LIFE

Home of the Week: Think you want to be an innkeeper?

Elizabeth Sims and Debby Maugans
Citizen-Times correspondents

Remember Bill Murray and “Groundhog Day”? Just imagine a life where you get up every morning and cook breakfast for people you’ve just met the day before. Two of them are gluten sensitive. One is a vegetarian. One insists on biscuits and sausage gravy.

Every. Day.

While many of us fantasize about how fun it would be to have a bed-and-breakfast, speak with members of the Asheville Bed and Breakfast Association first. They will tell you they love what they do and find it all immensely rewarding.

If you press them, they’ll also admit it’s an enormous amount of work.

Within the ABBA, the bed-and-breakfast experience is as diverse as it gets. The organization has 16 properties around the region, each one unique and each one with its own take on a mountain breakfast. Want rustic? Historically interesting? Urban? A bucolic spot to enjoy nature and the beauty of the mountains?

Chestnut Street Inn

You can stay in a lovely Victorian beauty like Chestnut Street Inn, where new bed-and-breakfast owners Emilie Kapp and her husband Arturo Leal bring years of experience in the hospitality industry as servers and sommeliers in New York restaurants to their guests’ experience.

You’ll find homemade local apple cider caramels in your room when you arrive. And for breakfast? Baked eggs in Grandma’s tomato gravy with spinach, served with potato towers. Or Monte Cristo sandwiches with powdered sugar and homemade jam. Or the hands-down favorite: homemade biscuits and sausage gravy with scrambled eggs.

“I lived in France for five years, mainly in northern Burgundy,” says Kapp, who with her husband also ran a wine bar in Manhattan for eight years, “and I was surrounded by all of these wonderful women who taught me so much about cooking. I also grew up in the kitchen with my mom and grandmom.”

Kapp adds she is a self-proclaimed “cookbook maniac” and has a collection of vintage aprons.

Kapp and Leal (he also continues to work as a server at Rezaz three nights a week, and their inn guests love to dine there when he’s working) change their breakfast offerings every day.

“We try to find inspiration at the farmers markets and what’s in season at the grocery. Arturo and I spend all summer putting up food — jams, pickles, syrups and jellies. So we play with those. At Thanksgiving, for example, we served pumpkin pancakes with cranberry syrup and stuffed French toast with orange syrup.”

Having just acquired the inn in September, Kapp admits the couple are new at being innkeepers. But they are already seeing an interesting shift in guests who are a little younger. The couple’s trilingual vocabularies are coming in handy with guests coming to Asheville from everywhere.

And many visitors, like Kapp and Leal, are into the outdoors — kayaking, hiking and biking — and also appreciate excellent wine and food pairings.

“When we first opened, we did gorgeous French omelets,” said Kapp. “I have a friend who is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America who gave me egg lessons. But we found that made-to-order omelets kept us in the kitchen instead of being out with the guests and having fun. That’s the feeling we wanted our B&B to have — a gathering of people laughing and telling stories and eating an amazing breakfast.”

Crooked Oak Mountain Inn

The bed-and-breakfast experience at Crooked Oak Mountain Inn, on Town Mountain, is decidedly different from a downtown Victorian mansion. Bear and Patti Strelec bought the inn 12 years ago and used Bear’s significant talents as a general contractor and Patti’s 20-year experience in the hospitality industry to bring the property back to its original treehouse-feel intention. It’s a 12-sided “rounder” home that became a prototype for its design.

“We’re not fancy,” said Patti. “We’ve got this mountain house, trails into the woods, comfortable settings and a ‘Bear who wears an apron.’ The best compliment we get is when people say ‘I start to relax the minute I hit your driveway.’ People come to breakfast in their bathrobes if they want.”

“People ask me if I get tired of hearing ‘It’s time to cook the bacon,’” laughed Bear. “But when the first person walks into the kitchen for a cup of coffee, it’s energizing. We love what we go. We also love each other and that helps.”

The inn accommodates six couples, although Patti says they’ve pulled out rollaways, air mattresses and fold-out to accommodate as many as 22 people. Breakfast is local eggs, bacon and Bear’s mountain potatoes. Patti also makes quiche and omelets. On Sundays, however, Bear makes his famous and much-in-demand yeast waffles.

“It’s my own recipe,” he says. “You have to start the batter the night before. I never thought I’d be famous for waffles but almost every review we get on Trip Advisor talks about them!”

The couple clearly enjoy being innkeepers and relish getting to meet and know people who come to the inn, get engaged, come back married for an anniversary and come back again with their kids.

One young couple asked the Strelecs to help them elope by going downtown to the courthouse to be their witnesses for their marriage — which they happily did.

“We get to work together in a beautiful place and meet nice people, and it doesn’t get any better than that,” said Bear.

The Hawk and Ivy

If your idea of a bed-and-breakfast is solace, peacefulness, nature and organic goodness, visit The Hawk and Ivy in Barnardsville, situated on 24 acres with exquisite gardens and breathtaking views. Eve and James Davis bring a holistic approach to their guests’ experience at this 1910 country farm house where they have been innkeepers for 22 years.

Eve is an artist and avid gardener and James is a poet and an ordained nondenominational minister. The inn is family-friendly as well (the Davises raised their children here), and a renovated barn provides the perfect backdrop for retreats, workshops and events.

Visitors have come for personal retreats, gardening workshops, yoga and meditation retreats. There’s no question the property itself is stunningly gorgeous, inspiring and spiritual in its natural beauty.

“People are touched by this place,” says Eve. “The property itself is very healing. Because we are small, it’s a very personal experience. We spend time with our guests helping them plan their hikes, their dinner reservations, their excursions out into the region.”

After all of the enriching, holistic experiences as a Hawk and Ivy guest, it’s still the food people remember.

