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

We have been busy firming up several tours and workshops for next year and have a busy schedule lined up. If you are on our mailing list you should have received our December Update the morning. If you didn't and you would like it, please let us know and we will email to you.

Scheduled Summer activities include:

• Two Berry Picking tours (Sat 11 and 18 Jan)
• A Winery Tour (Fri 3 Jan)
• Two Family Farm Tours (Fri 10 and 17 Jan)
• A FoodLovers Walking Tour in Bowral (Sat 15 Feb)
• Preserving Class with Steve Hogwood (Sun 16 Feb)

We are looking forward to welcoming Robyn Darley to our FoodPath team next year. She will join Steve Hogwood and Biddy Maupin who run regular classes for us and also Patricia Phillips from the Blue Bowl Cooking School with whom we collaborate for the Market to Table Tours.

Robyn will be running a wide range of cooking classes including Making Dairy (quark, yoghurt, marscapone, gourmet fetta and paneer - a full cream ricotta), Sausage Making, Bread Making, Pastries and more. Robyn has extensive experience as a Cooking Teacher - you may have seen her demonstrating cheese making at the Southern Highlands Food and Wine Festival? Robyn runs Cheese Making Classes for Small Cow Farm so she will not be running those for us. If you want to learn to make cheese please contact Small Cow Farm. When you live in a small community it is important that you all work together...

Cheers,
Jill

We are finalising our itinerary for the FoodPath Wollondilly Farm Tour coming up on Easter Sat 30 March. We will be meeting at the R Coffee Co - a great little cafe in Picton where they blend and roast their own coffee beans.

Not long now until our first workshop with Biddy Maupin or Lady Bucket as she is affectionately known in the Highlands.
Biddy can be found at several local markets where she sells her wonderful jams and jellies as well as several other products.
During this workshop she will show us how to make a range of things so you go away feeling confident to try at home. This will include marmalade, crab apple jelly, green mango chutney and lemon curd (or lemon butter).
Biddy will provide handouts too and you will have a jar to take home to enjoy.

Gail Wilson is hosting us again at her wonderful Bed & Breakfast at Burradoo.
Start with morning tea at 11am then look and learn for a couple of hours, with tastings along the way.
Will be fun - tell your friends, the more the merrier!
Date: Sun 17 Feb 2013
Time: 11am - 1pm
Price: $75 pp
Bring your own apron.
Minimum numbers apply - group size 8 - 12.

Back to earth now that Christmas is over and we have had Boxing Day to recover. Plans are in place for some fun next Sat 29 Dec when we are going berry picking in the morning and visiting a working dairy in the afternoon.

Come and join us and you will have some fun - guaranteed!

Our tours are well known now and we have repeat customers which is wonderful. Two families who came last Jan have just booked again. Another couple who have already booked for three activities in the next few weeks have just emailed and want to book for three more!!!
It is very gratifying when we hit the spot and provide you with interesting and fun activities - because that is what we are all about.
So - if you want to come along on Sat 29 Dec please contact us ASAP. If not possible we are repeating this tour on Thurs 3 Jan and again on Sat 5 Jan.
You can come to one or both farms, you decide. Meet at 10am for fruit picking and 2.30pm for the dairy - or come to both and we will head to the Burrawang Village Hotel for lunch in between.
Contact us for info or to book - m: 0419 617 021, info@foodpath.com.au - or send us a message from the website.
Price: Adults $35 one farm, $65 for two farms. Children (3 - 12 yrs) $20 one farm, $35 for two farms.

Time to roll your sleeves up and come berry picking in the Highlands.
Join us for a coffee first at the Exeter General Store then come picking nearby. It is fun to join a group. Then follow us in your car as we head for Burrawang for lunch at the Village Hotel, winner of the Best Country Pub. Great view from the beer garden and plenty of room for kids to run around.

In the afternoon we will visit a modern computerised dairy where the children can feed the poddy calves and you can learn how it all works from the dairy farmer. See for yourself as we watch the afternoon milking.
Date: Sat 29 Dec and Sat 5 Jan (or if you have a group of 8 just call us anytime)
Price: $65 adults $35 kids (3 - 12). Half a kg of berries included for adults.
NB Morning tea and lunch not included - choose your own lunch and be in control of your spend - and join us at the FoodPath table.

The berries are ready to start picking... feel like some fresh loganberries, boysenberries or blue berries? We had lunch at the Moss Vale Community Garden last Fri and for dessert Jill (another Jill, not me) took us around the garden gathering berries from the vines. We found raspberries and Marion berries (no, I hadn't heard of these either). Can't get fresher than that! They also had some white currants and red currants - that not only looked stunning but tasted delicious too.
The Moss Vale Community Garden is going great guns. You can join up and then go and help in the garden or with the lunch on Wed or Fri. Great for those who do not have a vegie garden at home or who would just like the company. At the end of the day surplus produce is shared between the workers.
We are hoping to showcase the community gardens in some way at our huge food and wine festival at Bong Bong racecourse on 3-4 Mar 2011.

Fiona and Bruce have taken over Montrose Berry Farm and we look forward to visiting them on some of our tours.
Not only do they have a range of berries - blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, youngberries, loganberries, black currants, red currants, gooseberries, quinces and sour cherries (phew!), but Bruce is also an up and coming sheep's milk cheese maker. Very exciting.
I didn't have my camera with me when I called on them but will post some photos very soon.