NORTH KNOXVILLE
Bistro is the right space for Knoxville's jazz scene
Jack Coker, Shopper News
A Knoxville staple since 1980, The Bistro at the Bijou is a well loved spot to grab a bite. Patrons are treated to fresh, made-from-scratch meals in a quaint, urban setting surrounded by walls considered ancient by American standards.
The space has been a bar or restaurant since the 19th century, and has been witness to about all of Knoxville’s history.
However, today the space is known locally for an art form considered modern by The Bistro’s standards.
While popular, jazz is somewhat a rarity in our Appalachian town. The Knoxville Jazz Orchestra and the University of Tennessee’s Jazz program provide a great deal of talent, but where can they play?
Starting around 2004, Martha Boggs, current owner of The Bistro, began to invite jazz musicians to play in the space. “It just felt right,” she remarked.
Many Knoxville residents flock to the intimate space to get a taste of the dynamic music being influenced by the crowd and the room.
While Boggs books some out-of-town acts to come play, many of the artists come from UT’s Jazz program.
David Zavracky, a talented alto saxophone player at UT, has played many times at the Bistro. “I’ve been playing for six years,” he said, ever since he heard a Ben Webster recording. He “knew in that moment” that he needed to learn the art.
Of playing at the Bistro, Zavracky said that it’s “close, convenient, and I get to have some fun playing with friends.” A patron at the bar, Stephen Mulcahey, whom I met the night Zavracky was playing, said, “That David is one seriouscat.”
The Bistro is very important in the local jazz scene here in Knoxville. Zavracky said that it’s “really the only place in Knoxville that consistently has jazz.” Which to some is surprising, considering the legacy of Jerry Coker, a famed jazz pedagogue who founded the Studio Music and Jazz program at the University of Tennessee.
Carter Floering, a teaching assistant and graduate student at the University of North Texas’ Jazz Studies Program, said that, “Knoxville has the roots to have great jazz music. The Bistro specifically gives musicians an opportunity to hone their craft, and be listened to. Having a few more venues like the Bistro would help further the jazz scene in Knoxville.”
You can catch the live jazz at The Bistro at 7 p.m. Mondays and at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. When you go, don’t forget to bring some spare change to support our city’s starving artists.
KARNS
Friends’ Egg Drop brings the magic of Easter to your house
Nancy Anderson, Shopper News
Lifelong Karns resident Mya Rudder and her best friend, Emily Gorlewski of Farragut, started an egg drop business and are taking orders daily.
The night before Easter, this dynamic duo intends to stay up all night to drop candy-filled eggs in the yards of kids.
“It’s not just for the littles, we have specialty eggs also. Most of them are stuffed with candy like Reese’s Pieces and M&Ms. Eggs for older kids, special needs kids, or kids with allergies can be ordered with our Google Form link from our Facebook page. We fill specialty eggs with little toys or stickers. We can accommodate all ages,” said Rudder.
There are several packages for every budget:
Deadline for registering is March 28.
The duo say they want to make children and parents happy. Kids have only a short time until they’re grown. Preparing an Easter basket may be overwhelming with everything that goes with Easter.
“We recognize how fast children grow and how parents want to make all holidays magical. Parents only get about 10 years to make holidays special while their kids are younger, so making them special is really important!” Rudder said.
“Doing little things like an egg hunt and leaving surprises from the Easter Bunny makes memories for families and creates no extra work for parents.”
Gorlewski added to the sentiment. “It’s a fun family activity; we want to bring the magic to your house. The kids love waking up Easter morning and finding little candy- filled surprises for them all over the yard. It’s a relief for parents to get one more thing off their plate for the holiday and still have a special magic-filled day.”
Rudder and Gorlewski came up with the idea trying to entertain Gorlewski’s 2-year-old son, Charlie.
“As a mom in this position who works full time, plus I had Charlie while I was still in grad school, I definitely would have paid someone to help take something off my To Do list,” Gorlewski said.
“It’s a small magic thing to do for the kids. Doing for other families brings me joy, and knowing the excitement the kids will experience is just amazing.”
Info: Find Mya Rudder or Emily Gorlewski on Facebook and follow the link or copy and paste this link to order by March 28. https://forms.gle/1qNwntSwzHosyNX36 .
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HALLS
Cake maker finds less stress outside the academic world
Al Lesar, Shopper News
Everyone deserves a cake on their birthday.
That has been Amber Wheat’s mission for the past couple years.
The Halls resident grew up in Louisiana and came to East Tennessee for graduate school at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. She has a bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate in anthropology.
So her ownership of Bakeroos nonprofit and The Buttercream Mill seems like a logical step, right?
Wheat specialized in cranial and facial development in juveniles in her education. She had taught at several area universities, but came to the realization academia was not for her.
