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

We are very happy that Norman has agreed to FoodPath taking people to see his potato farm at Robertson. This will have to be on a Sunday in January or February because on Saturday they are busy at the markets. I think it will be very interesting to show childen where their potatoes come from and let them dig for themselves to find some! We will try to include this in one of our family tours in January.

Norman had a busy morning at the Moss Vale Farmers' Market

On Sat 11 Dec Norman sold lots of potatoes at the Moss Vale Farmers' Market - where we offer a Farmers' Market Tour. This is held on the 4th Sat of the month.

I was amazed at the variety of potatoes (16) grown by one farmer!

It is important that FoodPath works in with farmers who are busy running their businesses. Many of these farms are not normally open to the public and we are lucky to be able to take groups to visit them on occasions.

Keep an eye on our website to see if there are any upcoming tours that appeal to you. Contact us from the website with any questions - www.foodpath.com.au.

We are happy to announce that we have been able to organise to take a group (max 22 people) chestnut picking in the Southern Highlands on Sat 26 Mar 2011. This is lucky because it is very popular.

Chestnuts on the tree

Busloads of Europeans come down from Sydney to gather nuts and cook them on the large braziers. On 26 Mar there will be 200 others there!

Roasted chestnuts

We are having a tour to the Farmers Market that morning so have decided to meet at the Moss Vale showground at 11am and travel by bus from there. Some people might want to do both tours! Farmers' Market tour is limited to 8 people.

Time: 11am - 4pm
Transport: Bus
Price: $45 (take your own picnic)
Price: $65 (lunch provided - delicious sandwich, cake and drink from the sourdough shop in Bowral).
To book contact us from the website or ring Jill on 0419 67 021.

On 12 December we had our Slow Food Terra Madre Day activity in the Southern Highlands. Terra Madre means Mother Earth and Terra Madre Day is celebrated across the world on or close to 10 December each year. Check the Terra Madre section on the Slow Food International website.

Last year we had a regional dinner at The Post Cafe in Moss Vale to support and showcase local producers.

Greg and Chris provided Galloway beef for a barbeque lunch and Greg cooked!

This year we had a barbeque at a member's home with meat supplied by Galloway beef breeders Greg and Chris who went to Turin in October this year as our Terra Madre delegate.

Rhondda gave us an apple sider tasting which was interesting and unusual.

An extra item of interest was a cider tasting put on for us by Slow Food member Rhondda who has 600 cider apple trees in Robertson.

Greg talking to a group of Slow Food members about their experience at Terra Madre in Italy

This was my last activity as Convivium Leader of Slow Food Southern Highlands. Now I will be focusing on FoodPath and out busy schedule of activities. Keep an eye on the website or contact us to find out what is coming up - www.foodpath.com.au

We are kick starting the year in 2011 with two Family Friendly Farm Tours in January - on Sat 8 Jan and Sat 22 Jan.


Come with us to visit some farms and meet the animals and their owners.


Feed the chooks and collect the eggs at the free range egg farm near Berrima. Bottle feed the calves at a dairy near Burrawang.




Enjoy a picnic lunch in the beautiful grounds at Eling Forest winery.
All this and more!




For more info - contact us from the website or ring Jill on 0419 617 021.

It has been  a great week and it is only Tuesday!
Yesterday at a Member's Breakfast one of our wonderful Slow Food members put up her hand to take over the running of the local Convivium (group/chapter). I have been the Convivium Leader for the past two years and a committee member for 7 years and it was time to step down. Too busy!

It really looked as though the Convivium was going to close down but no - Rose came to the rescue at the eleventh hour! Thankyou Rose! Then Nick offered to take over the admin, an important role and Sue is happy to continue to organise the Member's Breakfasts. So - we can look forward to another interesting year.
A lot of work has gone into the development of Slow Food Southern Highlands and we have an interesting and dynamic membership.
I am so happy everything worked out.
If you want to know more about Slow Food go to the Australian website (see link above) and the Slow Food International website.

