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

Last night we had a Nose to Tail dinner at the Centennial Vineyard Restaurant in collaboration with Slow Food Southern Highlands, celebrating the Galloway breed of cattle. The Galloway is a very old Scottish breed and is (or was) an endangered species.
Greg Stuart the breeder looked great in his kilt and gave a very interesting talk about the cattle/ Robin Murray told us how he prepared the various dishes with the variety of cuts from the beast.
We had a great night and raised money to send Chris and Greg Stuart to Italy in October as Terra Madre delegates.

The food was fabulous and included oxtail and vegetable soup shot, devilled kidney and rosemary brochette, baby carrots with beef jus gras cream, tongue and cheek soil (Robin had to explain what he meant by "soil"!) , carpaccio of fillet, horseradish cream, carrot puree, crumbed egg yolk (he said they prepared 120 egg yolks until they had 85 in tact ones they could serve - a very delicate operation), etc

Most Slow Food activities are not as grand as this - but every now and then we lash out and it was a great success.



Carol Willman (below - 2nd from the right) was there. Carol is very well known as a cheese maker and teacher and often runs Cheese Making classes at the Small Cow Farm. Follow the link for more info - www.smallcowfarm.com










We had a brush with fame with both John Olson and Reg Livermore amongst our guests. They were good sports and helped us to draw the raffle.

We ran our 2nd tour last Sat 15 May. Had a great day again. One member of the group said "You know the best thing about your tour is that we get to speak to the farmer and hear the little things you would not normally hear".
This was great feedback because that is exactly why we keep our groups small - so you get the best experience. One of the producers who we visited said "Aren’t the folk just lovely!" 
Dave grows raspberries at Cuttaway Creek near Mittagong.
We have some new itineraries starting in June (pending numbers) or July. Check the Tours page for details.


These are mid week tours and one is offered in different options. We have shortened the day because it is getting colder now and we thought it would be nicer to start at 9.30am. Prices have been adjusted accordingly. I will tell you more about the new tours but first of all some more pics from the last tour....


Dave and Nicki make delicious jams and vinegars in their commercial kitchen on the farm (see above). This gives them product to sell all year round. Bilsons using their raspberry vinegar as a dipping sauce for oysters!

See the Maremma dog looking after the chooks on Berrima Ridge free range poultry farm. Chooks love top scratch around in the dirt. You won't see them doing this when they are kept in cages! They certainly have a great quality of life at this farm.


When the chooks have passed their peak laying years Anne and Warryn try to sell them as pets. They hate to think they might be killed and eaten! Anne refers to the chooks as "my girls".

We get to see the chook houses where the hens go at night to sleep - away from the foxes.                

We see the nesting boxes where the chooks go to lay their eggs. If you are lucky you will see this happen and can feel the warmth of a freshly laid egg.                          

In the shed Anne and Warryn talk about what is involved in preparing the eggs for sale and we see how they are cleaned and sorted by machine into their different sizes. Very clever.






The afternoon was devoted to cheese. First the Small Cow Farm at Robertson. One group members said on her feedback sheet "Great, very interesting and gave us an insight into the cheese making process. We appreciated the opportunity to taste so many varieties of their cheese".

Last Friday a Slow Food group went to Feast@McVitty for lunch. This cafe at McVitty Grove vineyard (on the Wombeyan Caves Road) has been taken over by Anne Holloway, member of Slow Food Southern Highlands.

Anne's partner Philip Martin of Pulpit Rock Estate was waiting on table and serviced some delicious wines from his vineyard up the road.






Nothing like spending time relaxing over lunch with friends in a convivial environment.


Anne has kindly donated a $100 voucher for lunch at her restaurant to a raffle we are having this Sat at the Centennial restaurant. Slow Food is holding a Nose to Tail dinner with Robin Murray, Chef at Centennial.







Look at the stunning trees that line the driveway!

Well - the Tallong Apple Day was fun.

The Slow Food stand was packed with goodies and information. Sold out of our apples and wished we had more.

Also had home grown pumpkins, potatoes & eggs and our apple based chutneys, sauce & jam made for us by Mrs Oldbucks of Berrima and Doolan Fine Jams and Chutneys (who you can find at the Bowral Primary School market on the 2nd Sat of the month.





What was very nice was catching up with other Slow Food members who helped on the stall and spreading the word about Slow Food to the public. We had a couple of new members as a result - now 80!

Next Sunday is the Tallong Apple Festival and we will be there with a Slow Food stall to help "celebrate the apple".

We will have jars of apple sauce and different chutneys all made from fresh apples, apple recipes to distribute and fresh produce from some of our Slow Food members.





If you are in the area come along and say hello.

We will report back again after the event.





