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

The results are out for the Cheese and Dairy Produce Awards at the Royal Easter Show - and the Highlands did extremely well.

ALL OF THOSE WHO ENTERED WON GOLD! 
(In alphabetical order):

• Bill Smillie of Highlands Organics at Moss Vale won Gold for his organic cow's milk Fetta.
• Mark and Lesley Williams of Small Cow Farm at Robertson won Gold for their Fettice - a Fetta style cheese. 
• Michael and Cressida McNamara of Pecora Dairy on Jamberoo Mountain won Gold for their Jamberoo Mountain Blue, a mould ripened sheep's milk cheese - and they were first time entrants. Needless to say they are very excited! Their cheese will be available commercially later this year.

Highland Organics cheese used by FoodPath in a presentation of local produce

As well as this:

• Bill Smillie supplies the organic milk for Country Valley Organic Milk which won "Champion Milk" and also "Most Successful Exhibitor"!
• Small Cow Farm won 3 Silver awards for their Eastern Fetta, Petit Vache Camembert and Petit Vache Brie.

Holsteins heading for the dairy at milking time

John Fairley of Country Valley at Picton won:

• "Champion Milk" for his Country Valley Organic Milk
• "Champion Yoghurt" and a Gold award for his Country Valley Lush Natural Yoghurt
• Silver for his Country Valley Lush Plain Yoghurt and
• Silver for his Country Valley Classic Cream.

Small Dexter cows at Small Cow Farm - hence the name!

CONGRATULATIONS TO EVERYONE!
We are lucky to have you amongst our local producers - and FoodPath encourages everyone to buy your products!

Would you like to do something different? Like a day in the country meeting the real people behind the food we eat?
Come and meet 16 baby Boer goats! Hear Alan talk about his truffle trees and his hopes for a first "crop" this year at his beautiful property near Moss Vale.

Tiny Boer kids were a great attraction on our last FoodPath Tour

Enjoy a leisurely long table lunch at the stunning Mount Ashby Estate winery. Eon will talk to us about where he sources his ingredients and what he has cooked for us. Enjoy a wine tasting while we are there.

Enjoying a wine tasting with Chris at Mount Ashby

Mount Ashby Estate was an old Throsby dairy. Now renovated and very special.

Move on in time to watch the afternoon milking at a nearby dairy at Burrawang. Here Tammy and Craig tell us how they came to build their modern, computerised facility and it is very interesting. Have a taste of real milk straight from the cow!

Cows waiting eagerly to be milked.

Craig and Tammy tell us about their dairy and how it operates.

Last, but by no means least, come with us to meet Lesley and Mark at Small Cow Farm. Mark will tell us about his cheese making and how they started with Dexter (small) cows. We will enjoy a cheese tasting of their wide range of cheeses and you can purchase some straight from the farm.

Dexter cows at Small Cow Farm

This is a new itinerary and we are very lucky to include some places not normally open to the public.


For bookings or more information check the Tours page on the FoodPath website www.foodpath.com.au or ring Jill on 0419 617 021. 

We have just prepared a program of tours and workshops for the next 6 month and these will be on the website any day now. We have between 4 and 8 activities on each month!
We are introducing  series of workshops on Sunday afternoons - check the program for details. These will be run by excellent teachers -
- Fruit bottling and food preserving with Stephen Hogwood
- Wine education with our resident expert Linda Lambrecht, and
- Cheese appreciation with Nick Padol, Cheese judge.
Our regular tours continue as before - the food focused walking tour in Bowral, Moss Vale farmers market tour and our regular day tour on the 3rd Sat. However we have changed our tour on the 2nd Sat.
We have joined forces with Patricia and Kristal from the Blue Bowl Cooking School to put on a "Market to Table" tour every 2nd Sat. FoodPath will take a farmers market tour in Bowral first and then we will move on to the historic Fitzroy Inn in Mittagong, where Patricia will provide a cooking class followed by lunch, using the ingredients purchased at the market. Should be fun!
We also have chestnut picking on 26 Mar. This is a seasonal activity and we were lucky to get the opportunity. We also wanted to get a group together to do berry picking - but because of the weather the only berries were blackberries. Maybe you can let me know if you would have liked to go blackberry picking? I was concerned that we would not get the numbers.

Lots of exciting things coming up! Please spread the word and we look forward to catching up with many of you during 2011.

Well our second Family Farm Tour was great fun too. Same itinerary as on 8 Jan but with the added treat of seeing the 9 tiny baby goats at one of the farms. Very cute and lots of photos taken by adults and children!

The birthday girl holding a baby goat!

Cute little baby Boer goats!

Our picnic lunch was very pleasant sitting under the trees by the lake at Eling Forest winery.

Lunch under the trees at beautiful Eling Forest

We had a birthday girl along on this trip who had chosen to come as a birthday treat. Mark at Eling Forest dressed up one of his delicious little cakes as a b'day cake which was kind.

We had a large group of little children this time (aged 3 - 6yrs) so at the free range egg farm we divided into two groups - the adults and older children in one group and the little ones in another.

Inquisitive kids!

Warryn's pasta demonstration was popular. This is a good way to use surplus eggs. It is only made of eggs and flour, nothing else. What child doesn't eat pasta these days - so good for them to see how it is made. They were fascinated! Each family was given a sample of  pasta to take home, cut to their choice - tagliatelle, fettucine etc.

Collecting eggs rated highly too and the children learnt a lot about where their eggs come from. We even saw a hen actually lay an egg this time, which was a first! The children painted faces on some hard boiled eggs and took them home to eat.

At the dairy this time we got very close to the cows who were anxiously waiting to be milked. Craig showed us the milking apparatus and we got to feel the suction that is used to actually milk the cows. The children loved that and it caused much hilarity!

