Lisa Smith is passionate about food, especially local food. It’s a passion that serves her well as development manager for the Neighborhood Co-op Grocery in Carbondale.
Smith and her husband Rick have had a home in Mitchell County, North Carolina, for many years. Rick is a professor in blacksmithing and metalsmithing in the School of Art and Design at SIU. Earlier in his career, he was a visiting artist for Penland School of Crafts, located in the Black Mountains near Bakersville, North Carolina.
About 10 years ago, Smith began to see a few changes in Mitchell County, and those changes have turned the area into a destination for dining and local food and art.
“They support local in a way that we don’t in Southern Illinois,” Smith said. “And the things they are doing, we could do here.”
Smith said people in Southern Illinois do not feel empowered to affect the local community. She began to ask what everyday citizens could do to draw people to our area.
Lisa Smith invited several people from Neighborhood Co-op and Food Works to join her on July 16 through 18 for a farm tour and visit to restaurants in North Carolina. Lisa was joined by Courtney Smith, owner services and outreach coordinator at Neighborhood Co-op, and second-year farmer; Brandi Pelissier, lead cook at Neighborhood Co-op and farmer; and Reanna Putnam, farmers market program manager at Food Works.
Mitchell County is beautiful. Houses, art studios and small galleries are nestled in the mountains near Penland School. Some of the small gallery spaces, some similar in size to backyard sheds in Illinois, operate like roadside vegetable stands. Visitors come in to see the art. Pick out a purchase and talk to the artist, if he or she is available, and leave payment.
Penland School of Crafts sits near the top of a mountain. Different buildings house different disciplines. Some of the buildings are built of black stone from the mountains, others are constructed logs and stone. A few take a more modern form. A small log cabin near the road houses the dye shop for textiles. The unifying factor is the people in those buildings — instructors, students and staff — are passionate about art. The man who mows the lawn even cuts patterns into the grass.
That passion for art flows into the surrounding communities. Downtown Spruce Pine features upper and lower streets lined with crafts shops, galleries, antique shops, restaurants and other businesses. Bakersville is also home to several cooperative galleries.
Day One
On the first day in North Carolina, the group from Carbondale visited two Bakersville galleries.
Mica showcases the work of 14 artists who work and live in the surrounding mountains. The artists take turns working in the gallery. Most of its artists have a connection to Penland School, including nationally known potter Cynthia Bringle.
Mica is a cooperative gallery in Bakersville, North Carolinam that showcases the work of 14 artists.
Around the corner from Mica, is Crimson Laurel Gallery. Founded in 2002, Crimson Laurel features one of the largest selections of studio ceramics in the United States. It also offers fine jewelry, eclectic furniture, glass, sculpture, paintings and antiques.
The Crimson Laurel in Bakersville, North Carolina, features a nationally acclaimed collection of pottery.
The parallel to Southern Illinois is clear to Lisa Smith. Southern Illinois is home to a vibrant arts community, and many of the artists have connections to SIU.
Day Two
The second day of the tour in North Carolina featured local foods.
One stop was to talk to Robin Leonard of Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Program in Asheville. ASAP, as it is commonly known, is a nonprofit organization that helps local farms thrive, links farmers to markets and supporters, and builds healthy communities through connections to local food. ASAP hosts farm tours, provides marketing support and training for farmers, publishes a local food guide, runs a farm-to-school program, coordinates the Mountain Tailgate Market Association and certifies products that are locally grown or raised through Appalachian Grown.
But the Carbondale group wondered how ASAP started building its vision of community.
Leonard answered that they began by hosting grower-buyer meetings and surveying the buyers. The survey provided information to farmers such as the types and quantities of local food they would purchase or could use, how the buyers preferred food to be delivered, and much more.
“Our work is how to maintain the integrity of local in the distribution process,” Leonard said. “We’re trying to work with local foods about how to keep the local brand in stores and with farmers to label products as Appalachian Grown.”
Appalachian Grown is a program that identifies locally grown and raised products. The program does not require site visits, and it is geared to family farms in the region.
“People are seeing that local is meaningful and useful,” Leonard said.
Farmers are required to renew annually and update their listings online. The online listing is free. The cost is $100 to be in a printed Local Food Guide. The food guide includes farms, tailgate markets, plus partner restaurants, artisan foods, grocery stores and other businesses that are committed to sourcing from certified farms.
Leonard also explained their process for farm tours, including choosing farms, training farmers and volunteers, and marketing the tour.
Utilizing locally grown products
The Purple Onion, located in historic Saluda, North Carolina, was the next stop. The cafe offers pizza, pasta, vegetarian, seafood and meat dishes utilizing locally raised trout and organic produce when available, as well as fine wine and beers.
This fresh berry torte was one of the desserts on the menu at The Purple Onion in Saluda, North Carolina.
The restaurant was conceived in 1998 by sisters, Lynn and Susan Casey. Susan had started a catering business in 1994, but the sisters wanted to create a place for friends and family to come together for good food, good conversation and live music.
Lynn fell in love, married and moved from Saluda. Susan and husband, Stoney Lamar, a sculptor, stayed and continued to run the restaurant.
“I have become very passionate about what’s going on here,” Casey said.
Casey said price is the first thing that stops restaurants from using local food. Food is 38 percent of her restaurant budget. She started slow, not using much local food during the first five years of The Purple Onion. Gradually, she has increased use of local products.