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Last Friday was the community launch of the Berrima Primary School Children's Garden and I was invited along in my capacity as Convivium Leader of Slow Food Southern Highlands.


We are lucky in the Southern Highlands to have one school that has been awarded a Stephanie Alexander Foundation grant and this is it!

Congratulations go to the enthusiastic parents and teachers who made this
possible.

The launch was well attended by parents, teachers, volunteers in the garden and other interested parties.

We were told of plans to incorporate the time children spend in the garden to various subjects - Maths, Science, Environment, English - all great ideas and fun at the same time.




The architects who have been engaged to help with the project showed us their plans for a new kitchen (part of the requirement for getting this grant) and how this could be used by the school, families of the students and the community. This will be a wonderful facility.

Slow Food Southern Highlands were asked to "partner" the Berrima School Garden and we are thrilled to be able to do this.
Our FoodPath tours will from time to time visit the Berrima Childrens Garden to have a look at their wonderful vegetables and maybe even be able to buy some to take home.

Let us know if you are interested in our blog and want to be kept informed.  Become a follower!
Come on a tour and share the experience with like minded people - book now from the Tours page of the website.

Well, it has happened!
Yesterday was our first FoodPath Tour and we had a great day.

The producers were wonderful and made us feel welcome.
Dave met us at the raspberry farm and gave an interesting talk on their business - how they started, how they are going and what their plans are. Nicki told us about the jams and vinegars that they make from just fruit and sugar, so that they have product to sell all year round.
If you can get hold of any, try Cuttaway Creek Raspberry Vinegar with oysters - that is how they serve it at Bilsons restaurant!

On to Berrima Ridge where they produce and sell real free range eggs. Four thousand chooks roaming free during the day scratching in the dirt and having dust baths as they love to do.

We saw the mobile hen houses where the chooks go of their own accord to roost at night, protected by the Maremma dogs. We saw where they lay their eggs & how these are collected manually 1500 every day!

Warren showed us how the eggs are washed by machine & then graded into sizes. Finally he gave us a demo of their new Italian pasta making machine - a great way to use up surplus eggs.





The lunch at Eling Forest was scrumptious. Check out the photos.

Cherry tomato tart and onion jam tart with Eastern Fetta (from Small Cow Farm).

Seared Japanese scallop with Green Pea Veloute and Kipfler Potato.

I had Duck Liver Pate with Cumberland Sauce & Toasted Sourdough. Yum!

On to Small Cow Farm after lunch to see Lesley and Mark. Here we sat around a large table and Mark told us about cheese making and their business. They are doing extremely well winning lots of prizes for their cheese. No wonder - look at the luscious brie on the right!

After a leisurely talk and taste at Small Cow Farm we moved on to the Robertson Cheese Factory where we heard from Michael & Cressie about their developing sheep's milk cheese business. Zoe was our host here and she had put together a fine spread of antipasto to finish up the day. Zoe told us about her goat's milk cheese and gave us all some to take home.
All in all a very stimulating and interesting day.

The next tour is on Sat 15 May. Let us know if you would like to come?

Don't forget these producers are farmers who are busy making a living and we are very lucky to be able to visit them on their farms with our FoodPath tours once a month.

What a great lunch we had today at Centennial Winery. Put on by the ABC Delicious magazine. It was a regional producers meal and all of the producers from our FIRST FoodPath tour tomorrow were there.
See the happy snap!



There were displays of the produce used and Robin Murray the Chef spoke between courses about how he had prepared the meal using the fresh local produce.

Countdown time now until our very first tour tomorrow. I will report back afterwards & take some photos.

We were featured tonight on WIN TV News! A good story about the start of food tourism in the Southern Highlands - great exposure for us. Come and join us.

Lots of enquiries coming in from various websites - some we don't even know about! Everyone is as excited as we are and the support is unbelievable.
We had a request last night for a tour including small children, so we are working on an itinerary for the July school holidays. We will post it on the Tours page when it is finalised.

Please let us know if you have any requests?

What a great opportunity from Tourism Southern Highlands this morning! Thanks Steve (pictured right)!

A journalist and camera man from WIN TV were in the area (because Tony Abbott was cycling through) and we were invited to be interviewed with one of the producers on our first tour that is running this Saturday 17 April.

After a mad ring around all was set up and we went to the Berrima Ridge free range chook farm to see Anne & Warryn. Anne and I were interviewed and were able to explain what we are planning and why.



The TV crew said to keep in touch about how we are going because they might come back and follow a tour around for a couple of hours. They asked us to stay in touch - how exciting!

Check out the Maremma dog in the photo (left) with his head in the food bucket! Anne fed the chooks to get them to gather for a photo shoot. They thought it was Xmas because they are normally only fed at night.


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