North Carolina - 10/2008 - Day 1

Bettye, Tom, Peggy, Jon Mark, Momma, and I load up and drive up to North Carolina for a few days of eating and touring about. The first destination was Asheville, and of course, our first activity was to eat. So it was off to the Early Girl for the noon meal.

No place captures the flavor of Asheville and the rural mountains of western North Carolina like the Early Girl Eatery on Wall Street in downtown. ...a restaurant where people feel that they're paying for the food on their plate and not everything else

We dined copiously. This was the scene of our Early Girl conquest. Morning, afternoon and night, the Early Girl Eatery serves a wide variety of delicious southern dishes that'll please every palette. Made from scratch, with many ingredients acquired from local farmers, the menu reflects the creative diversity of true southern cooking.

The Early Girl Eatery opened its doors in mid October of 2001. Centrally located in downtown Asheville on historic Wall Street, the critically-acclaimed Eatery offers delicious southern food in a casual, charming atmosphere.

The Early Girl serves dinner Tuesday thru Saturday night and offers breakfast and lunch 7 days a week. The dinner menu emphasizes comfort and relaxation with the same attention to freshness and innovative specials that we apply to our breakfast, lunch and brunch menus. As the restaurant continues to grow so does the selection of baked-from-scratch-goods. Delicious quick breads and desserts are available every day and whole pies and cakes can be ordered with at least 24 hours notice.

The menu relies heavily on the high quality local produce grown in the area by family farms and community-supported agriculture (CSAs). The cheeses and some of the meats are also produced and raised locally. The menu changes periodically with the seasons, while the specials change daily. This enables them to better utilize the local ingredients available. They believe local food tastes better and sustains a healthy community. Made from scratch is the motto at the Early Girl, and the recipes reflect their background in southern cooking as well as their vast experience with vegetarian fare. Then it's off to the Mast General Store.

The Asheville store has been a retail landmark in downtown since the mid 40s when it was built by Fain's . . . and even before that when it was Mears Bros. General Mercantile (but in a much older building). Be sure to notice the terrazzo tile in the entrance way; it's a definite reminder of the Fain's era.

Inside, this downtown emporium has been restored to its 1940s heyday featuring fixtures from the era and other mementos from the past displaying Mast's unique blend of traditional clothing for men and women from such names as Woolrich, Flyshacker and Northern Isles. You'll also find a complete outfitters department featuring hiking and camping gear, boots, and casual footwear from Mountain Hardwear , Kelty, Columbia, Royal Robbins, Asolo, Keen, Clarks, Ecco, and more. Mast's signature items can be found in the Mercantile Department, which is just jam-packed with cast iron cookware, pottery, baskets and other crafts, old fashioned toys, and a candy section featuring over 500 old-fashioned hard-to-find candies. Shopped out, we head out toward the Biltmore Estate.

We check in at the Inn on Biltmore Estate and experienced Biltmore's tradition of warm, gracious hospitality as an honored guest. Luxurious rooms. Flawless service. Fine dining. Marvelous mountain views. A relaxing veranda. Afternoon tea in the library. Refreshing pool. Concierges eager to assist. Carefree transportation around the 8,000-acre estate.

Our room.

The view from our room.

After getting settled in, it was time for a little taste.

We decamp to the back veranda to relax all of the old nerves. Calmed from the day's tribulations, it's time to think about getting ready for the evening meal.

We load up and head in to town to dine at The Grove Park Inn's Sunset Terrace.

Built from granite boulders hewn from Sunset Mountain, The Grove Park Inn opened in 1913. At its opening dinner, William Jennings Bryan declared that it had been “built for the ages.” In the decades since it has become one of the South’s most famous and venerable resorts.

The hotel was the vision of E.W. Grove, a St. Louis entrepreneur who made his millions in the 1890s peddling an elixir called Grove’s Tasteless Chill Tonic. For his Inn, he envisioned a hotel that would be like “a big home where every modern convenience could be found, but with all the old-fashioned qualities of genuineness with no sham.”

Modeled after the grand old railway hotels of the West, the Inn was built from a sketch made by Grove’s son-in-law, the enterprising Fred Seely (who would become its first general manager). It took a crew of 400 men only 12 months to build the majestic landmark, dragging hundreds of tons of boulders up the mountainside with the aid of teams of mules, ropes and pulleys, wagons and a lone steam shovel.

The lobby is known as The Great Hall — and for good reason. Measuring 120 feet across, the hall features 24-foot ceilings and two gigantic 14-foot stone fireplaces. It’s famous for the elevators cleverly hidden in the chimneys of the stone fireplaces (put there to conceal the noise of the machinery), which continue to transport guests to their rooms today.

It’s hard to believe today but there was a time soon after WWII when the only thing that kept the Inn standing was the prohibitive cost of tearing it down.

Fortunately, in 1955, the hotel caught the eye of Dallas businessman named Charles Sammons. Under the stewardship of Sammons and his wife Elaine, the Inn was fully restored and, in1973, it was named to the National Register of Historic Places.

Now, it's on to the Sunset Terrace. A speciality was the Oyster Brie Soup, which was topped with a fried oyster. MMmmmm Good.