Pittsboro, NC, Early Fall
October 3, 2011

Dear Friends,

Welcome to the  second in our new Food & Wine newsletter series! As we speak, our gardeners and chefs are sharpening their knives. In late October, they'll join together for a pumpkin-carving extravaganza that turns a nearby pumpkin patch into a beautiful and bountiful Jack-o-Lantern display for our annual Pumpkinfest.

Lit on Sunday, October 30th and Monday (Halloween) at twilight, pumpkins winking, snaggle-toothed - perched around the village center - draw little goblins from Chatham and Orange counties and beyond. We relish Pumpkinfest. This is fun and fellowship, celebrated with good food too. Details for Pumpkinfest include:

* Cupcakes at The Belted Goat are baked and pipe-decorated with buttercream frosting. Other festive (and at Halloween, candied) treats made by our famed wedding-cake artist Jill Leckey: "We also make Rice Crispies Treats, which everyone seems to love so much," says Jill.

* Chef Colin Bedford sets up his hot-pop-crackling Buttermilk Fried Chicken station in what's usually our relaxed, outdoor beer garden, Roost. We will have as always the best NC brews - and hot apple cider. Fullsteam Cream Ale has subtle hops and alcohol and light body. We also are featuring the Carolina Brewery's Oktoberfest, which is one of the best American examples of this lager-style of beer.

* Across from the chicken-fry at Roost, a special family-style dinner will be served at The Fearrington Granary on Sunday night. We don't take reservations for Pumpkinfest, as it's such a happy ruckus, so just come over and graze around. We'll be able to feed you at The Granary or at Roost or The Belted Goat.

Moving on from Halloween - and speaking of The Fearrington Granary - come and sit at the bar on the ground floor or in a quieter room upstairs for classic or extravagant "pub food": French Fries (plain classic or Truffled Parmesan) and Fish & Chips (with Crushed Peas); Grilled Steaks (your choice of cut and house sauces and sides); Grilled Fish (Mahi and Salmon among the catches); American Hamburgers (classic or extravagant with House-cured Pork Belly and local fried egg toppings); and Salads (Wedge, Spinach, Roasted Beet, Caesar or to you liking with Grilled Steak or Fish). Please check out the full menu here. Since Colin revamped and revitalized The Granary this summer, we've been happy to see our neighbors pop in nightly for dinner and pairings, such as local and Belgium beer, fabulous wine, and hearty cocktails selected by Fearrington Wine Director Max Kast.

Colin's Roast Beef Tips with Madeira Sauce (delicious) is a Granary favorite. As a beer pairing Max suggests, "Allagash Dubbel, from Maine. It is a Belgian-style brown ale, with notes of banana peel, roasted coffee, cocoa, plum on nose, with a refreshing, yet full-mouth, feel - perfect for the steak tips." Also, he suggests Bell's Stout from Kalamazoo, Michigan. It's on tap - creamy, with roasted coffee notes, dark berries, and a bit of bitterness - the perfect beer to warm up to at the bar.

And if you are planning Thanksgiving, the Granary menu may give you inspiration perhaps just hearing about Roast Turkey with Turkey Leg and Country Ham Ragout and Pumpkin Mousse with Butterscotch Panna Cotta. Good reasons to spend the Thursday with us! Three courses are $55.

Andrea Cash from Chapel Hill Magazine, who stops by often, featured Chef Colin Bedford in her just-released annual foodie issue. Colin Bedford took her Chef's Challenge with lamb shoulder, smoked farmer's cheese, cippolini and purslane. He joined two other local chefs (Sheila Neal and Aaron Vandermark) in improvising on the spot. Colin's Sous Vide Lamb and Cippolini landed over a Farmer's Cheese Blini, topped with Olive and Fennel-based Chutney. This dish focused on contrasting flavor profiles. "I love to do the whole sweet-and-sour thing," Colin says. The article illustrates well his skill with sous vide (and explains the method for both the lamb and cippolini). It also captures well Colin's philosophy and sense of humor. "A posh weed," he calls purslane, as each individual leaf comes under his gaze before it's selected for the plate. At Fearrington House, Colin says he comes to each plate with a vision in mind. What's distinct about Colin's food is that his vision is for his food to be delicious, with surprising flavor profiles, and he's unapologetically exacting about that.

