Basis to our culinary heaven...

I thought I should blog about this as it seems many people don't know about it. Whenever we go travelling through the countryside be it down the south coast or to Wagga to visit hubby's mum... I love going past the farmgates and seeing little shacks where you can leave your money and take bags of apples or pears, get the first crop of the cherries of the year - know where it came from and pay bargain-basement prices.

So at the beginning of our holidays over christmas we had discussed going on a few road-trips to put some K's on our car to avoid the taxman slugging us. So after some Googling I found the Hawkesbury Harvest website and in particular, the farmgate trail . It's got great interactive maps and we decided we would try a few out in separate trips over the break.

Our favourites:

Riverview Produce - North Richmond

We basically find 99% of all fruit and veges here. Fresh, Cheap. Bountiful.

Some examples -

• Big thick bunches of Rhubarb $1/$1.50
• Fresh herbs with roots still attached (so you could plant them in the yard) .75
• Fresh Corn (and seriously, the BEST corn I've ever eaten) .50 to .75 per ear
• English spinach .50

Schofields Orchards - North Richmond

In the same street (or dirt road!) as Riverview -

• Great oranges- huge box for $10 or $3 small box - if you like to juice your own or make marmalade - you can't beat it really.
• Lemons and limes very cheap $2 a kilo or something.
• String Beans - huge shopping bags for $2 - share them with friends
• Stone fruit about $4 a kilo. I
• Eggs- very yellow yolks, in fact they are almost orange. $3.50 doz barnlaid $4.00 free-range.

Enniskillen Orchard - Grose Vale

To be honest, the only thing I think I would travel for is their home-grown shrub honey - $7.50 a kilo. Stone fruit if you can't get it from Schofields, it's the same price and quality here.

It is a pretty drive though.

M & A Butchery - Wilberforce

Now if you're a carnivore, you will love M & A Butchery. If you are a vegetarian don't read any further. This butchery is attached to an abbatoir, so when you park, wave hello to the sheep, as you may be going home with one of their relatives. I would take an esky and pick up some ice at one of the servo's on the way there from Richmond/Windsor.

You can have a side of beef cut up for you for around $8 a kg. Blade steak is 2kg for $12 and you can buy just about everything and anything. T-bones come cut or uncut and you can get huge ribs of beef and pork for BBQ's. 2.4kg leg of lamb (great quality too!) we picked up for $17.

I always come home from our trail inspired to cook, there's a lot to be said for knowing where your food comes from and knowing it is fresh. I find myself going through the supermarket with my nose turned up at the fresh food aisles now! And whilst it may cost the average punter a little more with tolls and petrol, it's a briliant day/morning out. It takes 40 minutes from our house to get to Riverview, and 15-20 minutes with ice-stop to get up to Wilberforce from North Richmond.

Driving into Richmond, beside the airforce base, there's a great park for the kids to run off steam, and fantastic cafe called Patchy's on Richmonds' main drag if you like. There's a few Antique shops on the way - I haven't been brave enough with my three littlies to have a look at them yet, but one day!

We're off again on Saturday morning on our farmgate trail, and doing a bit of a convoy with a couple of friends who've seen our previous offerings.

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