Has the week's weather put a chill in your bones?
The good folks at North Carolina's The Mast Farm Inn are ready to warm you up with a series of down home, stick-to-your-ribs, country cooking themed getaways. Called Winter Weekends, they run through March with each featuring one hearty, delicious dish.
For meat lovers, they have Meat & Potatoes Weekend. If you're eating light, try Mountain Trout Weekend. Stew fans will be in heaven on Chicken & Dumplings Weekend. You can pick the pig on Heritage Pork Weekend. Then there is the one that makes me want to move to The Mast Farm Inn and live there forever, Pot Pie Weekend.
Behind each theme is a full meal complete with a signature cocktail (New River Apple Butter Butter Tini sounds amazing) along with a featured local supplier. The one for my beloved Pot Pie Weekend is New River Organic Growers, a cooperative located in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
As if this celebration of wintertime dishes isn't already remarkable enough, these special weekends benefit more than your belly. Five percent of lodging and food sales help out the community with causes ranging from an historic, art deco theater to a forward-thinking cafe where diners pay what they can.
You don't even have to stay overnight. (Though if you do, the rate is discounted). Locals can drop by the inn's dining room or its nearby restaurant Simplicity to enjoy these amazing wintertime meals.
So which will you choose? And, if you go, do you think you could FedEx me a pot pie?