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Photo by Selina Kok
Farm Fresh N.C. Backroads Tour
The 1810 Loom House, one of seven cottages on the Mast Farm Inn property in Valle Crucis, is billed as the oldest inhabitable log cabin in North Carolina.
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Photo by Selina Kok
Farm Fresh N.C. Backroads Tour
Farm Fresh North Carolina,” the first statewide guidebook of its kind in the country
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Photo by Selina Kok
Farm Fresh N.C. Backroads Tour
The 1810 Loom House, one of seven cottages on the Mast Farm Inn property in Valle Crucis, is billed as the oldest inhabitable log cabin in North Carolina.
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Photo by Selina Kok
Farm Fresh N.C. Backroads Tour
The Watauga County Farmers’ Market in Boone has been in operation since 1974.
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Photo by Selina Kok
Farm Fresh N.C. Backroads Tour
The Watauga County Farmers Market in Boone draws hundreds of visitors weekly from spring to fall.
Ready for a great long-weekend drive through some of the prettiest countryside in the region? complete with stops for fresh, delicious food and cozy, distinctive places to sleep? Well, the research has been done, and the itinerary planned.
You won’t be surprised to hear that of the 425 entries in “Farm Fresh North Carolina,” a third are in the western part of the state, a region rich with friendly farms, delicious dining options and jaw-dropping views.
Join me on this four-day, 215-mile “Farm Fresh” backroads tour, most of it based on my book and created especially for Blue Ridge Country readers. We’ll start in Asheville and end in Ashe County, with a whole lot of stopping in between to visit farms, sample just-made jam, sip local wine, feed alpacas, and more. So buckle your seat belts and let’s go.
Thursday
Let’s start casual at Laurey’s Catering and Gourmet to Go. Laurey’s is the kind of place you’d want to support even if the food wasn’t outstanding. Luckily, it is. Owner Laurey Masterton, a cancer survivor whose often-touted motto is “don’t postpone joy,” serves up fresh meals in her lively cafe in downtown Asheville. Masterton works with a long list of area farmers to incorporate local ingredients and products at every turn, an admirable feat for a fairly high-volume business. I suggest you have a nibble here, maybe the chicken salad made with poultry from Hickory Nut Gap Farm, and order dinners-to-go that you can heat up later at your farm stay. You might want to take along some breakfast fare, too.
From Asheville, you’ll head southeast for 20 minutes, starting on highways and moving onto two-lane country roads, to reach Cloud 9 Farm in Fairview. Here you have a choice of renting a romantic cabin or stylish home, both fully wired and well appointed with local art and crafts. Farmer Janet Peterson’s 200-acre retreat also is home to a small herd of hormone-free cattle, chickens, vegetable garden, two acres of U-pick blueberries, an educational apiary and a custom sawmill. While Cloud 9 doesn’t serve breakfast, your kitchen is stocked with basic mixes, and Peterson even delivers just-laid eggs from her flock. She’ll also shop ahead for perishables upon request. Make sure to get a farm tour before you check out.
Friday
The Watauga County Farmers’ Market in Boone has been in operation since 1974. Photo by Selina Kok
Remember that chicken salad you had at Laurey’s? Your first stop is a visit to the source, the 600-acre fifth-generation Hickory Nut Gap Farm just up the road in a scenic valley. If the farm store is open, you can buy grass-fed beef, pork, poultry and eggs, as well as food products from other farms in the region, including jams from Imladris Farm. Hickory Nut gussies up in the fall, with longer hours and special children’s activities in September and October.
Your next stop is 15 minutes north, at, you guessed it, Imladris Farm, the source of those jams. Make an appointment ahead of time and sixth-generation farmer Walter Harrill will give you a deluxe tour of his family’s sustainable farm, which is famous for its raspberry, blackberry and blueberry jams, sold at stores and online. Make sure you leave time for a tasting.
Take the back roads, including curvy N.C. 9, to Black Mountain, where you’ll eat lunch at the Blackbird, a restaurant with mountain views and fresh food from several area farms, many of them members of the Black Mountain Tailgate Market and the Old Fort-based Foothill Family Farms collective.
Highway 9 was merely a primer for your next drive, up hairpin-happy N.C. 80 to Mountain Farm in Celo, south of Burnsville and one of the state’s most appealing agritourism enterprises. Marilyn and Jerry Cade, both in the medical field, have lived here since 1974. They opened up their farm in the 1990s and it now features two acres of naturally grown lavender and a lavender labyrinth, dairy goats, U-pick blueberries, a lovely little shop carrying the farm’s lavender products and goat-milk soap, and, most recently, a homemade ice cream and coffee bar. Visitors are invited to view the goats, in a barn near the shop, and stroll through the fields of lavender up to the farm’s peak, with wide views of the Black Mountain Range.
