Asheville and western North Carolina have long been meccas for artisans and craftspeople. The Southern Highland Craft Guild calls Asheville home, and one hour northeast of town is the renowned Penland School of Crafts. Many artists who come here to study never leave. With an abundance of organic farms and artisan food purveyors (www.buyappalachian.org), it's only natural that talented chefs would follow. Hence there's a great restaurant scene.
Make a plan: For an insider's view of regional crafts and foods, Handmade in America (800-331-4154, www.handmadeinamerica.org) packages lodging with visits to organic farms or artisans' studios, plus workshops, such as carving your own walking stick and growing culinary herbs. Just a few miles out of town on the Blue Ridge Parkway, The Southern Highland Craft Guild's Folk Art Center (828-298-7928, www.craftguild.org) features the creations of many of its 900 members for sale and exhibits hand-blown glass, quilts, corn shuck dolls, and other examples of Appalachian crafts. Continue south on the parkway for a fall foliage stop at the North Carolina Arboretum (828-665-2492), a 426-acre garden within the Pisgah National Forest, or enjoy the many vantage points along the parkway that provide incomparable views of the mountains.
Between trails in the Blue Ridge Mountains and those at the North Carolina Arboretum (where lunch can be enjoyed amidst the many gardens), there's no shortage of places to hike in Asheville.
Kitchen smarts: Pick up a wooden nut-and-bolt nutcracker at T.S. Morrison (877-876-2297, www.tsmorrison.com), Asheville's oldest store, which opened in 1891. Take home vacuum-packed smoked mountain trout from Sunburst Trout Company (800-673-3051). Asheville's most nationally acclaimed chef and owner of the Market Place Restaurant, Mark Rosenstein, has a monthly cooking demonstration/wine dinner at the restaurant, and seasonal four-day workshops at his home with spontaneous menus determined by local farms' freshest ingredients.
Good food: The Market Place Restaurant (828-252-4162) serves fresh seafood, game, and meats smoked with apple wood. The Early Girl Eatery (828-259-9292) uses farm-fresh vegetables for innovative dishes, such as spinach potato cakes with tomato gravy. And Salsa's (828-252-9805) is a hit with locals who love the Mexican-Caribbean cuisine-owner Hector Diaz's bottled salsa is a great souvenir.
Call it a night: The Hawk and Ivy Country Retreat Bed and Breakfast ($100 to $140; 888-395-7254, www.hawkandivy.com) is a 1910 farmhouse surrounded by organic gardens. Stay at the Inn at Biltmore Estate ($329 to $2,000; 800-624-1575, www.biltmore.com), and explore the 19th-century château of George Vanderbilt.
Rainbow Connection: Asheville's best chefs buy their fresh rainbow trout from Sunburst Trout Company (www.sunbursttrout.com), and you can, too. Take home tasty smoked trout, or order online from this North Carolina farm that sells fresh fillets,
hot and cold smoked trout, smoked trout dip, trout cakes, and trout caviar. Sunburst has converted many top chefs to its health- and environment-conscious products. The company uses no antibiotics, hormones, or meat by-products in its feed, and utilizes every part of the fish. For example, small pieces that fall off the fillets during smoking are used for trout dip and trout cakes; unusable parts are composted with
sawdust and sold to local farmers for a nominal fee. Tours of the harvesting process are provided.
