The husband and wife team of Wayne Erbsen and Barbara Swell work together on Log Cabin Cooking & Music. Sharing a passion for Southern Appalachian cooking, music and folklore, Wayne and Barbara offer workshops, classes, books, recordings and live performances.

Barbara Swell has authored eight books of historic cooking. Her Log Cabin Cooking Classes offer instruction on a wide variety of traditional cooking skills, including pie making, hearth cooking, cookie cookery, jams jellies and butters, holiday breads, and Appalachian wood cookstove cooking.

As a musician, Wayne Erbsen performs in or near his home base of Asheville, North Carolina on clawhammer and bluegrass banjo, fiddle, mandolin and guitar. He frequently does programs of old-time Appalachian music as well as music of the Civil War, railroad songs and bluegrass music. As a teacher, Wayne's Log Cabin Music Classes offer instruction in bluegrass banjo, clawhammer banjo, old-time and bluegrass fiddle, mandolin, guitar.

The Log Cabin Retreat Center is a 1940s log cabin located on the eastern rim of Asheville, North Carolina that is available for small gatherings, workshops, conferences and meetings of up to twenty people. The Retreat Center is within an easy 10 minute drive to downtown Asheville but is tucked away in a semi-private setting that backs up to the National Forest with woodland paths to the Blue Ridge Parkway's Mountain to Sea Trail.

Together, Wayne Erbsen and Barbara Swell own and operate Native Ground Books & Music which produces books and recordings of historic Appalachian cooking, Appalachian songs, Civil War ballads, cowboy music, railroad music, gospel music, bluegrass music and old-time country music. Native Ground also offers instruction books and songbooks for clawhammer banjo and bluegrass banjo, old-time fiddle, bluegrass and old-time mandolin and guitar.

Directions:  Log Cabin Cooking & Music is located at 111 Bell Road, just off off New Haw Creek Road in the Haw Creek section of East Asheville. From Highway 240 in Asheville, take exit #7. From 240 going East, turn left at the light. From 240 going West, turn right at the light. Now you're on Tunnel Road going east. At the very first light, turn left and then take a sudden right on New Haw Creek Road. Go about 1 ½ miles. On your right you’ll see a baseball field. Turn right at the beginning of the ball field on Bell Road. Pass Evergreen Charter School on your left. You’ll see a new development on your right, (Ozark Springs Road) and then our big garden on the right. At the end of the garden, you’ll see two big black mailboxes that say 111 and 109. Turn right there. As you come up the driveway, the cabin will be on your left. You can park either in front of in back of the cabin.