Most of our trip plans have been fairly fluid, with only a couple pre-planned location deadlines. Spending Thanksgiving in Asheville with Chelsea’s aunts and sister was one of the plans we were really looking forward to. Situated just off the Blue Ridge Parkway, Asheville is a hippie town and a foodies’ paradise, with way more high quality restaurants, breweries, coffee/chocolate shops, etc. per capita than we’d yet experienced. Chelsea’s Aunt Janet moved there from Tampa FL last year, and Janet’s description of the town and dedicated Facebook updates of her food/drink/farmers market/etc. experiences have kept us drooling since we made our Thanksgiving plans. Chelsea’s aunts Billie and Judy were visiting for the holiday and – as we found out when we sat down to catch up with everyone – recently signed a lease and are planning to move from Tampa to the same townhome complex as Janet in the new year. Chelsea’s sister Kiki was also going to fly into town from NYC on Thanksgiving day to stay through the start of the weekend, so our week promised to be a good time with great people.
We rolled in late Monday night. Billie, Judy, and Janet stayed up late to welcome us and catch up, and we got a short tour of Janet’s townhome. Janet is an eBay-based used bookseller, focusing on historical and particularly on family history books. She uses her living room as her warehouse, and as such the room is covered in wall-to-wall bookshelves filled with old, impressive volumes. The result is incredibly cozy, like the most welcoming bookstore/coffeeshop imaginable. We also met Janet’s beagle Wally, who as Billie warned us before we arrived is “a great dog… but can get a bit over-excited if people make a big deal over him.” We were too tired to make a big deal that evening, but later in the week Seth especially had a good time playing with him.
Seth works on grad apps at Janet's. Note bookshelves, fire,
dark beer, and Miracle on 34th Street - it doesn't get cozier.
Our highly tasteful (no pun intended) food and drink tour started at breakfast the next morning. We had delicious, locally roasted artisan coffee and Home Free Bagels. The bagel company provides work opportunities for the unemployed and homeless, and instead of using their own kitchen and storefront they use the local community kitchen and sell at the farmer’s market and through distributors. We then headed into town. It was raining super hard, so after a brief tour from the car we went to lunch at The Wicked Weed, one of the many Asheville breweries (we had to get our brewery tour out of the way before Kiki got into town). As it turns out, hops are the “wicked weed” as described by Henry VIII, who said that hops ruined beer. Both Chelsea and Seth enjoy hoppy beer, so we thought the extensive selection was wicked (erm..). Lunch was followed by a trip to the local co-op for Thanksgiving dinner supplies, then the bakery next door, REI, and finally the Whole-Foods-esque supermarket. When we headed back to Janet’s to escape the rain, we were treated to selections from Janet’s impressive in-home beer collection and introduced to Foyle’s War, a quality Masterpiece Theater production.
On Wednesday we woke up to snow on the ground. Wally had some trouble deciding where to take his morning pee since all of his bushes were covered, but everyone else was pretty excited. After we finished our breakfast of more wonderful coffee and Janet’s homemade granola (again, delicious) and the snow had cleared up a bit, we went back downtown for more exploring. We started with another great lunch at The Laughing Leaf, a vegetarian restaurant affiliated with the Jack of the Wood pub and Green Man brewery. We then toured the downtown shops and Chelsea’s aunts told us about the history of Asheville. Judy lived in Asheville during the 70’s, and she described how it has changed from a nondescript Appalachian town into the cultural hub that it is now. We visited an open, warehouse-style art gallery/collective, the Asheville Arcade (a 1920’s-era building with impressive architecture that now hosts a number of shops and businesses) and several new and used bookstores. After exploring the sights and shops, we headed across the river to West Asheville to pick up our Thanksgiving pies from the cupcake and pie-shop there, and then crossed the street to Urban Orchard Cider for more libations. We ended the day with dinner at the Thirsty Monk, one of Janet’s favorite pubs. The Thirsty Monk is a two-story bar with a large selection of local and high-quality beer on tap on the ground floor, and a basement bar that serves Belgian-style beer (as well as some other interesting selections, like an “ancient IPA” which we should have tried but didn’t). The bar tacos, pizza, pasties etc. are also very good.
Morning snow!
Billie, Judy, Chelsea and Seth at the Thirsty Monk.
Billie and Chelsea take Wally for his evening walk.
Thanksgiving Day, we drove to the airport to pick Kiki up with Billie and Judy. Chelsea spent most of the drive back and the rest of the afternoon chatting and catching up with everyone while Seth put more time into his grad school applications. Janet’s friends arrived later in the evening, and after introductions we settled down to eat. Dinner was, like every other meal we had in Asheville, absolutely delicious. Janet also provided an essentially bottomless selection of great beers, including the best pumpkin beer Chelsea has ever had (basically pumpkin pie in a glass) and Kentucky bourbon cream. We had originally planned to start driving to Hueco the next morning, but it didn’t take much convincing for us to decide to stay through Friday and continue exploring now that Kiki was also in town.
Kiki waiting for dinnertime.
Candid shot of dinner and table prep.
Wally gets tormented by cat lovers (don't worry, he probably enjoyed it).
Like everyone else in Asheville (or at least the number of people made it seem that way), we went back downtown on Friday. We returned to the Arcade, the warehouse-gallery, and the bookstores to show Kiki, and also visited a number of other boutiques and shops. It was a beautiful, crisp sunny day, so we were able to spend more time walking around outside viewing the buildings and fairly extensive graffiti gallery that Asheville hosts. We again visited one of Janet’s top breweries, which was celebrating Black Friday by serving only dark beers and is famous for a “coffee and doughnut stout” that tastes like sweet coffee mixed with dark beer (sounds weird, tastes good). We finished the day at the French Broad Chocolate Lounge, which had a line out the door for most of the day. When we finally arrived at the counter and received our chocolates, it was well worth the wait. In addition to fabulous chocolate bars and truffles, French Broad also has to-die-for drinking chocolate, brownies, cakes, and locally-made (of course) ice cream.
Asheville street art - RIP Lou!
Kiki, Billie, Seth and Chelsea outside the Asheville Arcade.
After all of this indulgence, it wasn’t hard to get to bed early in preparation for our long drive to El Paso. When we woke up, we said thanks and goodbye to everyone, and got back on the road…
Many, many thanks to Billie, Judy, Janet, and Kiki for such a great time, and for all of the treats. We had a wonderful visit. It was great to see you all and catch up, and you gave us a fantastic introduction to the town. Additionally, good luck to Billie and Judy as they pack up and get ready to move; we are super excited for you!
Asheville HIGHLIGHTS (in the foodie style):
Chelsea – Blue Ridge scenery, Wicked Weed hoppy red ale, Dogfish Head 61 (their 60-minute with added Syrah grape must), walking around town, Good Gourd Imperial Pumpkin Ale, Thirsty Monk tempeh tacos, Janet’s persimmon pudding, French Broad Chocolates (duh), walking Wally, sharing all of the above with great company J
Seth – A warm, cozy place to work on grad apps, seeing my cousin Bob and his wife Katie (Our gracious hosts in D.C), the Hopcecutioner IPA, Asheville's quality bookstores, Thirsty Monk's pizza, French Broad Chocolate, and last but not least that a dog from the toy group did NOT win the AKC National Dog Show.
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