The October 2021 Issue

Eat, pick, carve, collect, and decorate pumpkins of all kinds in North Carolina this month.

This mountain town earned a reputation for shipping furniture around the world. Today, an artistic couple and a talented group of creators keep Lenoir’s legacy of fine craftsmanship alive.

The mountain city known for its art, music, outdoor adventures, and beer provides plenty of opportunities for fun and learning. An Asheville devotee compiled some of the best experiences in her new guidebook.

In Burke County, three generations have been bringing together the community and serving up fried seafood at their old-school fish camp for almost 50 years.

In this Appalachian recipe, fresh lettuce is tossed with hot bacon grease, vinegar, and green onions, causing the lettuce to wilt and “killing” it.

Seared pork chops cloaked in silky gravy offer warming comfort on a cold evening, and this dish comes together in just 30 minutes.

Sweet, melted sorghum butter is irresistible on piping-hot skillet cornbread.

These Granny Smith apples are wrapped in a buttery dough, baked in a cinnamon-brown sugar syrup, and topped off with vanilla ice cream.

To answer a question that’s confounded him for years, the Ramblin’ Man — a Piedmont-dweller since birth — goes west.

How kids celebrate All Hallows Eve has evolved from generation to generation, but some traditions are timeless. So don your witch hat, light your jack-o’-lantern, and get ready to celebrate the creepiest, ickiest, and sugariest holiday of them all.

Dozens of families once called the cottages surrounding the textile factory on the banks of the Henry River home. Today, the humble tract of houses near Hickory has found new purpose and a promising future.

We followed the Blue Ridge Parkway down through North Carolina, from Cumberland Knob just below the Virginia state line all the way to Cherokee, compiling our favorite vistas along the way.

In the mid-1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt launched a massive program to cut a 469-mile road through the North Carolina and Virginia mountains. More than 80 years later, the Blue Ridge Parkway remains the most popular scenic byway in the country.

For more than 60 years before it closed, the first restaurant on the Blue Ridge Parkway was a beloved stop for hungry motorists, weary hikers, and local families. Now, The Bluffs is dishing up fried chicken and cathead biscuits once again.

Refreshed and refurbished, Blowing Rock’s famed Chetola Resort offers relaxation and recreation — think fly-fishing, clay-shooting, and more — minutes from the Blue Ridge Parkway.

From the storied Pisgah Inn, elevation 5,000 feet, you can see for miles around — and back through generations of mountain memories.

Camping along the Blue Ridge Parkway brings together two generations of women to share memories and to learn more about each other than either ever knew.

Six nature lovers set out on different life paths, but each route ultimately led to the Blue Ridge Parkway.

The scenic drive from Cherokee to the Virginia state line guarantees beauty in more ways than one. Take a detour off the Blue Ridge Parkway to meet some of the artists inspired by our majestic mountains, wild landscapes, and natural diversity — and to appreciate a different sort of view.

At the Folk Art Center just off the Blue Ridge Parkway, artisans share the language of Appalachian craft with younger generations.

On fall break from college in the early 1980s, a writer and his loyal English setter took a road trip from Watauga County to the Qualla Boundary, accompanied by the sweet sounds of fiddles, banjos, and high-lonesome harmonies.

In the era before integration, Ridgeview High School’s football team was the pride of Hickory, breaking state records left and right. Today, the remaining players are seeing to it that their legacy is not forgotten.

For environmentalists and “Back to the Land” homesteaders seeking a new way of life, a magazine published in Hendersonville guides that way.

North Carolinian Georgia “Tiny” Broadwich was the first woman in history to parachute from an airplane.