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Dining at the InnYears before we ever thought of building the inn, Fleming started cooking a monthly gourmet dinner to showcase our goat cheese. The first few in 1992 were served in her studio - which necessitated a 300 ft dash across the yard from kitchen to table. After slip-slidin' over the ice left by a February ice storm, we moved the dinners into our home. Thus began a monthly furniture removal from the Log Cabin, and its conversion to seat two dozen guests for Sunday afternoon dinner. Cooking a 4-5 course meal for this many people in our modest household kitchen (a "2 ass kitchen" by our measure) proved a challenge, which Fleming overcame by lots of advance preparation and last minute assembly. The dinners became something of a local institution, were sometimes booked months in advance, and brought us guests from all over the world. Southern Living featured one menu in their March '96 issue - bringing us several minutes of fame. More importantly, they brought us the company of others who share our love of the goats the craft of cheesemaking., and the celebration of seasonal food produced our regions exceptional market farmers. The dinners ceased as we worked to complete and open the Inn, but not a week passed without a call asking about them. We missed them, too, and now with a beautiful commercial kitchen in the Inn and Brit's retirement in March '00 - we started the dinners again in August 00, and have continured the tradition up to the present. Having tired of telling people that we'd like to serve more frequent dinners at the Inn, we hired Chad Blackwelder to be our resident chef starting in February 2002. Chad came to us from Magnolia Grill, and previous head chef positions at Brightleaf 905, The Wicked Smile, and his own restaurant The Wild Turtle. Chad's impact upon the inn were fixed menu evening dinners on Friday and Saturday evenings to inn guests and the public (yes - we're now a licensed restaurant). Our timing coincided with an economic recession, and the country inn dining experience didn't attract enough diners to keep a chef busy. An idle chef is not a happy one, and after a few months Chad moved on to a busier culinary life in Durham. Thereafter we returned to our once a month (third Sunday afternoon) dinner format. Brit - already the Inn's breakfast cook, is taking over more of the Sunday dinner cooking from Fleming - who continues to design the menus. |
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- The Inn at Celebrity Dairy 144 Celebrity Dairy Way. Siler City, NC 27344 - theinn@celebritydairy.com
- ** tel. (919) 742-5176, or toll free reservations: (877) 742-5176 **