Posted on December 20, 2012

Things get pretty quiet around here in the winter.

The gardens are all dormant at the Biltmore Estate. The rafts and zipline gear are put up until spring. Sidewalks are cleared of cafe tables.

The biggest attraction is romance with your mate in front of the fireplace at Inn on Main Street in Weaverville. To help make that even more attractive, we’re giving you a pair of two-day tickets to the Biltmore Estate or a third night free with a two-night stay in a king or cottage room between Jan. 1 and April 4. That’s worth up to $179. The exception for that deal is Valentine’s weekend, Feb. 15 and 16, but if you come that weekend we’ll give you a free hour soak at Hot Springs Spa.

Winter is actually our favorite time at the Biltmore mansion. We get in our tropical fix at the conservatory, communing with the orchids, palms and banana trees. I keep threatening to bring in my own rum drink in coconut with a paper parasol and relax beneath the jungle canopy there, but Nancy refuses to join me.

But New Year’s Eve has always been a problem for us because our guests who want to party at midnight had to take a cab to Asheville or stay sober, and snow could complicate the trip.

We’ve always had restaurants open a stroll away, but they tended to quit serving around 9 p.m.

This year, Jack of Hearts Pub, which is only about two blocks from here, will have its rockin’ hometown Cajun band, Jackomo, playing until well after midnight. We’ve arranged to set aside tickets for our guests, and we’ll pick up the cover charge. You can choose to eat dinner at the pub, or stroll a bit farther down the street to Glass Onion for some fine Italian fare. We can make your reservations.

Who needs a designated driver when you’re only two blocks from your room? And snow? Forget about it. Book directly with Dan or Nancy, or online.

Posted on December 3, 2012

They’re chewy and definitely not your bakery-bought fluffy muffins. Inn on Main Street’s from-scratch pumpkin muffins, which are a whole lot like our sweet potato muffins, always are a favorite.

In mountain culture, there’s hog-slaughtering time when the frost comes. Since we don’t serve any variations of hog meat here at the inn, I think of it as pumpkin-slaughtering time in Weaverville. We cut up the pumpkins we put out for Halloweeen (but didn’t carve), and bake the chunks until the flesh is soft. We run the peeled chunks through the grater blade on the food processor and put up several bags of frozen pumpkin pulp, enough to make muffins and pumpkin bisque until the daffodils bloom. Yum.

The Grove Park Inn in Asheville has its gingerbread house tours around Christmas. Our own tradition is to put the ginger into something fun to eat.

I tend to use a lot of fruit in any muffins I make, so they tend to be pretty dense and chewy. Guests seem to like that, though I’m sure it would shock Betty Crocker. In any case, here’s one of the most requested recipes from Inn on Main Street.

Measurement and ingredient list (in order of use):

• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup mashed pumpkin
• 1 Tbsp. unsulfured molasses
• 1 tsp. pure vanilla
• 2 tsp. ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp. ground cloves
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/2 cup canola oil
• 1 egg
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 2 cups white unbleached all-purpose flour

Mix brown sugar, pumpkin pulp, molasses, vanilla and dry ingredients except flour. Mix in oil, egg and buttermilk. Add flour and mix as little as possible to blend ingredients. Spoon batter into muffin tins sprayed with vegetable oil. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes or until tops brown. Makes about a dozen muffins.

Let me know if this works out for you. Email dan@innonmain.com or visit us on Facebook.