Bless you, bless you, bless you
April 4 — It’s Cathy from Rough Draft with my weekly newsletter on Tucker. Geez, Louise, I don’t think I’ve ever sneezed so much as this week. And changed from my winter clothes into summer wear and back in the same day.
🫘 This week’s newsletter discusses the results of last weekend’s chili cookoff, delivers the promised album release story by a longtime Tucker resident, goes deep into my affinity for desserts, featuring a Tucker restaurant that has a cake recipe that hits all the marks, and some upcoming events that are worth fighting through the yellow storm to experience.
💮 Thanks for reading and have a great weekend,
Cathy
🏃 Join Move For Grady on April 26! With three cycling distances and two run/walk options, there’s something for everyone. Then celebrate your accomplishment – and support for Grady – with a fun finish line celebration at Georgia State’s Center Parc Stadium. SPONSOR MESSAGE
Chili cookoff hot takes
👩🍳The pollen couldn’t stop the March 29 Local 7’s Tucker Chili Cookoff with some darn great food and cold beer. For those who like to keep score, here are the winners:
🥇 1st Place: South of the Border
🥈 2nd Place: City of Tucker*
🥉 3rd Place: Smoke One Chili
🏆 People’s Choice: Steel City
🍽️ Best Restaurant: Las Colinas
🎨 Best Booth: Paulie’s Backyard Chili
*Seems rigged, but I wasn’t there. 😉
Apparently the smoked cheese was the highlight of South of the Border’s entry and Paulie’s Backyard Chili’s set-up (above) was as golden as your car windshield.
🔥Check out the Chili Cookoff’s Facebook page for more pictures.
Who’s ready for spring and summer gardening?
SPONSORED BY LOVE IS LOVE COOPERATIVE FARM
🪴 The worker-owner farmers of Love is Love Cooperative Farm have everything you need to grow an abundant kitchen garden for the spring and summer.
In addition to an enormous selection of certified organic vegetable, herb and edible flower seedlings, Love is Love Cooperative Farm’s Annual Spring Plant Sale & Family Day on the Farm offers free gardening and foraging workshops, activities for young folks, pop-up chefs, farm tours, music, artisan vendors and more! Stop by this Saturday, April 5, from 10:30 a.m. until 3:30 p.m.
💚 See the full schedule of events here.
Don’t worry, be disco
🫦 Longtime Tucker resident James Pinkstone, a 22-year veteran of the Atlanta music scene, is releasing a 13-song musical compilation that explores his own struggles with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder on May 2, but listeners can get a preview of selected songs over the next month.
Pinkstone is releasing one single each Friday: “Hey Satan” (April 4), “The Terrible Future” (April 11), “Scoundrels and Idiots” (April 18), and “Tiger” (April 25). Finally, on Friday, May 2, “Worry Disco” will be available in its entirety for streaming and digital download through most streaming and Mp3 platforms.
😈 Here’s the story, with a link to the first single, “Hey Satan.”
🏃 Join Move For Grady on April 26! With three cycling distances and two run/walk options, there’s something for everyone. Then celebrate your accomplishment – and support for Grady – with a fun finish line celebration at Georgia State’s Center Parc Stadium. SPONSOR MESSAGE
You had me at Key Lime Cake
🍭 Anyone who has spent more than five minutes with me knows I have a sweet tooth, especially for creamy desserts and of course, chocolate. It doesn’t even have to be that delicious or healthy – as witnessed by my affinity for foods I call members of the “fifth food group,” which has sugar and chemicals as its only ingredients (think Mike & Ikes, Hot Tamales, and Skittles).
Desperate times sometimes call for desperate measure, and often Kroger has a four-for $5 special on fifth food group candies. But all that goes out the door when a real opportunity for a quality dessert presents itself, especially when it involves the words “Key Lime Cake,” which just happens to be in Tucker’s back yard at the Magnolia Room Cafe, located at 4450 Hugh Howell Road.
Our dining editor Beth McKibben dropped the recipe for Key Lime Cake this week as part of her coverage, and I think it’s worthy of sharing.
Note: The recipe calls for “neutral oils,” but don’t let that throw you. Chef Google defines neutral oils as having “a very mild or almost no flavor, making them a good choice for dishes where you don’t want the oil to overpower other flavors. Some examples include avocado oil, canola oil, vegetable oil, grapeseed oil, and safflower oil.”
🍰 Without further ado, here’s the recipe, along with a little history of Magnolia Room Cafe.
🏃 Join Move For Grady on April 26! With three cycling distances and two run/walk options, there’s something for everyone. Then celebrate your accomplishment – and support for Grady – with a fun finish line celebration at Georgia State’s Center Parc Stadium.
SPONSOR MESSAGE
CHaRM-ing story
♻️ Our editor Collin Kelley just wrote a great story about the history of the Center for Hard to Recycle Center (CHaRM), which appeared in our April print edition, as well as online.
CHaRM is marking its 10th anniversary with a series of events at its DeKalb location and news of a third location coming to the Westside of Atlanta.
Managed by local environmental nonprofit Live Thrive, CHaRM was the brainchild of executive director Peggy Whitlow Ratcliffe after her parents passed away and she was tasked with cleaning out their home.
The center’s Belvedere Park location is just a hop, skip, and a jump away from Tucker. I have been a regular customer there, and take a ridiculous amount of pleasure in tossing my plastic bags and styrofoam in a place other than my garbage can.
📦 Here’s the story in case you missed it. And if you are like me and enjoy reading a physical newspaper, you can pick our April edition up at Tucker City Hall or Wine & Whimseys.
Growing in Tucker
🌱 Georgia Plant Trade & Sales will host a self-explanatory plant swap and sale in Tucker at Perc Coffee, 2316 Main St. from noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday, April 6. I’d like to swap some plants, but I imagine they have to be alive in order to be swap-able, so my black thumb and I will be bringing cash.
If you miss that one, there’s a native plant sale on April 26 at The Tucker Greenspace from 8 a.m. to noon.
🥀 They have these events all over the city, so check out the upcoming dates here.
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