• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Bordering Chapel Hill is the quirky town of Carrboro, whose most famous resident dances to his own beat…literally. The center of town is the Triangle’s version of the village green, the lawn at Weaver Street Market, which now has an “Open Space Policy” to make sure dancing alone (and, um, shirtless, with no music) isn’t a crime. During the day, wi-fi users and fans of the organic salad bar and hot bar congregate at picnic tables to nosh, read Umberto Eco novels or discuss the nearby biodiesel fuel pumping station. Events run throughout the week, including Sunday morning jazz concerts, Thursday evening After Hours concerts, and Friday night wine tastings. Hula- hoop clinics pick up during the summer.

Head west on Hwy 15/501 toward Pittsboro until a grain silo and colorful whirligigs welcome you to Fearrington Village, home to the famed belted cows (the bovine version of the Oreo cookie). These black and white three-stripe cows, and goats, have been at this farm’s location for generations. The tiny village deserves an afternoon wander through shops that sell books, garden supplies and gifts, but the night belongs to the famed Fearrington House Restaurant - there’s not an award it hasn’t won. With dishes like duck breast and foie gras in a cherry cinnamon sauce or pork belly and lobster with shellfish cappuccino, it’s no wonder. Get in touch with your inner Southern belle next door at Fearrington Inn, where the exercise in sumptuous hospitality includes canopied beds, English high-tea finger sandwiches each afternoon and in-room massages. For lunch in the village, dine at the Old Granary Restaurant, where lighter fare like salad with cornmeal-fried oysters or sea scallops on cauliflower risotto have an equally gourmet feel. If you feel a sudden urge to retire here, you’re not alone; Fearrington caters to well-heeled and active older folks (the housing wing of the village advertises in the back of New Yorker magazine).

* * *

“I like to go where the wild things are: like Bynum, a Chatham County mill village, home of stilt-walking puppeteers (www.paperhand.org) and famous artist, Clyde Jones. Amongs a frenzy of new construction in the Triangle, this oasis protrudes like an extra five pounds on a supermodel. Get to the Bynum General Store music series by 6:30pm to grab a seat, and you’ll get to see the fireflies spring to life. Plus, it offers jam sessions and art shows on Saturdays.”

Molly Matlock, director, Chatham County Arts Council, Bynum, NC

* * *

If Fearrington is exquisite sophistication overlaid on farm fields, Allen & Son Barbecue is as plain and genuine as North Carolina red clay. Here, before sunrise, owner Keith Allen loads hand-chopped hickory logs into a BBQ pit, lays out a pig and cooks his homemade sauce from scratch to maintain one of the last bastions of genuine pit cooking. Believe your waitress - who might or might not have a beehive hairdo and call you “Hon” - when she tells you to order the peanut butter pie.

Keep going down the road towards Bynum, a tiny former mill village where intellectuals and artsy types dwell alongside longtime residents all in humble front-porch cottages. Lazed up against the Haw River, Bynum is perhaps best known for artist Clyde Jones and his colorful, chain saw-cut wooden critters. There’s no museum or store, as Jones refuses to sell his creations for money (though he’s given one away to Mikhail Baryshnikov), but it just takes a quick stroll through town to see dozens gracing front yards. On Friday nights in summer, mosey on down to the Bynum General Store whose “Front Porch Music Series” draws an astoundingly wide variety of artists, including folk/country goddess Tift Merritt, who got her start hereabouts. The store provides the plastic chairs and hot dog vendor, you provide the toe tappin’.

* * *

SUNDAY SUPPER

On the third Sunday of each month, the Sunday Dinner at the Celebrity Dairy kicks off at 1:30pm with an all-afternoon Slow