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

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

Wombat Hollow is a converted woolshed full of character

We were thrilled to have repeat visitors for our day of FoodPath activities on Sat 2 Oct - including Charlie Brown & her family. We spent the morning at Wombat Hollow, beautiful setting for a rainy day with fire blazing.

Steve running an interesting fruit bottling workshop

Steve ran a very interesting interactive workshop on fruit bottling. Lots of questions, lots of interest.

Charlie Brown "hands on" preparing fruit for bottling

Delicious scones for morning tea taken by the fire. Lunch was a long table affair where we enjoyed smoked duck salad, followed by quince tarts - yum!

Smoked duck salad for lunch

Always nice to join with others for a long table lunch

After lunch we went to a working dairy to watch the milking - highly recommended if you haven't seen this before, or even if you have! A modern dairy with computerised input & output for maximum cost/benefit efficiency. The kids amazed us with interest and their intelligent questions. Paul the Farm Manager was very generous with sharing his knowledge, thanks Paul.
Then on to Small Cow Farm for yet another very interesting cheese tasting workshop with Mark and Lesley our local awarded artisan cheese makers. The 4 year old cheddar from Dexter milk was my favourite. See the photo of the small Dexter cows - hence the name Small Cow Farm.

Dexter cows at Small Cow Farm