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NEWSLETTER |
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Follow this link to read The Latest Edition of the NEWSLETTER. CURRENT:
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Follow this link to subscribe to the Newsletter. It has valuable information and tips which are not included in the Snippets. |
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WHAT'S IN SEASON?
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UPCOMING EVENTS |
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Broome's Mango Festival South Coast Wine Show Public Tasting . . .visit Events page
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Do you want to be in charge of your photography for your web site and promotional material. With each edition of the Newsletter you will receive invaluable professional advice that could save you a small fortune. This edition: Great Exposure |
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FOOD, FOOD, FOOD |
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An amazing resource by Sally Hammond, a highly acclaimed food and travel writer with an encyclopaedic knowledge of food. This ever expanding feature is a great fund of information with everything from food facts, nutritional information, tips and recipes.
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Food TrailsWhat better way for a food group or a community to introduce visitors to the wealth of produce in their area? Help to fill in the blanks here. If you know of a food trail in your area please let us know . Click here to see the beginning of our list |
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IMAGE GALLERY |
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View Gordon's images of this vast and beautiful continent.  |
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DIARIES |
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Sally and Gordon share their travel diaries as they visit regional Australia. Click here |
Here is our pre-Christmas newsletter and our best wishes for a magical and relaxing time where nothing matters and the joy of being with people you love more than anything else in the world, more than makes up for the mayhem that inevitably surrounds this time.
Keep sending those emails with news of future events and recaps on ones just past. Tell us too if something has closed, moved or reopened. This site is for everybody!
wishing everybody A Happy and prosperous New Year. may 2009 be a year of many blessings and fulfilled dreams. |
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Feast of the Senses, March 20 to 29See, hear, taste, touch and smell the delights on offer at the Feast of the Senses - a fortnight of food and wine festivities set against the backdrop of beautiful tropical Innisfail in Queensland’s north. |
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FUNDING AVAILABLEFunding is available, through AusIndustry’s Re-tooling for Climate Change program, to help eligible food and beverage processors improve the energy or water efficiency of their operations |
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HEAD SOUTH for these twoThe Agrarian Kitchen, inspiration of Gourmet Traveller’s former food editor Rodney Dunn, opened on 21 November. The first cookery school to open in Tasmania, the Agrarian Kitchen is in the fertile Derwent Valley at Lachlan, 7km from New Norfolk and 45 minutes’ drive from Hobart. |
MORNINGTON CELEBRATESYes, it does seem a long time away, but it will slip by and you should note down the date at least as the Mornington Peninsula’s 2009 Harvest to Table Festival – Friday March 13 to Sunday March 22 |
Taste Festival Turns 20This summer the Taste Festival, Tasmania’s largest annual event, is twenty years old. The Taste of Tasmania and the Hobart Summer Festival have been merged to become the Taste Festival – Hobart’s Waterfront Celebration. |
NEXT NEWSLETTERWatch out for the next ARFG newsletter due out mid-week and just in time for Christmas. We have a very special prize lined up so get your minds and finger really nimble so you can be the first to answer and win it. If you are not already a subscriber, please go to ...... and get your name on the mailing list |
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MARKET CHANGESThe Farmers’ Markets, previously at Marina Mirage and currently at Mariner’s Cove, on Queensland's Gold Coast, have undergone an exciting new look and direction. Creators of “The Coffee Festival: Gold Coast” have taken over the management of the Farmers’ Markets at Mariner’s Cove |
MORNINGTON CELEBRATESYes, it does seem a long time away, but it will slip by and you should note down the date at least as the Mornington Peninsula’s 2009 Harvest to Table Festival promises to be well worth a visit. |
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CHILL OUTIf you can’t wait for delicious stone fruit to appear, you'll be pleased to know Queensland's Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries (DPI&F) is working on making season start a lot earlier! DPI&F scientists are breeding tropical peaches, sometimes referred to as ‘low chill stone fruit’. |
Most Consumers want one Organic SymbolSeventy-two percent of organic food buyers say they would prefer to have one, new certification symbol used by all organisations, compared with only 14 percent who prefer to continue with different certification symbols. |
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AND WHILE WE'RE TALKING NEWSLETTERSDo have a look at the latest ARFG newsletter. Subscribe if you want a priority look at each newsletter (and a better chance of winning a great prize each time) and please forward it to all your food loving Australia-loving friends and contacts. |
