‘Let’s have another cup of coffee, let’s have another piece of pie’

ELIZABETHTOWN – This may be redundant, but Christine Marais, while living in France a few years back made a statement that she would never live in an old house again.

And here she is, the owner and manager of a bed-and-breakfast that was built somewhere in the early 1800s.

She said that she would never open up a bakery except to her bed-and-breakfast guests, and again… here she is. And what a delightful stir has been in the batter of the community of Elizabethtown.

People that have tasted her cooking and her baking are waiting with baited breath for the grand opening that will fit perfectly with the other delicious bakeries around town.

She has owned the successful Elizabethtown Inn since 2018 and the question that many are asking is why she waited so long for the delicious addition that fits a bed-and-breakfast like calm fits a warm Carolina southern night. It just makes sense. But Marais needed some convincing because she didn’t want to step on toes of established bakers in town.

“My kids, Liam and Minnie just convinced me,” she said. “Every week I bake my cookies and I have been giving them away for years. My kids said, ‘You need to sell these.’”

Liam (Marais’ future son-in-law) is a top chef at Nuovo in Vermont and her daughter is attending culinary school. Together they have put together a sort of gastronomical power couple. They have sharp pallets and they KNOW food. Good food. So, the kudos to their mom is not just blowing smoke through the bloodline.

“I struggled with it,” Marais said. “And I struggled with it. I mean, I didn’t have the confidence to bake out. Also, I didn’t want to ruffle any feathers, and I suppose I should go and talk to them and tell them I am not invading a territory, but adding to a business that has already been established. I am baking what I am baking for breakfast and people have requested what I bake. But it came down to my own kids – and it took a chef to tell me and provide me with the confidence I needed to open.”

Marais is just starting off small at first, sending up a flag to see if it will fly, so to speak.

“I am just starting out with five types of cookies,” she said. “My chocolate chip cookies, M&M cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies, white chocolate macadamia and pecan butterscotch. I am also doing my Fudgie brownies and I can do them with nuts or no nuts depending on the preference.”

Of course, because sometimes you feel like a nut and sometimes you don’t.

“I will also be making my scones,” she said. “And my blueberry muffins and raspberry muffins and that’s the launch for the first little bit.”

From Sept. 15 – Oct. 15, the country will celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month and Marias is all about the quaintness and the fun around the holidays at the bed-and-breakfast.

“So, for National Hispanic Heritage Month, we are going to do Tres Leches and churro cupcakes or churro muffins,” she said. “Tres Leches are a triple milk cake and it is so good. It is my recipe and Anna Paula’s recipe – one of the girls that works here at the Inn.”

According to the Elizabethtown Inn website, “Dating to around 1834, the Elizabethtown Inn is one of the oldest structures still standing in Bladen County, North Carolina. Originally the home of Colonel John McDowell, the house reportedly served as a hospital during the Civil War. The house is in the Greek Revival style of architecture, and has been called home by half a dozen different families over the years. Several renovations and additions have been made since the house was originally constructed, and in the late 1930s the house was moved a couple of hundred yards from its original site, just east of the current location. In 2015, renovations began to create the Inn.”

This begins Sept. 2. After that the Elizabethtown Inn Bakery will launch Halloween cookies.

“Our themes will change all the time,” she said. “My cookies are extra-large, but they are not giant,” Marais said. “I only use the best ingredients. The baked goods will be by phone order only. You will have to phone or email. The bakery website for ordering can be found on our website starting the 26 ^th on the tab: bakeshop.”

The launching of the bakery, according to Marais will be first to the Elizabethtown-White Lake Chamber of Commerce where the next Chamber event will be held at 8 a.m., Sept. 24.

“So, on that day there will be breakfast at the Inn,” she said. “As of right now I am thinking of serving my breakfast burritos with all the trimmings with a fruit plate and cereal and the bake. I will also exhibit all of the baked goods. Now, on the week of Aug. 26, I am going to open the bakery and announce it on Facebook and Instagram. I am very excited for this. I am taking baby steps and launching with just a few things, but there are plans to expand. If I need more space, I might need to arrange for a commercial kitchen.”

To take more time out of the already demanding schedule of a bed-and-breakfast, there has been a plan.

