“A lot of my work right now is in helping people organize themselves and understand how they might create collaborative means of accessing meat,” says author, butcher, chef and instructor Meredith Leigh.

“A lot of my work right now is in helping people organize themselves and understand how they might create collaborative means of accessing meat,” says author, butcher, chef and instructor Meredith Leigh.
On Tuesday, March 3, Mother Ocean Market will host its grand opening. Also: The Whale: A Craft Beer Collective and 12 Bones team up for a leap year beer dinner; Noble Cider hosts its fifth annual Chili Cookoff, benefiting Girls on the Run of WNC; Root Down Kitchen opens at Salvage Station; and plenty more in this week’s Small Bites.
Along with more than 150 traditional workshops and seminars, six keynote speakers and hundreds of exhibitors, this year’s fair now features hands-on and extended workshops that dig deeper into an array of topics selected by the magazine’s editorial team.
Local fermentation expert Meredith Leigh will present a workshop on preserving food with the koji mold at the Mother Earth News Fair.
The Organic Growers School Spring Conference brings its roster of workshops, seed exchange, children’s programming and more to a new venue.
Women are becoming a force to be reckoned with in the historically male-dominated field.
Asheville-based author and chef Meredith Leigh leads a workshop on cooking with fats. Also: Bites & Brews Food Truck Festival rolls into the Asheville Outlets; Sow True Seed hosts a free fermentation class; A Midsummer Wine Dinner comes to The Prince Anne Hotel; and The Chemist opens on Coxe Avenue.
“Here’s to celebrating this important and diverse technique of food production in hopes that its products continue to proliferate locally for the health and well-being of everyone.”
Holiday festivals and gatherings are in the works at West Village Market & Deli, Blue Ridge Food Venture and Addison Farms Vineyard. Also, Farm Burger South Asheville hosts a Farm Supper, Meredith Leigh leads a charcuterie workshop and NorthStar Bakehouse celebrates its grand opening.
This fall, an international animal rights organization spearheaded a campaign to stop a small Western North Carolina permaculture school from hosting its annual home-butchering workshop.
The Mother Earth News Fair returns to the Western North Carolina Agricultural Center in Fletcher May 6-7. Somewhere around 20,000 attendees are expected to gather to learn about and share skills for sustainable living and self-reliance.
Regenerative farming methods that use cover crops and other techniques to build soil fertility and boost the resilience of crops to stresses like drought are taking root in North Carolina. Gabe Brown and Russell Hedrick are among the pioneers in these techniques who will be speaking in WNC in connection with the Organic Growers School’s spring conference and related events.
Organic Growers School is hosting a Farm-to-Table Dinner fundraiser with chef John Fleer. Also, Meredith Leigh hosts a charcuterie workshop, Ole Shakey’s mixes bingo and brunch buffets, Knife & Fork join forces with Cucina 24 to explore the island of Sardinia and more.
Despite a contentious week of social media campaigns, phone calls and emails from vegan and animal rights activists, local sustainability educators Meredith Leigh and Natalie Bogwalker went ahead with their workshop, Cycles of Life: Humane Slaughter and Butchering.
“So by saying you don’t want killing on small farms, you’re saying you don’t want small farms raising animals. Because death is part of that process.”
French food snob Pierre Geaux (an alter ego of local homesteading authority Bill Whipple) will host Organic Growers School’s upcoming farm-to-table benefit dinner, curated by Meredith Leigh. The event is at UNCA on Saturday, March 12.
WNCW and Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project have teamed up to launch a new radio series called Growing Local; Villagers hosts a class on fermenting garden products into alcoholic beverages; Living Web Farms offers a knife skills workshop; plus Asheville Restaurant Week and Asheville Wing War approach.
Hops & Vines is adding a new series to its class lineup. Meanwhile, Trout Lily of Fairview will host its sixth annual Bluegrass Oyster Fest; Ultimate Ice Cream partners with Youth Outright for the month of November; Living Web Farms teaches several donation-based food classes; and Edison Craft Ales + Kitchen adds local beers to its brunch menus.
With her new book, Asheville farmer, butcher, chef and teacher Meredith Leigh explores what a more humane and ethical food system might look like and examines the crucial role consumers play in efforts to change our foodways.
The Organic Growers School’s second Harvest Conference on Saturday, Sept. 12, offered 26 workshops focused on fall and winter growing, cooking, fermentation and preservation, self-reliance, herbal medicine and homestead skills.