Blue Ridge Country - September/October 2014 - 59

Season's at Highland Lake Inn and Resort,
Flat Rock, North Carolina
"If you'd told me when I was 18 I was going to be a
chef, I would have thought you were crazy," says
Michelle Bailey. "I was still cooking crunchy macaroni and cheese out of the box at that time." Today,
she's winning regional and national awards in cooking. A native of Memphis - her family moved to
western North Carolina when she was 15. She started
cooking just to pay rent.

highland lake

"I kind of had a passion for the meat - it's the
center of the plate," Rule says.
"Most of my experience has been in the southern
tradition... my grandparents had a farm when I was a
kid. . . They used to kill their hogs in November... they
did that as a necessity." They cured meats in the
smokehouse and the cellar.
Today, Rule's work environment is 41 degrees. "I'm
pretty much completely underground," cutting and
curing the meat - "I am using a whole hog a week."
What's important to him about this work?
"Just a couple generations away, not that long ago,
they were doing what I do as a means of survival - that
really hits home." It's important to him to make sure
those traditions aren't lost "just because we have grocery stores on every corner."
Plus, he laughs, "I think being in a butcher shop's
cool... I'm cutting big pieces of meat every day. I love
going home at the end of the day tired, feeling like
I've accomplished something."
"There's nothing prettier in the world than seeing
that black earth, and the potatoes rolling out of the
ground," says Blackberry's master gardener John
Coykendall. He's worked here for 15 years, and has
been collecting heritage seeds and vegetable varieties
since 1959.
Coykendall sees connections between the fields and
thinks of the gardener/chef analogy as the equivalent
of apprentice/Rembrandt, stretching canvases - "we're
doing all the raw produce... the master paints the
masterpiece."
The last two years, he has planted the Blackberry
Garden around themes. Last year, he planted seeds
from a 1913 catalog. This year, he planted a garden
recalling Cades Cove, Tennessee, 1818-1934.
Every year, Blackberry plants "new old things" from
the 500-plus varieties in its collection.
"It's kind of like having grandchildren," he says.
"You've got to know their birthdays, and a little bit
about them."
His tomato varieties include the Ponderosa, introduced in 1889. One year a woman celebrated her
106th birthday at Blackberry, and he asked her if she
knew it, and she exclaimed: "I haven't thought about
that tomato in 85 years!"

"I was lucky enough to meet a lot of folks in the
kitchen who were very talented, and that opened up
a whole new world for me." Her next step was culinary school, at the age of 24. She's 31 now, executive
chef at Highland Lake, and teaches monthly cooking
classes there.
Bailey sources some of her ingredients (grits, trout,
pork, goat cheeses) from local and regional farms and
producers, and from a two-acre organic garden on the
property of Highland Lake. She and two of her sous
chefs recently won the Fire on the Rock competition
for western North Carolina - they created three
courses in seven hours for 100 diners, and were
required to use grits in each course. The resulting
menu: lobster and grits coquette, roasted poblano and
grit puree. For the entree, "we made purple grits" in
muscadine sauce, with crispy glazed pork belly, and
blue cheese and grit cakes with smoked pork tenderloin. Dessert - "I was struggling with that a bit" -
brown sugar, spices, low heat and grits became a
streusel topping.
Bailey adopts the same creativity to her cooking at
Season's, developing different takes on traditional
dishes. For instance, sauerkraut made with brussel
sprouts - "brussel sprouts are basically miniature cabbages," so why not?
"I will pickle just about everything" - blackberries, figs. She works closely with Highland Lake's
full-time gardener Cory Heath, and they grow heirloom vegetables (beans, okra, cucumbers, squash,
edible flowers, lemongrass, herbs), creating a "big
garden map" and planting in phases so that not all
the tomatoes come in at once, for instance. They
harvest from two fig trees, as well as mulberry trees,
rhubarb and blueberries.
"We have fall squashes and gourds going on, some
carrots - we'll have radishes, broccoli, fall greens,
kale, turnips, mustard greens."
And beets. The restaurant regularly rotates four
vegetable sides, and Bailey not long ago combined
red and golden roasted beets, with orange segments,
Swiss chard and sea salt. Customers told her afterwards: "'I thought I hated beets. I want to go home
and cook beets.'
"As a chef, it doesn't get any better than that."

From the menu at
Season's: Moroccan
Spiced Rack of Lamb
with mint yogurt sauce,
turmeric oil, currant
couscous pilaf, baby
green beans and pickled
mustard seeds.

ready to visit?
Harvest on Main
576 East Main Street
Blue Ridge, Georgia
706-946-6164
harvestonmain.com

Season's at Highland Lake
Inn and Resort
86 Lily Pad Lane
Flat Rock, North Carolina
800-758-8130
hlinn.com/seasons

Blackberry Farm
1471 West Millers Cove Road
Walland, Tennessee
800-557-8864
blackberryfarm.com

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014 | 59

http://www.harvestonmain.com http://www.hlinn.com/seasons http://www.blackberryfarm.com

Blue Ridge Country - September/October 2014

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