There is no cuisine with out gardens and farmers.   Since my very first days in 1972 as chef and restaurant owner at the Frog & Owl Café in Highlands, NC all my cooking has started from a local garden, pond, wild forage or grazing field.  The basis of the craft of cooking is to honor those ingredients - to present it's special flavor and nutrition with the utmost care and joy.

My days, then, would start with a split oak basket and pocket knife (which I still use) and I would visit the farms of Ruby Harper on Gold Mine Road or the Teague Farm on the Franklin Road.  I was allowed to walk the field and cut my own, paying on an honor system.  Much of this was from necessity, as no one would deliver down the narrow dirt road to the restaurant.

Today, that tradition is central to our kitchen.  Today we are fortunate for the wonderful tailgate markets, which we visit twice a week in season.  Also for the other wonderful producers that delivery to our doorstep - Sunburst Trout, Spinning Spider Creamery, Spring House Meats, The Nichols Farm, Blue Hill Farms and the local gatherers, like Alan Muskat 'The Mushroom Man'.  The circle broadens into Tennessee, now that Tom Michaels is producing Tuber melanosporum in his hazelnut and oak orchards - the Perigord truffle. 

 In the pages that follow here, a few of the stories of the people we work with on a daily basis, following the season, and in the bigger picture, the circle of life.