Today was the 2nd day of the Food on Clay Event organised by Dee, the Resident Potter at Sturt - the fine Craft Centre at Mittagong.

The idea of this event was to fill the bowls that were made 2 weeks ago with food and enjoy a shared lunch. Based on the "Empty Bowls" project which is celebrated around the world.

Lunch included some delicious salads organised by Monique and antipasto made by Dee. Sourdough bread donated by Four Water Salt in Bowral and goat's cheese donated by Zoe who sells through the Cheese Factory at Robertson.

We were very grateful to all who contributed their time or skills.


Money raised is going to the Salvation Army who provide food for a Christmas dinner for those who are hungry or lonely. Great cause. Well done Dee!


This was such a "feel good" event that we are hoping to repeat it next year.

We were happy to be invited by Provodore Ian Feary to see his Cheese Room at The Old Cheese Factory at Robertson yesterday. Ian has had a successful business in the Southern Highlands for many years now, but has only recently taken over the lease of the cheese section of the Old Cheese Factory.

Ian Feary (right) with his mother Christina and FoodPath's Nick.

Friends and customers enjoying a tasting of Ian's great products and ordering our Christmas hams.

Many of us have fond memories of visiting the cheese factory in years gone by and buying Roberston cheddar. Do you also remember Tilba cheese, Bega cheese, Bodalla cheese from down the South Coast? All good cheddars sorely missed.
Well it is nice to see a return to cheese making in the Southern Highlands, and Robertson in particular establishing itself as a Cheese Centre.
We now have Small Cow Cheese farm nearby, Zoe Brogan at The Old Cheese Factory making goats' milk cheese (and also a range of fresh butters made from Jersey cream) and Michael and Cressida McNamara nearby planning to launch their sheep's milk cheese next year. Fabulous!

Zoe with Sam. Zoe makes goats' milk cheese and runs a fresh produce store in the Old Cheese Factory with her parents.

The Robertson Show has introduced a cheese category in their program, so having Ian take over the Cheese Room at The Old Cheese Factory is another step in the right direction!

Natasha presented her Eling Forest wines

Natasha had a range of wines on hand for us to taste from her family's vineyard, winery and cellar door at Eling Forest, where the wine maker is Michelle Crocket. We enjoy a glass of Eling Forest wine on our FoodPath food tours when we have lunch at this beautiful winery.

We have been looking forward to this day for months and thank goodness the weather was better than last weekend! John and Julia are members of Slow Food and are passionate about breeding animals that are at risk of extinction. They have Cornish pigs, Hampshire Downs sheep and White Park cattle + some rare breeds of poultry. By breeding them up and selling them they are helping to preserve the species.
After a walk to see the pigs in their individual paddocks, roaming free amongst the knee high grass (I've never seen it so long!), we were treated to a demonstration of how a good sheep dog is a important asset making sheep handling so much easier.

Before lunch we had a tasting of wine from Kingsdale Wines out of Goulburn. Very nice too. Howard and Elly Sparks own this business. Has anyone else heard Elly Spark on ABC radio weather report?  I was ridiculously excited when I realised it was her! Prue Goward called in too to join us for a while which was nice.
We enjoyed a delicious lunch of spit roasted lamb and pork, eating in the garden on tables set up in the shade of the beautiful large trees and overlooking a lake. The photos speak a thousand words! Gretchen and Gavan provided a jazz interlude which capped off the afternoon and everyone went home happy.

And then today we featured in the Financial Review Life & Leisure magazine!

This was an article written by Ben Hurley who spent half a day with us in early Oct.


No doubt about it, taking advantage of these opportunities when they arise certainly pays off!

Well, what a great day we had today with the FoodPath Tour registered with the Crave Sydney International Food Festival 2010!



We started at the Moss Vale Produce Market meeting many local producers and food related businesses.

