Heather's Tomatoes

In her spare time, Heather Brannon - the Assistant Innkeeper at The Lion & The Rose, tends a neighborhood vegetable garden.

We used her tomatoes for our guests' breakfast the day after this photo was taken.

Serving and eating locally grown food is one of the many things for which Asheville is famous. 

Several of the independently owned restaurants in the area purchase most of their food from local farms. 

They call it "slow food".  It doesn't mean that you cook or eat it slowly - just that it is locally grown, fresh & healthy for you.

  On the Slow Food Asheville web site they explain it this way:

"A firm defense of quiet material pleasure is the only way to oppose the universal folly of Fast Life."

Eve Davis, the current leader of the Slow Food Asheville Board, is also the owner and operator (along with her husband James) of the Hawk & Ivy Bed & Breakfast in Barnardsville.  

It's in an idyllic country setting with organic gardens of flowers, fruit, and vegetables surrounding the inn as far as the eye can see.