“My staff and I have had a big meeting about this,” Marais said. “We are all very keen to do this. If it takes off, we will employ more people. The bottom line is, it’s the food I bake for my guests, but anyone is now able to buy it without having to spend a night at the Inn.”

The Elizabethtown Inn was originally owned by John McDowell who was injured while serving with the 34 ^th Regiment of the North Carolina Infantry.

According to the National Park Service, “34th Infantry Regiment was assembled at High Point, North Carolina, in October 1861. Its members were recruited in the counties of Ashe, Rutherford, Rowan, Lincoln, Cleveland, Mecklenburg and Montgomery. After serving in the Department of North Carolina, it was sent to Virginia and placed in General Pender’s and Scales’ Brigade. The 34th was active in the many campaigns of the army from the Seven Days’ Battles to Cold Harbor and later participated in the Petersburg siege south of the James River and the operations around Appomattox. It reported 53 killed and 158 wounded during the Seven Days’ Battles, 2 killed and 23 wounded at Second Manassas , 2 killed and 17 wounded at Fredericksburg , and 18 killed and 110 wounded and 20 missing at Chancellorsville . Of the 310 engaged at Gettysburg , 21% were disabled. It surrendered 21 officers and 145 men. The field officers were Colonels Collet Leventhorpe, William Lee J. Lowrance, and Richard H. Riddick; Lieutenant Colonels George T. Gordon, Charles J. Hammerskold, William A. Houck, John L. McDowell, and George M. Norment; and Majors George M. Clark, Joseph B. McGee, Eli H. Miller, William A. Owens, Martin Shoffner and Francis L. Twitty.”

Marais, the owner of the Elizabethtown Inn since 2018 has had a very cultured and exciting background, being born in South Africa.

“I was born in a town called Benoni, which is just outside of Johannesburg,” Marais said. “I lived there until 2011 and then we moved to Bahrain in the Middle East, lived there for three years and then we lived in France for six years and I’ve been here six years. It’s a lot of different culture which makes me have no culture.”

She takes time to laugh at her quips and makes those who listen to her stories laugh right along. Her laugh is infectious and her tears are precious, and Marais is a woman who wears her heart on her sleeve and is unafraid to be just who she is. And who she is, is genuine.

Running a bed-and-breakfast from the business standpoint alone can be overwhelming, but handling as well, the day-to-day operation takes someone who either can get a lot of helpers or who wears a lot of hats. Marais has two helpers for the housecleaning chores and one man who comes to handle her maintenance.

Other than that, it’s all on her shoulders. From her charm with the guests to the incredible meals she cooks, bakes and serves she works with a flair that gives evidence of her background as a mother who knows her way around managing a successful house.

“I’ve never run a bed-and-breakfast, but I am a mother,” she said. “AND, she said, my children had sleepover parties very, very often. So, I think that every mother is an innkeeper. My motto would be that people would feel like they are coming home away from home. Especially business travelers or the cyclists including this coming weekend.”

Stated very simply and humbly, she said that she just wants the people who come there to feel at home. She also said that it’s not a “fancy-pancy” type of breakfast, it’s just a home cooked meal. Marais provide each guest upon arrival a breakfast menu for each day of their stay. They must mark what they’d like and the time they want to be served.

Of course, Marais complies with bells on. As the tired travelers come down from their cozy nests in the morning, they begin to smell the scent that one could only describe as “home.” They find their way to the elaborate dining room where the table is immaculately set as if it were a royal banquet. Soon after, Marais comes around the corner out of her kitchen with her hands full of magnificent concoctions and made to order specials fit for a king or queen or maybe even a young prince and princess. The filling is more than enough for all the adventuring they are about to experience in Bladen County and surrounding areas.

“You get a custom-made menu during the week,” Marais said. “On the weekends when the house is full, I make a buffet and try to accommodate everybody’s tastes.”

Of Elizabethtown it is said, there are always flowers, there is always music playing, the people are kind and helpful and the climate is kind. Above all, though. There are always flowers and now… a new bakery addition to an already successful bed-and-breakfast.

To find out more information about the Elizabethtown Inn, or to speak with Christine Marais, please visit their website at: https://www.theelizabethtowninn.com/