A new tour company is deviating from typical Central Oregon outdoor excursions and focusing on something a little more unique. The Well Traveled Fork is offering creative culinary tours, where adventures in food will be in the spotlight.
“Most people have no idea where their food is coming from,” said Bette Fraser, the company’s chef owner. “Our tours are changing that by making the farm-to-fork experience unique and exciting for everyone.”
Fraser has been a professional caterer in Redondo Beach, California for over 20 years. A culinary and wine tourist herself, Fraser has trained in such places as Verona, Italy and Paris, France as well as state side.
She has always had a passion for the concept of fresh, local and sustainable food. In Redondo Beach, she held after-school cooking classes to teach kids where their food comes from. However, after falling in love with Central Oregon, Fraser and her husband have relocated to Bend. Bette has become very active in Central Oregon’s local food movement and is currently treasurer of the Slow Food High Desert Chapter. The Well Traveled Fork is the next adventure in Bette’s culinary career.
The Well Traveled Fork offers cooking classes, private chef senus, teambuilding events, slide show presentations and insightful culinary tours in the Central Oregon area. You can meet the farmers and ranchers that grow the food that you put on your table. The growers will show you their homes, fields and pastures, the places that make their products so unique.
Through these exciting hands-on experiences, you will begin to understand and appreciate what fresh, local, organic, seasonal and sustainable food is all about.
Currently, they offer four very different tours. The Farm & Ranch tour takes guests into the surrounding countryside to visit the people that grow and raise the food that we eat. They travel around Bend, Sisters, Redmond, Terrebonne, Prineville, Culver, and Madras; it is truly amazing how much food is produced in this place we call home. They stop and spend time at each place and talk to the farmer or rancher about what they are doing and how they are doing it, taste some delicious food and drink and there is always an opportunity for pictures or visiting with the animals. It is a wonderful tour for kids!
One of the other tours is the Round About Bend tour. They call this the insider’s culinary tour of Bend while showing off our beautiful public art at our round abouts. They have made arrangements with all the great places in town so the guests can have a special visit and behind the scenes look into a cookware store, a wine café, a bakery, a culinary school, a community garden and more.
We love our Farmer’s Market and there is no better way to visit it than with Chef Bette. Every Wednesday, Chef Bette leads a market tour to pick out the freshest fruits and vegetables. Then wander through downtown for a cooking demonstration and wine tasting event.
Finally, they offer a very specialized pub crawl. Lead by Alison Wood, Bon Vivant and OSU graduate with a scary knowledge of beer and all things brewing, the pub crawl gives the guest an insider’s view of the microbrewery scene in Bend. Once again, special arrangements with a select few brewers and pubs, allow The Well Traveled Fork to offer wonderful food selections to complement the beers at the various locations. This is a tour for the discriminating beer connoisseur and is only available to guests over the age of 21.
Giving Back…Because We Care
A portion of the ticket price from the tours is being donated to NeighborImpact, which works to fight poverty and hunger in Central Oregon. It is the goal of The Well Traveled Fork to make sure that all people, especially children are fed good healthy, fresh and delicious meals on a daily basis.
NeighborImpact receives and distributes food to a network of over 30 local agencies that include emergency food box sites, congregate meal sites, brown bag programs and shelters.
www.welltraveledfork.com, chefbette@welltraveledfork.com, 541-312-0097 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 541-312-0097
