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	Upcoming Events Recent Events Calendar Regional Groups Calendar Archive About SIGS	September 25, 2003 Food Tour - Heritage Fruit Orchard at Filoli Gardens by Linda Hillel Twenty-three years of growing vegetables, herbs, and fruit in my Oakland garden has fed my passion for unusual varieties of edibles. So I couldn't possibly pass up the Food Society's invitation to a tour and tasting at Filoli, a magnificent estate of the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Woodside. It was a glorious September day. Our program began with a discussion about the origin of the "gentleman's" apple orchard at Filoli, which featured about 1000 varieties of apples and pears in its heyday. The orchard had fallen into disuse over time, but is being resurrected bit by bit. Lucy Tolmach, the director of horticulture, introduced volunteer C. Todd Kennedy, who is practically single-handedly responsible for grafting some 600 varieties of apples from the original trees in the orchard onto new rootstock in order to preserve them. Todd discribed the process, which sounds slow and painstaking, but, thanks to his dedication, the orchard will again produce these heirloom varieties one day. Lucy and Todd guided us through the orchard, where we saw apple trees of all sizes, from tiny saplings to the huge old trees. The orchard also has other rare fruit trees, such as the medlar, an ancient fruit in the apple family. We climbed over an electric fence (meant to keep critters out) and into the table grape vineyard. Here were rows of over 100 varieties of table grapes, most of them bearing ripe bunches of every color and size imaginable. We were invited to taste the grapes as we walked up and down the rows. What fun - the flavor and texture of each variety was different from the next! It was a rare opportunity to experience so many nuances of the grape. After a brief stop in the outdoor cold storage room and a quick walk through the gardens behind the house, we were treated to a fabulous spread of cheeses, the best baguettes I've ever eaten (baked specially for us in the estate's wood ovens by Lucy's husband, Jonathan), sparkling wine, and rich homemade almond butter cookies. Accompanying these delights were a sampling of grapes and perhaps two dozen varieties of apples and pears, all grown in the orchard. Clearly, a return trip is in order to see more of this large and lovely estate.	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