HELP NEEDEDThose wonderful people from The Spirit House on the Sunshine Coast are working on another book. That's great news for all of us who love their fragrant and fabulous recipes, BUT they have a problem. They want to know if there are any lotus growers (not lotus eaters!) in south-east Queensland. |
TIME TO ENTEREntries are now open for the 2009 Sydney Royal Fine Food Show. Competitions being judged at the February Fine Food Show |
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A JUICY OPPORTUNITYIf you are in Sydney soon you might want to be one of 50 people to compete to become Australia’s Fastest Juice Mixer! The competition will be on the 5th December for Breville in Circular Quay from 9am-1pm |
BAROSSA CHRISTMAS
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WINNERS EVERYWHEREThere were plenty of smiles at the NSW Tourism Awards in Sydney last week. The ‘Outstanding Contribution to Regional Tourism’ Award went to Julie-Anne Wuttke for her work with OutBack Regional Tourism in promoting Outback NSW. |
NSW DSRD INVITATIONThe NSW Department of State and Regipona Development 's (DSRD) Trade Services Team has issued an invitation to producers to be part of a group stand from 6 - 9 May 2009 at HOFEX 2009 in Hong Kong. HOFEX 2009 is the key food and hospitality trade event in the Asian region |
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OIL AWARDSWe've mentioned Red Rock's great wins but others also gained awards at the 12th National Extra Virgin Olive Oil Awards dinner held in Canberra last month where over 270 olive growers and industry experts attended the gala which honoured the best in the Australian olive industry. |
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YOU KNEW ORGANIC WAS POPULAR..................but did you know that nearly two-thirds of Australian grocery buyers buy some organic products? A current survey conducted by Newspoll has revealed that 61 percent of shoppers had oganic products in their baskets. |
ORGANICS ON THE ROADThe Organic Advantage, the excellent newsletter from the BFA reports that two organic roadshows in Armidale and Coffs Harbour this month will underline an escalating interest from northern NSW in growing and eating chemical free |
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ARCHIVED NEWS: November | October | September | August | July |June | May | April | March | February | January |
CATCHES ON THE NET
Seafood Awards Return
SYDNEY-SIDERS: DON'T MISS THIS
Fish the face of Australia
Kangaroo on the climate change menu
GI Grapes
Boom Time for Organic Fruit and Vegies
FAT HALTS HUNGER
CAPEL VALE CONGATULATIONS
Can't make it to the Barossa for Chirstmas? Don't panic, Saskia Beer is bringing the best of Barossa Valley produce to the Christmas table with her famous free range turkeys, hand-rolled chicken ballotines and for the first time this year, Black Berkshire hams. 
WINE AT NORFOLK
IT'S STREETSMART TIME AGAIN
GINGER JANUARY
New Farmers Market G'day!
Being fair dinkum Australian regional food I figured that this would be a good place to promote myself. I reckon you could also look impressive on this site by taking out a Premier Listing |
Follow this link to read Sally's review of four great new cookbooks
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AUSTRALIA’S WINEWhen the first vines were planted in the original Jacob’s Creek vineyard in South Australia’s Barossa region in 1847 no one could have predicted its success. Those original vines were simply designed to make sweet sherry and port, purely for domestic use.
Understandably, the eyecatching and recently opened Jacob’s Creek Visitor’s Centre receives more than 200,000 visitors a year. In fact the winery is so well known that the road sign for the area has been stolen several times – a sure sign of fame. Now it is about to become even more well-known. Jacob’s Creek is one of only three global sponsors (the other two are, predictably, Qantas and Tourism Australia) of the Baz Luhrmann epic Australia starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman. Following the November launch in cinemas, every carton of Jacob’s Creek wines sold overseas will be emblazoned with the film’s logo and distinctive outback sunset silhouette scene. Last week, with some other journalists, I was invited to fly (with Qantas of course) to the Barossa for the day to be present for the launch Jacob’s Creek’s involvement with the film. As we lunched on fine South Australian produce prepared by the winery’s talented Executive Chef, Veronica Zahra, we were shown some clips from the movie and of Baz Luhrmann briefly sharing on camera the story line and his hopes for the film. The movie has certainly taken a long time to produce and cost many millions of dollars. There has been a huge amount of media hype and speculation surrounding it and its stars. Everyone seems to expect that it will be a hit, and most hope it will increase awareness of Australia and encourage tourism. But one thing I know. If it turns out to be as profitable and successful – and as well-appreciated – as Jacob’s Creek, it will be a world beater. |
LISTEN TO THISPaul Smith is a busy person who runs the Green Zebra cafe in Albury and also chats to food people around the world on his website. It was my turn the other day and you can hear it on www.irunarestauranttoo.com or if you use itunes, you can subscribe from there. Paul tells me it's the most popular podcast listening/subscribing medium. Follow this link to hear it. |
MUDGEE MUNCHING
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DSRD GOES SOUTH
Producers from the Illawarra, South Coast and Capital regions joined others from the Southern Highlands in a highly interactive day at Craigieburn in Bowral. Buyers were able to meet the group of about twenty growers and manufacturers to discuss how best to access their products.
