Sustainable WNC

Charlie Jackson is the Executive Director and one of the founding farmers of the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project (ASAP). He is a frequent speaker and consultant on local food system development.

I moved to WNC in 1972, opening the Frog & Owl Café outside of Highlands, NC. From the very beginning, I feature local produce and trout from the area as well as foraging for wild mushrooms and other products.

I relocated to Asheville and opened The Market Place in 1979, while continuing to use local products and helping to build local agricultural community.

I trained in France at the Michelin 3 star restaurant, Le Moulin de Mougins in 1980, as well as studied with Simon Beck, the French cooking partner of Julia Childs. I also studied with Madeleine Kamman while at the Beringer School for American Chefs.

In WNC I have been an instructor at AB Tech School in the Culinary Dept. as well as food and wine educator in various venues.

I am the past chairman of Slow Food Asheville and was a delegate to Terra Madre held in Turin, Italy in 2006.

In 1996 my book "In Praise of Apples" was published.

I am a member of La Confrérie des Chavaliers du Tastevin, Chapitre des Trois Glorieuses.

My passion is supporting local farmers, cheese makers, and suppliers of local seasonal foods. I support the culinary program at AB Tech through an annual scholarship dinner at The Market Place.

This year (2007) I will celebrate 35 as a chef and 28 years as chef/owner of The Market Place.

After high school Bill Whipple completed the one year program in alternative agriculture at Sterling Academy in Vermont in 1983. He lived very close to the land on his homestead in rural West Virginia for 15 years where he still tends 1 acre of organic pear trees he vends at Greenlife and the organic tailgate markets.

Now a renter in Asheville for 6 years, he has gone from 'King of the cove' in West Virgina to 'serf in the city'. The confines of urbanity have made him more creative and adaptive like the turkeys and coyotes. He has been the care taker of the Washington Carver Edible Park for 2 years and works as a free agent of the community with no direct affiliations. Seeing himself more as an integrator playing 'community service fish'. (You got any 7's?) He counts among his friends, Asheville Parks and Recreation, Bountiful Cities Project, Men's Garden Club, the Bee Club, and Quality forward.

I live with 10,000 red wiggler earth worms (my city pigs) at the foot of my bed, vegetable gardens in my back yard, side yard, and at work. At one in an empty lot, I have 3 bee hives and over 100 potted fruit trees. My housemate's basement is full of gardening supplies, potatoes, canned food and wine, boxes of grafted fruit trees from this winter's propagation efforts, and I'm getting a barrel to raise catfish in. Did I mention during the day I am a studio furniture maker at the Grovewood Gallery?