job and it shows. He said he never knows where he is going to be sent next week so there is always the element of the unexpected.
The girls in the fruit bottling class enjoyed themselves. Lunch was provided by DeliSH, a new business in the Highlands that makes hampers for visitors and locals.
Mary and Tony from Howards Lane were able to show off their beautiful vineyard outside Mittagong - even though they were in NZ on holidays! We like to use their tasting room for our workshops. It is a stand alone timber building with verandah and a wonderful view over the vineyard. In the late afternoon the kangaroos come down out of the bush to graze.
We are very grateful to Xante at Sydney Weekender for offering us the opportunity to demonstrate our workshops and spread the word about FoodPath to their extensive audience.
The classes are filling up so contact us quickly if you want to come!