Susan Casey, owner of The Purple Onion in Saluda, North Carolina, talks to a group from Carbondale about the trials and triumphs of using locally-grown and raised foods in a restaurant.
At the beginning of each shift, the staff goes over the specials and where they come from. It’s something Casey’s customers have come to appreciate.
Saluda has become a tourist destination, in part because of local food. The town’s population is 650 most of the year, but swells to about 1,800 during the summer when vacationers return to the area. The town’s main street features a mix of restaurants, like The Purple Onion, antique and resale shops, small general stores and grocers. The local farmer’s market, called tailgate markets in North Carolina, features about 25 farmers and producers and is very popular.
While talking to the group from Carbondale, Casey stopped several times to talk to farmers dropping off produce and eggs.
“We have a very energetic group of seven committed people who run our tailgate market. It gives me a chance to meet growers and it gives them a reason to come to market,” Casey said.
“I’ve developed a clientele that knows where their food comes from,” Casey said.
Day Three
The group from Carbondale wanted to know about those farms, too. On their third day in North Carolina, the group toured several farms on the High Country Farm Tour sponsored by Blue Ridge Women in Agriculture.
The first was FIG (Farmer Incubator and Grower). The project began with students from Appalachian State University. It is supported by the Heifer Project and Blue Ridge Seeds of Change. The land is in a long-term conservation trust for farmers.
The second farm was an organic community garden behind Mast General Store in Valle Crucis. The gardener, Susan Owen, designed the garden in the shape of a butterfly with closed wings. It is an volunteer-run garden and provides produce for FARM (Feed All Regardless of Means), a café located near the garden.
Susan Owen talks about growing potatoes above ground by creating potato towers from fencing and straw at a community garden in Valle Crucis, North Carolina.
The fertilizer comes from composted coffee grinds, garden debris, beer mash and scraps from the café.
“I do a lot of scavenging that way. We do our own composting,” Owen said.
The café feeds anyone who is hungry for a donation. That donation can be monetary or time.
“One in four kids is food insecure. You cannot tell by what someone has or where they live that they are food insecure,” Owen said. “If you are hungry you can eat at the café. We ask for one hour of time.”
Owen said they are doing good work and changing the world.
The last farm tour stop was at Shipley Farm, near Valle Crucis. The Shipley Farm is primarily a livestock farm. It is 117-acres and has five natural springs and two major sources of water. The beef is primarily grass fed, supplemented with one percent grain based on weight of calves. Current Shipley farmers are the fifth generation of the family to raise cattle at that location.
“We hope the name of R.G. Shipley Signature Beef will be as popular as Omaha Steaks,” R.G. Shipley II said.
The farm’s patriarch, 103-year-old R.G Shipley, talked to visitors at the end of each tour and thanked them for coming.
R.G. Shipley, 103, talks to guest at Shipley Farms during the Blue Ridge Women in Agriculture Farm Tour on July 18.
The last North Carolina Stop was Spoon. The bar, located on the upper main street (Oak Avenue) in Spruce Pine, is a companion to Knife and Fork, a farm-to-table restaurant on Locust Street (the lower main street) in Spruce Pine.
A tagline is printed on each menu that reads, “All menus change each day just before service based on the availability of seasonal meats and produce.”
Head chef and owner Nathan Allen prepares menus at both the restaurant and bar based on food available locally. He serves many local brews and spirits, and creates cocktails with local ingredients. While head chef/owner sounds like an impressive title, he often is found in the kitchen or tending bar.
Allen started visiting North Carolina in 1998 and decided Spruce Pine was the perfect place to incubate because there was nothing in town. Allen lived in Los Angeles at the time.
“I’ve always been in love with small towns. I wanted to find a place with that small town charm,” he said.
And Spruce Pine is that. Both upper and lower main streets are dotted with restaurants, galleries and shops. But Allen had a little more in mind.
“We really thought we could be the vanguard of change, and we’ve done that,” he said.
Chef Nathan, owner of spoon in Spruce Pine, North Carolina, tends bar and visits with customers on July 18.
He opened Knife and Fork six years ago. He worked with farmers to help write grants to increase their production and the diversity of products. Six to eight farms doubled their production as a supplier to the restaurant.
“If North Carolina is doing this amazing thing and creating this energy, why can’t we do it,” Lisa Smith said.
Allen sees his businesses as his service to the town.
“I really want things like this to be in the world, so I do it. It would be amazing if, in our sixth year, people see it as necessary,” Allen said.
Making personal connections
Later, members of the Carbondale group seemed a little frustrated.
“It seems like in Illinois we’ve been talking about this forever,” Lisa Smith said.
“We need connectivity. We need to make those personal connections,” Putnam said.
Lisa Smith said the Co-Op needs to figure it out to show people in Carbondale that this kind of model is possible.
“People need to try things until it doesn’t fail,” Courtney Smith said.
And, after returning to Carbondale on July 19, members of the tour group are working on creating a strong local food system.
Food Works sponsored a potluck and mixer for local chefs, restaurateurs and farmers on July 20.
A small group met July 23 to discuss creating a brand similar to Appalachian Grown for Southern Illinois grown and raised food products.
The film series at Neighborhood Co-op and Food Works wraps up Friday at Scratch Brewery in Ava with the film, “Food for Change” at dusk. Watch for details of the Eat Local Challenge, which will be the first two weeks in September.
How can you get involved? Simply ask where the food you are buying at the grocery store or your favorite restaurant is grown.
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