I am always happy to see the special issues that the Indy does. They are so informative and this one is especially delightful. Or maybe I'm just more stir-crazy than usual after this miserable winter!
Anyhow, I excerpted the Chatham County parts and one photo of the goats at Celebrity Dairy, but the entire article is a joy to read.
Loca-tours: Gourmet getaways are something to savor17 MAR 2010 • by Jane Hobson Snyder
The one-room cottage of rough-cut oak waits for me to return. Leafy branches rustle outside the screened porch as birds sing a duet and bees swoop through the perennials. A trail, dark and mossy, curves through the mountain laurel.
When life in Raleigh gets too raucous or discouraging, I ring up David, and this cottage in the hill country off U.S. 64 is mine for the night. If he has time, he'll have a lemon cheesecake and chilled champagne waiting on the porch. Then he'll start pulling recipes for breakfast the next morning.
As the former head chef at the Carolina Inn, David Simmons understands the importance of food to the traveler. He is the innkeeper at the
Bed and Breakfast at Laurel Ridge in Siler City, one of the Triangle's many excellent spots for loca-touring—getting away without going away.
...
Chatham County: Eat Your Heart OutAffordable lodging options in Chatham County include the Inn at
Celebrity Dairy, a working goat farm that produces 15,000 pounds of Montrachet-style chèvre each year for local restaurants, farmers' markets and shops like Whole Foods. Brit Pfann, a former naval engineer in his early 70s, founded the farm with his artist wife, Fleming. He is quite the gentleman farmer in a button-down shirt and khaki Carhartt coat, quoting facts on goat gestation and lactation as he absently offers fingers to a suckling baby goat.
Celebrity Dairy goats, Photo by Jane Hobson Snyder
A mural of cavorting goats decorates the peak of the inn's façade. The inn itself was built just 13 years ago around the skeleton of a circa 1810 log cabin, still visible inside.
Celebrity Dairy is child-friendly, with a small toy room off the atrium and a rope swing by the barn. It's one of the area's few B&Bs that allows children, and those younger than 6 stay for free.
Rooms at the inn vary from $90–$150 and include breakfast with the farm crew. Look for Fleming's apricot-pecan spelt muffins (see recipe) or caretaker-cook Brooke Simmons' artichoke-caper-chèvre savory tart. From a long communal table in the sunny atrium, guests sip coffee while peering out at free-range chickens, guinea fowl and a peacock named Rupert Murdoch. Behind trees, cats marked with war wounds skulk like hunters.
These days, Fleming is focusing on the inn's Sunday afternoon dinner series. Four times a year, the restaurateurs of Bonne Soiree serve dinner at the inn (the next one is March 21). Dinners cooked by the inn's staff are scheduled for Easter Sunday April 4 and April 18.
At
Rosemary House, near the roundabout in Pittsboro, you can stay in rooms with names like "Haven," "Retreat" and "Meadow" for between $89 and $169. For a magical experience, trek to Jordan Lake, where
Frog Hollow Outdoors runs evening kayak tours once a month. The 2010 Paddle Under the Stars season starts April 10, led by an astronomer from the Morehead Planetarium ($36).
At David and Lisa Simmons'
Bed and Breakfast at Laurel Ridge (rooms and cottage, $98–$159), little can tempt you to leave, except the idea of dinner in Pittsboro. Have beers and sandwiches at the year-old
City Tap or head to the
General Store Cafe for a Mayan Burrito ($13, sweet potato and jerk chicken) or Energy Bowl ($15, brown rice, steamed vegetables, roasted tomatoes and marinated tofu).
Laurel Ridge's breakfasts, served on pottery from nearby
Stone Crow, are the star of the visit, featuring the Simmons' fresh garden herbs in dishes like dilled scrambled eggs with smoked salmon or pumpkin basil pancakes (see recipe). David Simmons, a former chef, was into locavore eating long before it was fashionable.
"You know, in 1993, in one of my very first brochures, I mentioned that we try to use as many local and organic foods as we can possibly find," he says. "Now it's become part of the national thinking."
Need more to explore? In May, the alcohol-free Friday Night Music series on the Haw starts up again at the
Bynum General Store, with gospel, folk, blues, rockabilly and bluegrass.
Chatham County: Stay in StyleThe
Fearrington House Inn's white fences and well-groomed hoofed beasts greet visitors to one of the region's two AAA five-diamond properties. (The Umstead Hotel and Spa in Cary claims the other.) Getaway packages vary but most include one night's accommodation, tea for two, dinner for two, breakfast for two, free bike usage and all the fainting goat- and belted cow-watching you can do, plus a $25 gift card to their shops. Midweek package rates through March 31 are $295; weekends through May are $385; the Culinary Retreat package, featuring a hands-on cooking class and wine-and-cheese reception with Chef Colin Bedford, is $820.
If you'd like to dine in the manor house but can't afford the lodging, stay elsewhere and drive over for the Fearrington Interlude menu, $49 for three courses through March 31.
http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=413018 
