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

We thought all our Christmases had come at once when Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban and their two children turned up on a FoodPath Tour on 29 December at the dairy at Burrawang. What a surprise! This was our Summer Farm Tour and they had read about it in the SMH Spectrum Planner - which was also exciting. It is so good when you get unsolicited publicity!

They came along as normal members of our community to show the children the cows. They listened to the talk, toured the dairy and watched the afternoon milking with the rest of us - and said they enjoyed it. We hope they will be back for more!
We couldn't resist asking for a group photo and they were happy to oblige. We asked if we could use the photo in our FoodPath promotion and they agreed, so it was a good day for us and we are very appreciative.
So - although we cannot guarantee a brush with fame you never know who will pop up in the Highlands! We do have a range of interesting and famous people here.

These tours are continuing "on demand" for the next two weeks, then we are out of town for a period. One tour is tentatively scheduled for Sun 13 Jan.
If you are interested in berry picking and/or visiting the dairy please contact us.
Meet at the Sutton Forest Country Store at 10.15 where you can grab a coffee before we head off for the berry farm.
Pick fruit for the morning, then follow us to the Burrawang Village Hotel for lunch. In the afternoon come to the dairy to join in a tour, hear about the business, watch the milking and feed the poddy calves.

One farm or two, your choice.
Price: Two farms $65, one farm $35 (adults). Two farms $30, one farm $15 (children). Lunch not included. Minimum numbers apply.
foodpath.com.au, info@foodpath.com.au, 0419 617 021

If you have been meaning to come but haven't made it yet - the next Mushroom Tunnel Tour is coming up next week - Tues 8 May.

Come and walk through this 650 metre long disused railway tunnel that now grows a range of exotic mushrooms - oyster, enoki, shiitake, shirneji, wood ear, king brown and more.


Hear Dr Noel Arrold, Microbiologist talk about his fascinating business.

This is the last FoodPath tour for this year - so don't miss out.
Ring Southern Highlands Tourism to book on 02 4871 2888
Price: $35
Tour times: 10am and 11.30am
Meet at the Visitor Information Centre, Main Street, Mittagong

During April we will be having two Day Tours because there is so much to see. The potato farm and the cheese makers are only available on 21 April and they are both very special, so we decided to bite the bullet and run two tours.
We start with a beautiful sustainable farm near Moss Vale. Privately owned - not normally open to the public. Lots to see.















                                                                               

After lunch you can browse through the French furniture that is for sale in "the shed" before we leave to catch the afternoon milking at the dairy nearby.


Finally we go to Small Cow Farm for a cheese tasting and talk with Mark and Lesley Williams. If you haven't tried their cheese this is your chance. If you have, it is interesting to hear Mark talk about his cheese making.



All in all this is going to be a great day - a long one too.
Meet at Cecil Hoskins Reserve near Moss Vale at 10am.
Finish at Small Cow Farm Robertson at 5pm.
A guided self drive tour where you follow us in your car.
Price: $120
To book contact us from the website www.foodpath.com.au, email info@foodpath.com.au or ring Jill on 0419 617 021

Looking forward to our Family Farm Tour this week. Why don't you bring your children along and show them where their food really comes from! You will be amazed by their curiosity and the questions they ask.
Time:10am - 3.30pm. Meet at Berrima
Price: $35 adult, $20 child
BYO Picnic Lunch
Contact us on 0419 617 021 to book or for more information.

What a busy week!
First we have had a group of 17 women come on a customised tour with us while their partners played golf. That was a new itinerary which was a great success and we will definitely be repeating!
We ran TWO Farmers Market Tours yesterday at Bowral Public School! One was as part of a Market to Table Tour and was followed by a cooking class with Patricia from the Blue Bowl Cooking School and a long table lunch.

Thirlmere Poultry has been going for over 40 years and John and Jeanie represent them at the Bowral market

Patricia bought the ingredients at the market and these included free range duck, minced free range pork, organic shallots and other vegies, blood oranges, rhubarb and prawns (up from Wollongong).
The meal had an Asian theme and the group made -

•  Steamed Prawn Dumplings with the pork and prawn, with black vinegar dressing
• Mushroom Fried Rice using the shiitake, oyster and swiss brown mushrooms from the Mittagong mushroom tunnel (we have a tour to the tunnel scheduled for Tues 25 Oct)
• Szechuan Duck which was so tender and delicious
• Blood Orange Sorbet served with rhubarb which had been cooked in the juice of the oranges.

Enjoying the fruits of their labour the group lingered over lunch at Fitzroy Inn. Great to see the men cooking!

We were all given a book with the recipes and some useful information about the produce - AND we got to take the apron home!
Thanks Patricia!
I am looking forward to the next one which is on Sat 8 Oct. Contact us from the website for bookings or more info www.foodpath.com.au.
The website for Patricia at the Blue Bowl Cooking School is www.bluebowl.com.au

There are 14 cellar does in the Southern Highlands to visit

Don't forget we can organise a tour or activity just for you and your friends, family etc.
Yesterday we had a group of friends who came from New Zealand, Melbourne and Sydney! They wanted to do something different to celebrate a 40th birthday and how nice for us that they chose the Southern Highlands! After discussing several options they chose an itinerary including visits to two Italian wineries and lunch at the Studio Restaurant in Exeter. What a good choice that was - it was a very pleasant day.