That night at a dinner at Centennial Vineyards Restaurant, the newly appointed Minister for Water, Rural Affairs and Regional Development, Mr Phillip Costa, announced that during the next two years, the Department of State & Regional Development will sponsor 150 one-year listings for producers on the Australian Regional Food Guide website. Mr Costa’s interest in regional industries comes from his own family background operating market gardens, and he stated that he was supportive of strategies that ‘allowed food buyers and producers to find each other’. In talking about the Department of State & Regional Development initiative with this website he praised the Australian Regional Food Guide for its ‘wealth of information’, adding ‘I strongly advise people to seek a listing.’ Interested applicants should contact the project manager, jillian.fryer@business.nsw.gov.au as soon as possible. |
HAWKESBURY COMES TO TOWN
In fact even the shoppers seemed unfazed as they dodged dripping umbrellas to taste foods they might otherwise have had to make a lengthy weekend trip for. The Hawkesbury Harvest Food Trail has been luring Sydney-siders to the western edge of the fertile Sydney basin for a couple of years now. Now, Hawkesbury Harvest will come to them in the city every Friday from 10am to 2.30pm at a prime location, in the heart of the CBD. It is expected that the markets will give something back too, helping to re-energise the newly upgraded square at Cook + Phillip Park. To this end the City of Sydney has formed a partnership with Hawkesbury Harvest, a collective of farmers from the Sydney basin, who will run the markets each Friday. To the background music of live entertainment by the group Waiting for Guinness, interested city workers and visitors moved between the stalls tasting delectable Willowbrae cheese, sausages and smallgoods from Eumundi Smokehouse, La Tartine bread, Saltbush Lamb, Pepes Ducks, Infinity farmed barramundi, and delicate hot-smoked ocean trout from Brilliant Food, as well as fresh fruits and vegetables – ideal for people stocking up for the weekend – jams, chutneys, olive oil and even more. To make up for Sydney turning on one of its chilliest winter days, there were stalls selling hot coffee, Malaysian, Indian, and Turkish food – and of course, the warmest of country welcomes from the stallholders. Just imagine how much better it will be on a sunny day! Markets 10am – 2:30pm every Friday read Sally's Diary on the Hawkesbury Harvest |
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ARCHIVED HAPPENINGSJuly 25-27 ~ City Showcases Country in Organic Expo JULY 29 ~ Homebush Regional Food Fair: AUGUST 8-10 ~ Country Week Expo C-Change, Tree Change AUGUST 11-12 ~ RESTAURANT 08 AUGUST 23 ~ Mudgee at Balmoral |
**RADIO GUEST **
Just over 150 years later, in 1999, Australia’s wine exports topped $1billion. In 2007 it was $2.8 billion. This Barossa winery is responsible for a good share of this with export sales in Europe and Asia of eight million cases. In fact it is estimated that around two million glasses of Jacob’s Creeks wines are enjoyed around the world every day.
Last week I was honored to be invited to help judge the Mudgee Fine Foods Awards. I can't tell you the winners (they will be announced at a gala dinner in Mudgee on October 19th) but I can say how impressed I was by the overall standard of entries and the level of interest in the contest. There were 165 entries, which we had to taste and assess. Believe me, that is a lot, especially when you consider that there were around 25 jams and twenty or so honeys alone. In addition there were pickles, relishes, jellies, confectionary, oils, balsamics..........it was a long, full day! Watch this space for the results, and check this link to the coverage in the local newspaper that day: 
Last weekend the NSW Department of State & Regional Development (DSRD) conducted a two-day Regional Food Tour to the Southern Highlands of NSW as part of the department’s ‘Putting Regional NSW on the Menu’ strategy.
The Australian Regional Food Guide was also invited to join the group, along with two journalists from China Radio International. In the afternoon while buyers were conducting business talks with producers, the media group was taken to visit the bakery at Gumnut Patisserie and also the disused railway tunnels where Li-Sun Exotic Mushrooms are grown.
“I’m never upset about rain,” one of the stallholders stated firmly at the Hawkesbury Harvest Farmers & Fine Food Market launched on Friday August 22. It’s a true farmer’s perspective. After battling drought, rain is never unwelcome.
© All contents of this website are Copyright © 2005--2007 Sally and Gordon Hammond and www.australianregionalfoodguide.com.au unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. You may copy and use portions of this website for noncommercial, personal use only. Any other use of the materials in this website without prior written permission is prohibited.