Jo and Geoff love baking bread and on weekends they try out recipes they are not allowed to use in their franchise bakery during the week. They are always friendly and welcoming. Jo had some starter dough to show us - to smell and touch, which was very interesting.



John and Jessie represent Thirlmere Poultry consistently at the produce markets. They have free range poultry and the business has been going for 50 years! We often buy a duck to take home. This time Nick bought a guinea fowl! I believe they are selling geese these days and there is a growing market. You would need a few friends to share a goose for dinner!






The producers all welcomed us and gave us special attention and tastings. FoodPath likes to support local producers and seeing them at the producer's market means you can see many people at once.



After coffee from Elly we boarded our bus and went to see Warryn at the free range poultry farm out of Berrima. A favourite stop for us. Anne was away in Italy at the Slow Food Terra Madre but Warryn managed well on his own.












Then on for another delicious long table lunch at Stones Restaurant at Eling Forest where Jack always looks after us well.













After lunch we drove to Tammy and Craig's state of the art dairy to watch the afternoon milking of 190 cows. How fascinating to see how computers have improved efficiency and quality control. A trip to the USA 5 years ago to do some research was the catalyst for this young couple who decided to bite the bullet and upgrade their dairy.

Finally we went to Mount Ashby Estate, a beautiful winery out of Moss Vale in what was an old Throsby dairy. As well as a wine tasting Chris told us about the 100 Gingko trees and what they plan to do with these. What a lovely way to end the day - tired but happy. Glad we are eating in tonight :)

Had another Food Focused Walking Tour in Bowral today visiting a wide range of specialty food shops - ice cream, tea, a great little deli, a cookshop, a cheese store and a sourdough shop. Also popped in to our multi award winning patisserie and also a new tiny coffee shop whose owner has left the corporate world and enjoys dealing directly with the public in an honest uncomplicated way. It is the people behind the businesses who make this tour special, as well as the talks and the tastings set up especially for us.
The group today said they were surprised by the wide range of shops we visited and the special attention we were given.
It is a win/win situation - the shop owners benefit because we take customers to them; and we benefit by the special introduction to these businesses and their products.
I am looking forward to the next one - why don't you join me? Visit the website www.foodpath.com.au.

Off on another Day Tour tomorrow! Another busy weekend.

Last Sat we hosted a journalist from Sydney who was interested in meeting local producers.

It was fortunate that this coincided with our first Farmers Markets tour in Bowral (2nd Sat) because this was a perfect opportunity to see many local producers in the one spot.

Ben really enjoyed it and wanted to linger longer but we had a tight schedule so had to move him on.









During the time at the market we met:
- A raspberry farmer
- A fruit bottling guru
- A couple selling mushrooms from the famous mushroom tunnel
- An olive farmer
- Some jam and chutney makers
- A dried fruit and fruit leather maker and
- A couple who produce a new prize winning Hand Made Slow Cooked barbeque sauce.


Time for a leisurely coffee half way through under the trees.




The Bowral Farmers Market is small and an attractive location much loved by the locals who come out in droves.





Producers can vary from market to market and there are also many producers from outside the area -
eg free range pork, saltbush lamb, honey, bread, cheeses, traditional sausages, vegetables, wine, tea, Maltese cakes etc.

We were thrilled to be asked to host a film crew from Melbourne when they spent the long weekend in the Southern Highlands filming for a travel series "Making Tracks" that is going to air on Channel 10 in late October 2010. The story follows a family of five, Nicky Buckley with her husband and three children, as they travel around Australia.

Standing on "the rock" is always a drawcard for the chooks

Nicky was taken with the stories from the hen house

Nicky and Murray Buckley being filmed in the mushroom tunnel

Nick and Nicky (our FoodPath Nick, looking happy!)

The 600 metre long disused railway tunnel used for growing mushrooms

Noel has started growing a new mushroom which I have been told the chefs in Sydney are very excited about. Noel said it is an old species of mushroom like the King Brown that grows in Italy.

Some mushrooms are grown in the laboratory under special conditions