The vineyards all pruned and ready for Spring

We have already had one enquiry for a customised tour for a staff Xmas party!

Seriously we are happy to discuss your needs and to put something together to suit your requirements - time frame, budget - just contact us from the website.

Wow, we have a busy week coming up -
1. Another Croissant Workshop tomorrow with 12 people, which is a good sized group. Coming along is a chef who wants to be able to surprise his daughter by cooking her croissants for breakfast! Lucky girl. This workshop is good for those who like to cook and also for those who are just interested. Watching skilled people "strut their stuff" s something I always like to do - and Tracy is highly skilled in pastry making.
2. On Sat we have our next Fruit Bottling Workshop. This was full but a couple of people have transferred to another day so there is space available if you would like to come? Email us from the website for more info.
3. Next Tues 2 Aug we have a Mushroom Tunnel Tour with Noel Arrold Micro-Biologist. There is a lot to find out and it is fascinating just to see all the different types of mushrooms growing. Quite a surprise to see all this in a disused railway tunnel - not normally open to the public. Bookings for this are taken at the Visitors Information Centre - ring 4871 2888.
4. On Sat 6 Aug we have a Day Tour in Canyonleigh. During this tour we visit an alpaca farm (they have baby alpacas which will be cute), two or three vineyards and an olive grove. Lunch and a wine tasting will take place at the hub of the community - The General Store. If you want to meet the locals this is the tour for you! Contact us from the website.

We are very excited because Noel Arrold, Micro-biologist and business owner of Li-Sun Mushrooms has agreed to us taking a tour to the famous Mittagong Mushroom Tunnel on Tues 2 Aug 2011!

These tours are very popular and there is limited access to them - so we are very pleased to announce three dates for these tours - Aug 2, Oct 25 and Jan 10, 2012.

We will be taking a bus from the Visitors Information Centre in Mittagong where you can leave your car. Noel will meet us at the tunnel entrance and tell us about his business. We will walk and talk all the way up the 500 metre disused railway tunnel, observing and hearing about the exotic mushrooms along the way - in a variety of shapes and colours.

Everyone receives a punnet of mushrooms to take away and some tips on how to cook them. If you haven't been before, this is an opportunity not to be missed!

To book ring Tourism Southern Highlands on 4871 2888.

• Wow, what a busy weekend we had - 3 tours in 2 days!! We are just coming up for air.
  

  
  

  On Sat we had a private group who did 2 FoodPath tours - a Farmers Market Tour in the morning and a Food Focused Walking Tour in Bowral in the afternoon. 

  

  
  

  

  
  

  How special to have Jim there with his fresh hazelnuts! This only happens for a short period when they are in season. Jim does not grow commercially but the locals know where to find him - one of the benefits of coming on a tour to the markets with FoodPath :)

  
  

  

  
  

  Someone said to me "why would anyone want to pay to go on a tour to the market when they can go themselves?" Well, the advantage is that you get lots of background information and local knowledge from Nick and Jill which enhances your experience - while you get to know who the local producers really are. When you know - you can continue to support them which will help you and will help them! 

  
  

  Small producers do struggle and we are very keen to support them.

  
  

  

  
  

  It was a big day on Saturday but it was fun and the feedback was great. 

  This private tour was a present to a bunch of family and friends - what a lovely idea? 

  We are getting more and more requests for gift certificates. 

  A FoodPath tour or workshop is certainly something different and this group said that every year they choose something they can do together as a family. 

  
  

  

• FoodPath Culinary Tours with a Difference

  
  

Picking is actually the wrong word. You actually gather chestnuts that are lying on the ground. When they are ripe they fall. You rub the spikey husks with your boots until you can see the beautiful shiny chestnuts inside, then carefully pick them up with your gloved hands.

At the farm we were given a bucket each and shown which trees were ours. We donned our gloves and off we went. It was so quiet and peaceful with only the black cockatoos breaking the silence.

When we had enough we headed back to the shed where Dennis weighed the nuts and we bought those we wanted to take home. Other groups came and went, all down from Sydney and most were of Greek origin. Some people had been down twice in the last week!


During the Great Depression chestnuts provided valuable source of food for the poor. They made it into a type of nut leather or cake. Nick and I heard this at a chestnut workshop in Turin a few years ago - at a Slow Food Salone.

We gathered some sticks and made a fire under the chestnut roaster and ate our lunch while we waited for the fire to settle to embers. Flour Water Salt made a delicious picnic for us - gourmet sandwich, cake and bottle of juice.
When the fire was ready we put the chestnuts into the roaster and turned the handle to distribute the heat evenly. They had to cook for a good twenty minutes until the nuts opened and turned yellow. If you eat them too early they taste like blotting paper, but if properly cooked are sweet and buttery.

Did you know you can freeze fresh chestnuts to use throughout the year?

It was such fun that I have asked Dennis if we can take another group. The growing season is short. We have been offered two dates - Wed this week (30 Mar) or Sat (2 Apr).
LET US KNOW IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO COME WITH US NEXT TIME?
Price $30pp. Self drive. Chestnuts extra @ $6.50 kg. We will supply gloves. Wear solid shoes.
Please contact us from the website.