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

Wow, we had fun this morning at Howards Lane vineyard tasting 11 cheeses and learning how to be a "discerning consumer". We had a great group who were all keen to learn and the setting at Howards Lane is stunning - especially on a beautiful day as it was today.

Nick shared his passion for cheese and his extensive knowledge in a friendly and relaxed environment.


One comment was "This session has changed my cheese appreciation and eating thereof. You have given us a pleasant and informative session. Thank you." (Jenny) Another was "An excellent warm presentation with a great balance of general and specific information". (Steve)  "The mixed company made the session lots of fun and interesting". "Great to get local knowledge about produce".
How good is that!
This is what Nick aims to achieve and it is very gratifying when you get such great feedback.

Today we tasted cheese from three different local cheese makers - Highland Organics at Moss Vale, Thistledown Creamery at Windellama and Small Cow Farm at Robertson. A mixture of cows milk and sheeps milk cheeses. Some organic, some not. All very interesting. The workshops will vary depending on the availability of cheese but we love to support the local producers whenever we can.

Interested?

Keep and eye on the Tours page of the website for the next Cheese Appreciation Workshop, we'd love to have you join us.

We had fun on Friday night rugging up and setting off for Bundanoon in the Southern Highlands. The main street was closed off with braziers burning and shops were adorned with Xmas light and snowmen. The street was lined with stalls and we helped on the Southern Highlands Food and Wine and Southern Highlands Harvest one.


We had lots of great local produce and were able to promote our members and their products.

Just launched was the Southern Highlands Harvest map showing where the growers are located and on the back showing you who grows what and where you can buy. This created a lot of interest!
This map and info can be accessed through the Tourism Southern Highlands website from the Food and Wine page. Just click on the "horn of plenty" logo.

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.

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.

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.

• We have our first Winter Food and Wine Wander scheduled for Sat 2 July. It is going to be a good day!
  
  We start by visiting a beautiful property between Bowral and Berrima where Lyn and Al have an olive grove and produce olive oil under the label Currawong. They also have a huge shed that is worth a look, because this used to be one of the biggest cattle properties in the Southern Highlands.
  
  Lyn will provide us with a delicious morning tea by a cosy fire in their beautiful house and Al will tell us about their olive business and treat us to an olive oil tasting.
  
  After a quick visit to the olive grove we will drive on to Joadja to the oldest vineyard and winery in this new cool climate wine area. Here Kim and Frances will be our hosts.
  
  We will be given a tour of the winery and a special tasting of their current range of wines including their new boysenberry liqueur! Nick Padol will give us a tasting of local cheeses and we will make up a pizza for lunch using local produce. These will be cooked in Kim and Frances' new outdoor pizza oven - yum!
  
  After lunch we will drive on to Tertini Wines out of Mittagong where Robert and Linda will be our hosts. We will have a tour of the vintner's shed and a wine tasting and talk by the cosy fire in the tasting room. If you can fit it in we finish with coffee and cake made by a local patissiere Mark Stone from Stone's restaurant.
  
  This tour covers about 15kms outside Berrima and Mittagong so we will drive ourselves and travel in convoy.
  
  For bookings contact us from the website. 10% discount for bookings of 4 or more and 10% loyalty discount for return visits.
  

• 
  

• 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

  
  

We were very lucky with the weather for our day tour on Sat 21 May and it was clear and crisp. A great group who were all very enthusiastic and want to come back for more! This was very exciting for us because word is getting out about what sets our tours aside from others. We take you to another layer of experience and learning while we all have fun!
We visited Kym at her olive farm. She was due to start harvesting the next morning at 3am (who'd be a farmer)! The olives were plump with oil - you could squeeze the oil out and feel how good it was for your skin. Everyone loved Kym's products and bought up lots to take home, as we stood amongst the olive trees. A good visit for all concerned.
Alan was training his dog to find truffles because he hopes that this year he might get his first crop!

We also visited his new hot house and the vegetables were wonderful. This property is always sensational and we are very lucky to have access to it because it is not open to the public - thanks Alan and Jeanette!

We have our final farm tour for Autumn next Sat 21 May and we are looking forward to it. It is virtually booked out which is exciting - maybe room for 1 more? 
Kym at Sutton Forest Olives is just about to harvest so we will be able to see her trees laden with olives. Alan is busy training his dog to find truffles in anticipation of the season - he rubs some cotton wool with truffle oil then buries it and the dog has to find it! Hope he succeeds in time - wouldn't want to miss any! We are having a lovely lunch at Stones Restaurant at Eling Forest winery. Anne and Warryn are busy with a new batch of hens settling in. It is all good - just hope the weather warms up a bit, it has been freezing.