Last weekend, I had the pleasure of indulging in an exclusive gourmet trek to Stratford and Perth County with an inspiring group of food bloggers and enthusiasts from Toronto.  Having grown up in Guelph, which is not far from Perth County, I was familiar with Stratford but regrettably had not ventured there in many years. After this trip, I asked myself, “What took me so long?’

Stratford is best known for the Stratford Shakespeare Festival and, more recently, the hometown of tween sensation Justin Bieber…but it also one of Ontario’s top culinary destinations. Home to one of the country’s top culinary schools, the Stratford Chefs School, and host of the Stratford Garlic Festival (September 18, 2010) and the Savour Stratford Culinary Festival (September 18-26, 2010), there’s plenty for the gourmand to savour about Stratford.

Here’s a breakdown of our day:

MONFORTE DAIRY

We arrived at cheesemaker Ruth Klahsen’s new Monforte Dairy for the official welcome to Stratford. Monforte Dairy has been in operation since 2004 and has quickly become one of Ontario’s most popular producers of artisanal cheeses made from humanely raised cows, sheep, goats and water buffalo.

Maureen Argon, who works alongside Ruth, gave us a tour of the new facility, which was not yet open to the public (the official opening was Tuesday, June 1 when the first shipment of milk was scheduled to arrive).

After the tour, we were treated to coffee from Balzac’s Stratford and home-made granola from Tango Café topped with Monforte sheep’s milk yogurt. I had never tasted sheep’s milk yogurt before and was pleasantly surprised by its rich, creamy yet slightly tangy flavour.

What a special treat it was to be one of the first groups to tour the facility. The dairy is open for tours, tastings and cheesmaking workshops on weekends until October.

SOILED REPUTATION

Our next stop was Soiled Reputation, an organic vegetable farm owned and operated by Food Network star, Antony John (The Manic Organic) and his wife Tina. Soiled Reputation has been supplying gourmet and heirloom vegetables, custom salad mixes, seedlings and leafy greens to Ontario’s best restaurants for 15 years. The farm practices ecologically sound, certified organic growing techniques and maximizes biodiversity where possible.

The first thing I noticed when we arrived was the happy free range chickens. Antony’s wife, Tina, took us into the barn to see the newly hatched chicks (so cute) before we slipped into our rain boots and head out into the fields with Antony for a tour and some bird watching.

By the time we made our way back to the barn, we had foraged for some parsley, which would make it into our lunch later in the day, had gotten a sneak peek of the wild boar on a spit that would become our lunch and met Jesus, the resident donkey. Turns out my parsley didn’t make it to lunch because I chose to share mine with Jesus. Shhhh …don’t tell Antony!

PERTH PORK PRODUCTS

Literally just down the road from Soiled Reputation is a heritage hog farm, Perth Pork Products, owned by Fred de Martines and his family. Perth Pork Products Ltd. has been selling pork products to the public and to local restaurants and stores since 1992.

We had the pleasure of touring this farm where the heritage animals (Tamworth, Berkshire and Wild Boar) are raised humanely in and out of doors, with the heritage breeds raised as they were historically on pastures and in the bush-lot.

We got to witness a feeding of black walnuts to the wild boar, as well as see where the Tamworth and Berkshire pigs live.

SOILED REPUTATION BARN LUNCH

After touring the hog farm, we made our way back to Soiled Reputation for a wonderful three-course lunch prepared by chef Neil Baxter of Rundles Restaurant in Stratford. What made this lunch so amazing, apart from the food of course, was the fact that we ate it in a barn, amongst the bales of hay and wooden beams. To add even more ambiance to the day, we were serenaded by live musical performer, Derek Barnes and we were joined by special guests Eugene Zakreski of the Stratford Tourism Alliance, farmer Fred de Martines and tea sommelier Karen Hartwick of local tea boutique, Tea Leaves.

The menu:

VQA wines were provided by Malivoire from the Niagara region, along with pilsner from the Stratford Brewing Company and a 100 per cent organic Ontario iced tea.

While I enjoyed the entire day immensely, the barn lunch was, by far, my favourite part.

TEA WORKSHOP

Lunch was followed by a tea workshop in the barn with Karen Hartwick from Tea Leaves Tasting Bar in Stratford. Karen is a certified tea sommelier accredited by the Specialty Tea Institute in New York.

I absolutely love tea and found this workshop extremely interesting. We worked our way through white, green and black teas, including an Organic White Peony from China, a Genmaicha Matcha-iri from Japan, a Jade Oolong from Taiwan, and Yunnan Gold Superior from China and a 2-year Pu-erh from China.

Until June 30, 2010, Tea Leaves is offering 10 per cent off your first online purchase. Go to www.stratfordtealeaves.com and enter code: DEL522.

CANDY MAKING AT CHOCOLATE BARR’S

Following an entire afternoon in the idyllic Perth County countryside, we made our way back to quaint downtown Stratford for some candy making with Derek Barr, owner of Chocolate Barr’s Candies.

This shop is truly magical, with its sweet aromas, endless varieties of chocolates and bon bons and the beautiful packaging (what can I say, I’m a sucker for packaging). It’s not very often that you get the opportunity to go behind-the-scenes in a chocolate factory and I felt like we were about to embark on a Willy Wonka adventure.

Hair nets and all, we headed into the back room to make a batch of Nutty Pop (recipe to follow in next blog post). The best part of making candy is getting to eat your creation. I don’t have a sweet tooth but I must admit, this was one of the yummiest things I’ve had in a long time.

SHAKESPEARE PIES, THE BEST LITTLE PORK SHOPPE and PERTH COUNTY VISITORS ASSOCIATION

On our way out of town, we stopped at Shakespeare Pies for a tasting of freshly, made-from-scratch, Mennonite pies before making our final stop at The Best Little Pork Shoppe and the Perth County Visitors Association.

I would like to thank Suresh Doss from Spotlight Toronto for arranging the tour and for bringing together such a fantastic group of food lovers. And, of course, none of this would have been possible without the support of Danielle Brodhagen and Emily Chandler of the Stratford Tourism Alliance. Thanks for such a memorable day!