Eva and Sam feeling the suction on the milking machine

Feeding the calves was popular again especially with the bigger children (and some of the adults)!

Zoe helping to feed the calf

Thanks to all our kind producers who let us visit their farms! These school holiday family farm tours have been such a success that we will repeat them next holidays. Let us know if you want to go on a waiting list?

Wow, what a great day we had yesterday. It was a bit overcast early in the morning but cleared to a beautiful day here in the Southern Highlands. Rachel and Greg Power from The Great Aussie Road Trip joined us with their 3 children, which was fun. They have travelled far and wide and it was nice to be able to welcome them along on one of our FoodPath tours. Another family - Janelle and Dion and their children have followed Rachel and Greg in their travels for the past 6 months!

Dion, Janelle, Rachel, Teddy and Greg from The Great Aussie Road trip

We had a run on bookings in the couple of days prior to the tour - as the result of an article in the local paper and an announcement on local radio. We ended up with 18 adults and 12 children ranging from 2 up to 12 years of age!

Chooks, Maremma dogs and kids - what a great combination.

Yabby - one of many seen on our latest tour.

Please see our Facebook page for more photos.
We have another Family Farm Tour in two weeks on Sat 22 Jan. We meet in Berrima at 10am and finish at Burrawang at 4pm. $185 for a family of four. $25 per extra child and $85 per extra adult.
We already have 3 families booked so don't delay if you would like to come? This is our last school holiday activity for January - but keep an eye on our website for future activities.

Happy New Year everyone!
Now the festivities are over are you looking for something to do during the holidays? Come along on a FoodPath Family Farm Tour! We have one this Sat 8 Jan and another on Sat 22 Jan. 

Six Maremma dogs help to protect the 4000 chooks from the foxes

We will be visiting a free range chook farm and meeting the beautiful Maremma dogs who protect them from the foxes. For lunch we are having a picnic at Eling Forest winery, prepared by Mark and Megan Stone of Stone's restaurant. After lunch we will be seeing some goats (hopefully with babies) and visiting a dairy where we can bottle feed the calves. 

Boer goats are from South Africa and are bred for their meat.

Will be nice to show the children where their food comes from? 

There are always some calves at the dairy so their mothers produce milk.

This Sat we will be hosting the Power family as part of their Great Aussie Road Trip. Check the website (see link above) and also www.foodpath.com.au for more details or ring Jill on 0419617021.

We are very happy that Norman has agreed to FoodPath taking people to see his potato farm at Robertson. This will have to be on a Sunday in January or February because on Saturday they are busy at the markets. I think it will be very interesting to show childen where their potatoes come from and let them dig for themselves to find some! We will try to include this in one of our family tours in January.

Norman had a busy morning at the Moss Vale Farmers' Market

On Sat 11 Dec Norman sold lots of potatoes at the Moss Vale Farmers' Market - where we offer a Farmers' Market Tour. This is held on the 4th Sat of the month.

I was amazed at the variety of potatoes (16) grown by one farmer!

It is important that FoodPath works in with farmers who are busy running their businesses. Many of these farms are not normally open to the public and we are lucky to be able to take groups to visit them on occasions.

Keep an eye on our website to see if there are any upcoming tours that appeal to you. Contact us from the website with any questions - www.foodpath.com.au.

We are happy to announce that we have been able to organise to take a group (max 22 people) chestnut picking in the Southern Highlands on Sat 26 Mar 2011. This is lucky because it is very popular.

Chestnuts on the tree

Busloads of Europeans come down from Sydney to gather nuts and cook them on the large braziers. On 26 Mar there will be 200 others there!

Roasted chestnuts

We are having a tour to the Farmers Market that morning so have decided to meet at the Moss Vale showground at 11am and travel by bus from there. Some people might want to do both tours! Farmers' Market tour is limited to 8 people.

Time: 11am - 4pm
Transport: Bus
Price: $45 (take your own picnic)
Price: $65 (lunch provided - delicious sandwich, cake and drink from the sourdough shop in Bowral).
To book contact us from the website or ring Jill on 0419 67 021.

On 12 December we had our Slow Food Terra Madre Day activity in the Southern Highlands. Terra Madre means Mother Earth and Terra Madre Day is celebrated across the world on or close to 10 December each year. Check the Terra Madre section on the Slow Food International website.

Last year we had a regional dinner at The Post Cafe in Moss Vale to support and showcase local producers.

Greg and Chris provided Galloway beef for a barbeque lunch and Greg cooked!

This year we had a barbeque at a member's home with meat supplied by Galloway beef breeders Greg and Chris who went to Turin in October this year as our Terra Madre delegate.

Rhondda gave us an apple sider tasting which was interesting and unusual.

An extra item of interest was a cider tasting put on for us by Slow Food member Rhondda who has 600 cider apple trees in Robertson.

Greg talking to a group of Slow Food members about their experience at Terra Madre in Italy

This was my last activity as Convivium Leader of Slow Food Southern Highlands. Now I will be focusing on FoodPath and out busy schedule of activities. Keep an eye on the website or contact us to find out what is coming up - www.foodpath.com.au

We are kick starting the year in 2011 with two Family Friendly Farm Tours in January - on Sat 8 Jan and Sat 22 Jan.


Come with us to visit some farms and meet the animals and their owners.


Feed the chooks and collect the eggs at the free range egg farm near Berrima. Bottle feed the calves at a dairy near Burrawang.




Enjoy a picnic lunch in the beautiful grounds at Eling Forest winery.
All this and more!




For more info - contact us from the website or ring Jill on 0419 617 021.