“I’m an artist and cooking is another art form for me,” says Eve. “We make everything from scratch and in keeping with the season. Because we are organic and holistic, we also appeal to guests looking for that particular niche. People are excited when I ask them if they’d like to go out to the garden and pick some raspberries for breakfast.

“We’re also fortunate to live in Barnardsville where we can go a couple of miles and find lamb, sausages, turkeys and chickens so free-range they’re lucky to live through the day and make it back to the coop,” says Eve with a laugh.

Eve emphasizes that making breakfast is a true dance between herself and her husband. “James realized if he didn’t start cooking, I’d get all the kudos. So he started cooking.”

Guests at the inn won’t experience the same dish twice, or even the same china, because Eve’s artistic eye is always thinking about presentation.

A Slow Food bed-and-breakfast, the Hawk and Ivy appeals to guests who care about local sourcing, organic and pure food. The Davises work very hard to accommodate all types of dietary restrictions and lifestyles. Ultimately breakfast is a celebration of the natural bounty all around them.

A recent breakfast included spinach omelets with gruyere, cremini mushrooms and walnuts, some of Eve’s three-cheese biscuits with sun-dried tomatoes and a homemade blackberry basil sorbet with sliced grapefruit.

“Our cornmeal pancake is one of our most requested,” said Eve. “It’s made without eggs and is light and crunchy. People love it, especially when we add some of our organic blueberries.”

For more information about bed and breakfast experiences in the Asheville area, visit www.ashevillbba.com.

Beaufort House Inn biscuit & berries

Christina and Jim Muth, owners, innkeepers and cooks at the inn, often mix the dry ingredients and butter up to a few days ahead and refrigerate it. Before baking, they mix in the half-and-half. Their addition of Madeira adds the berries a rich nuance of toasted nuts and caramel. Makes 8-10 biscuits.

For berry mixture:

Sliced fresh strawberries (1/4 to 1/2 cup per serving)

Sugar (1/4 cup per serving)

Madeira (1/4 cup per serving)

For biscuits:

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

Pinch of salt

1/2 cup cold salted butter, diced

1 cup half-and-half

1/4 cup butter, melted

1/2 cup turbinado sugar

Whipped cream, fresh mint sprigs

Prepare berries: Combine strawberries, sugar, and Madeira to make desired number of servings. Cover and let stand at least 30 minutes or until ready to serve, tossing occasionally.

Prepare biscuits: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.

Whisk together dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add butter pieces and mix in with your hands, a pastry blender, or paddle attachment of electric mixer until no remaining lumps of butter are larger than peas. (If making ahead, cover and refrigerate until just before baking.) Drizzle half-and-half over dry ingredients, a little at a time, mixing with a fork just unit you have a wet dough. Do not overmix.

Drop by desired size spoonfuls onto prepared baking sheet, spacing 2 inches apart. Drizzle or lightly brush biscuits with melted butter and sprinkle tops with turbinado star. Bake until golden brown and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Split while hot and spoon berry mixture on bottoms of biscuits. Garnish with whipped cream and mint.

Courtesy Beaufort House Inn, www.beauforthouse.com

Italian egg cups

Makes 6 servings. From A Bed of Roses Bed and Breakfast.

Cooking spray

1 small onion, chopped

1/2 each red and green bell pepper, diced

1 tablespoon olive oil

About 2 teaspoons Italian seasoning blend

6 slices prosciutto de Parma

Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

8 large eggs

3/4 cup plain Greek yogurt

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1 cup (4 ounces) shredded Mexican blend cheese

1 cup (4 ounces) shredded Gouda or freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

1 to 2 tablespoons each finely chopped fresh thyme and snipped chives

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly spray 6 (10-ounce) ramekins with cooking spray and place on baking sheet for easier handling.

Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat; add olive oil and heat. Add onions and peppers and sauté until tender, 5-6 minutes, sprinkling with Italian seasoning during cooking. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Whisk together eggs, yogurt, and mustard until blended.

Drape one slice of prosciutto in bottom of each ramekin, lining cup and draping slightly over the side. Spoon cooked vegetables into lined cups, dividing evenly. Mix cheeses together and sprinkle half of cheese over vegetables. Slowly pour egg mixture evenly over the cheese layers, allowing it to soak through the layers, and filling about three-quarters full. Sprinkle with remaining cheeses; top with 1/2 teaspoon of each thyme and chives.

Bake until centers are puffed and set, about 30 minutes. Let cool 5 minutes on wire rack before serving.

Roasted butternut squash quiche

Susan Murray, owner of Carolina Bed & Breakfast, combines butternut squash, caramelized onion, and Parmesan cheese to make a savory breakfast quiche filled with seasonal flavors. ”The filling mixture can be made the day before and refrigerated,” Murray says. She serves the quiche with good quality sausage patties and biscuits. Makes 6-8 servings.

2 cups diced (1-inch) butternut squash

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 teaspoons light brown sugar

Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon sugar

1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1 (9-inch) deep-dish pie crust

11/2 cups half-and-half

5 large eggs

Pinch of ground nutmeg

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Toss squash with olive oil, brown sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper on a large, rimmed baking sheet. Spread in a single layer; bake until tender, 35-40 minutes.

While squash is roasting, melt butter in a large, heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion and sauté until until tender, about 4-5 minutes. Sprinkle with sugar; cook, stirring constantly until sugar melts. Remove from heat and stir in Parmesan. Spoon into prepared pie crust.

Whisk eggs in a large bowl; whisk in half-and-half, nutmeg, and 1/4 teaspoon each salt and pepper until blended. Pour evenly over squash mixture. Bake until top is puffed and center is set, 35-45 minutes. Let cool 10 minutes on a wire rack before serving.