From here, you’re off on another twisting, turning and wildly scenic drive for 75 minutes, to Banner Elk. Tonight you won’t have to worry about drinking and driving if you stay at the Blueberry Villa at the Banner Elk Winery, an hour from Mountain Farm. Suites at the luxury bed and breakfast overlook vineyards and blueberry bushes and have mountain views. And of course guests are treated to wine tastings.
Saturday
Fueled by your gourmet breakfast at Blueberry Villa, head east for about 30 minutes through mountain-flanked valleys to Boone, home to the lively Watauga County Farmers’ Market. In operation since 1974, it draws hundreds of visitors and, during the summer peak season, 80 to 90 farm, food and craft vendors. While you’re there, stop for a stroll at the adjacent Daniel Boone Native Gardens, which has an impressive collection of native plants.
If you’ve never encountered alpacas up-close and personal, you’re in for a thrill when you take the weekly tour at Apple Hill Farm in nearby Valle Crucis. You’ll be backtracking, but it’s worth it, and the mountainous drive up to the Apple Hill’s 43 hilltop acres is pretty fun too. To guard her alpacas, farmer Lee Rankin also raises llamas and donkeys. The tour includes a look at her naturally grown produce garden, berries, apple orchard and plenty of alpaca face time. A lovely shop in the stylish barn carries goods made from alpaca fleece, goat milk soap and other hand-made products.
Heading back toward Boone, you’ll soon reach Valle Crucis, where you’ll stay for the night. Once you’ve checked in at the venerable Mast Farm Inn, you won’t want to leave. The good news is, you won’t have to, because a scrumptious dinner awaits.
For more than a century, visitors to the mountains have stayed at this historic country inn, which in 2006 was bought by the extremely hospitable Deschamps family. Seven guest rooms are available in the original 1880s farmhouse, graced with an inviting wraparound porch. Eight other cabins and cottages on the grounds are rented out as well, some new, others historic, including the Loom House, the iconic two-room log cabin that started the farm in the early 1800s and was later turned into a space for spinning and weaving. Guests are invited to stroll through the inn’s large organic garden, which supplies its outstanding farm-to-table restaurant, Simplicity. And make sure you drop by Simplicity’s Pantry, a small shop in the main lodge filled to the brim with food products made in North Carolina and Virginia.
Sunday
After a breakfast that might include the most decadent French toast you’ve ever tasted, it’s time to hit the highway and travel even farther north, to rural Ashe County, home to the largest number of Christmas tree farms in the state. Once you’ve worked off breakfast, stop in historic downtown West Jefferson for a bite at Frasers Restaurant on the main drag, South Jefferson Avenue. Another of our favorite spots, Bohemia Gallery, is a block up the street. Unfortunately it’s closed on Sundays, but it’s still worth pressing your nose against the window to see the artwork. Bohemia also is a tasting outlet for New River Winery, the county’s first winery.
You have a choice of places to stay tonight, Zydeco Moon Farm and Cabins in Grassy Creek or River House Inn and Restaurant, both in the community of Grassy Creek, north of West Jefferson. River House, 30 minutes from town, is the full-service option, featuring rooms in converted farm houses or rental cabins. Arrive early to stroll along the New River (or admire it from a front-porch rocking chair), and make sure you reserve a spot for the popular “Sunday Salon,” which features dinner and live music.
Up the road another 20 minutes you’ll reach the two self-service cabins at Zydeco Moon. Here, Joe Martin and Sally Thiel work a six-acre certified organic produce farm. They’re regulars at the Watauga County market, where Martin serves as board chairman, and are charter members of the New River Winery, which is run as a cooperative. Though you’ll have to stock your own kitchen, all guests get a basket of “whatever is growing,” Thiel says. The couple, who moved here from Baton Rouge, La., in 2005, built the attractive cabins, which come with vaulted ceilings and decks that look onto the Helton Creek Valley. They’ll give you a tour of the farm, and, if you’re itching to fish, the couple make that easy, too. Their stream is stocked with trout.
With all these farms you’ve been touring, why not stick around Grassy Creek a few days and rest up for your next outing. What else is there to do around here? Not all that much, which is the best part.
Diane Daniel can be reached at diane@bydianedaniel.com.
About the Book
“Farm Fresh North Carolina,” the first statewide guidebook of its kind in the country, and from which this article is taken, leads readers on a lively tour of more than 425 farms, produce stands, farmers’ markets, wineries, children-friendly pumpkin patches and corn mazes, pick-your-own orchards, restaurants, bed and breakfasts, agricultural festivals and more. All destinations are open to the public and have been personally vetted by travel writer Diane Daniel.
The book also includes 20 recipes gathered from North Carolina farmers, innkeepers and chefs, as well as pieces on the state’s agricultural history and eccentricities.
Emphasizing farms and establishments that are independent, sustainable and active in public education and conservation, “Farm Fresh North Carolina” will help Tar Heels and visitors discover how the burgeoning farm movement has become a bridge between North Carolina’s past and present.