Though he's been featured alongside other Relais & Chateaux chefs from North America, like Daniel Humm and Patrick O'Connell, local notice brings in neighbors, and not just for special occasions. Last week, Colin says, a couple came in for dinner; they'd been trying out all of Greg Cox's News & Observer top 25 restaurant picks. He says, they didn't know why they had waited so long: they found Fearrington House to be their favorite, and they hadn't been here in three years!

Come October, the entire Fearrington House menu will have completely shifted to fall. For the seasonal menu, Colin and his team took their own Chef's Challenge to create their most spectacular menu to date, working with these fine ingredients: mushrooms (hen of the woods, maitake, beech and lobster mushrooms), scarlet muscadines, squash (butternut and spagetti), Brussels sprouts (purple and baby green), pumpkin (and pumpkin seeds), maple, pecans, apples, chestnut jam, celery root, parsnips, pears, sunchokes, red currants, fregola sarda, fennel, watermelon radish, kale, black garlic, barley, onions (pearl, red, cippolini), hibiscus, lobster knuckles, venison, oxtail, pheasant, scallops, flounder, sirloins, Calvados, clams, quail eggs, sweet breads, duck breast, beets, stout, house-cured bacon, Bonfire salt and Fearrington honey. For tantalizing descriptions of how these ingredients played out, we've linked the new Fearrington House menu here. Three courses are $79; and four courses are $89.

For fall, Max Kast has new wines by the glass: "Our white wines have moved to some more floral and spicy selections, like Do Ferreiro Albarino from Rias Baixas, the Leth Roter Veltliner from Wagram in Austria, and the Barboursville Viognier from Virginia. The reds will move to a richer style, in some cases. We have put the Blackbird Arise, a great Bordeaux-blend from Napa Valley, Domaine de Gaillety from the Cote de Vivarais - which is a warming spicy Grenache and Syrah blend from just north of Chateauneuf-de-Pape - and the Broc Cellars Grenache from Sonoma. Also we are looking forward to hosting Mark Ray from Perception Winery and Melissa Kelly in Sonoma. I love his wines, and the Melissa Kelly Chardonnay that he makes for his wife's wine label has been a favorite among our guests for over a year. Mark focuses on very elegant Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Zinfandel, all of them perfect wines for fall in North Carolina."

Max's newly introduced wine classes at The Granary are really popular, and for good reason: "We take a tour of Washington State wines in October, featuring wines that I tasted on my last trip there last fall," says Max. In November, the class is called "Everything but Champagne" for this class Max expands our repertoire of wines and places that sparkle: Franciacorta, Cava, the Loire Valley, Prosecco, and yes maybe even Slovenia. View more information here.

We're also delighted to introduce our Culinary Arts & Letters Dinner series, which brings in talented guest chefs to Fearrington from across the region and nationally.  Please join Colin Bedford from Fearrington House and Keebe Fitch from McIntyre's Books on Thursday, November 3rd in welcoming Hugh Acheson, the Georgia-based chef, for a special evening of cocktails, dinner and signed first editions of A New Turn in The South from Clarkson Potter. Learn more about this James Beard finalist here. Seating is limited; reservations information will be posted online soon.

Keebe Fitch at McIntyre's Books is delighted that Lynne Rossetto Kasper will be returning to Fearrington, this time to sign her latest book, The Splendid Table's How to Eat Weekends, on Saturday, December 10th. Keebe says this is an awesome cookbook! Last time Lynne filled the Barn with fans, so arrive early for a good seat! View more details here.

Reporting on other recent arrivals in the expanded cookbook section at McIntyre's, Keebe recommends Odd Bits: How to Cook the Rest of the Animal by Jennifer McLagan. Keebe notes: "with so much interest in snout-to-tail, I was most pleased to see how McLagan tackled this, ahem, offal subject." Keebe also likes: Eleven Madison Park: The Cookbook, by Will Guidara and Daniel Humm; Girl in the Kitchen: How a Top Chef Cooks, Thinks, Shops, Eats & Drinks, by Stephanie Izard; Sandra Guitierrez's The New Southern Latino Table; Virginia Willis' Basic To Brilliant Y'all; Mozza, by Nancy Silverton (and friends); and David Chang's new magazine Lucky Peach, which we have at McIntyre's, for your inspection, the next time we see you.

Happy grazing from all of us at Fearrington!