“I applied for a job and said, ‘If I don’t get this job, I’m going to do something else,’” Wheat said. “I didn’t get it. I always loved baking.”
While Wheat was working on her dissertation, her first child (who’s now 10) was about to have his first birthday. She wanted to bake the cake.
“I realized that baking was a great stress reliever,” Wheat said. “That’s the direction I went.”
Helping foster kids
Amber and her husband, Austin, have three biological children. Leaning on their strong background of faith, Amber said the Lord called them into foster care. In January 2021, a little boy joined their family right before his first birthday. Of course, she made a great smash cake.
“I realized there were lots of kids who nobody knows, with no family, that are having a birthday without a cake,” she said. “That gave me the idea to start a nonprofit doing cakes for kids in the foster care system.”
With the help of caseworkers, Wheat baked about 35 cakes (at no cost to the families) for kids in foster care, and Bakeroos was born. The next year it was more than 100, and last year she and six other bakers made birthdays special for 216 youngsters.
After a while, people were giving donations to help offset the costs.
“After doing the nonprofit for a while, I thought I could start doing my own thing,” Wheat said. “Everything I do is made from scratch.”
In January 2023, the initial cake from The Buttercream Mill was baked.
Taking Christmas off
Wheat emphasized that she is a licensed and insured cottage baker. Her business operates out of her home, which is near the Union County line.
“One thing that makes me unique is that everything on my cakes is made from scratch,” she said. “People have raved about the flowered piping. That’s what I do best.”
Whether it’s cakes or cupcakes, Wheat has found a way to dress them up. She is a self-taught baker who has learned her decorating skills by watching videos and taking online classes.
She recently decided to offer a class of her own in April. There were eight spots available. It filled up in five hours.
“I was completely blown away by the way the class filled up,” said Wheat.
She survived Valentine’s Day and is looking ahead toward Easter. However, she won’t deal with Christmas.
“My husband convinced me not to take any Christmas orders and I loved it,” Wheat said. “It was great to focus on just him and the kids.”
To contact Wheat, go to: www.bakeroos.org or www.thebuttercreammill.com , or go to social media pages.
HALLS
The Cottage Door, longtime Fountain City antiques store, is closing
Al Lesar, Shopper News
Saying goodbye for the second time isn’t getting any easier.
When Charlotte Jellicorse walked away from the world of finance in 1993, she was looking forward to a peaceful retirement.
That lasted until 2007 when Jellicorse, a 1964 Halls High School grad, Elizabeth Donaldson (who graduated from Halls in ’66) and two others opened The Chic Shack.
“It was a tea room and antique store,” Jellicorse said of the Tazewell Pike business. “There was a lot of traffic, but people were always in a hurry to get somewhere. Nobody was stopping in.”
A few years later, Jellicorse and Donaldson found a new location, at the corner of Tazewell Pike and Jacksboro Pike, and rebranded the store as The Cottage Door Antiques and Gifts.
“We made a lot of good friends in the 14 years that we’ve been open,” said Jellicorse. “But now, it’s time. We’ve come to the realization that it’s time for us to close down.”
Jellicorse said family concerns are causing her to focus her time in other directions.
“What I need to do for my family supersedes anything else,” she said.
Antiques come full circle
It will likely be the end of March when the Cottage Door closes for the final time. Between now and then, Jellicorse said everything in the store is 25% off.
“We’ve always had the best prices around,” Jellicorse said. “Now, people are really getting a deal.”
Jellicorse said the top items her shop has now are glassware and furniture.
“Younger folks have become more interested in glassware,” she said of the trends. “Antiques, like life, is a circle. Liz has always been good finding furniture. I have a knack for the quirky things. I’ll go to a sale somewhere and find something that makes me say, ‘I’m sure someone would love this.’”
Jellicorse said she regularly has friends/customers stop in to sell something to her for the store. After a while, she had to become more particular.
“If something wasn’t in good shape, we couldn’t buy it just because we felt sorry for the person,” she said. “We try to cater to everybody. Over the years, we realized we couldn’t fix everybody.”
Rekindling memories
There were no preconceived notions that anyone was going to get rich when The Cottage Door opened.
“It’s a fun business,” Jellicorse said. “You can’t always count on making enough to pay the mortgage. If you’re big enough and you have a lot of renters (with booth space), you might be able to make a living.
“That’s not the reason you do something like this. You have to love estate sales and yard sales. You have to always try to buy things at a price that you can make money from.”
Jellicorse said they would bargain on the big items, but not the small.
She talked about a recent sale she made to a younger customer. They were odds and ends teacups and saucers for a child’s party.
“I said ‘You must have enjoyed your time with your grandparents,’” she said. “They were trying to re-create the feeling, the time they had.”
Until the end of March, The Cottage Door Antiques and Gifts will be open Tuesdays noon-4 p.m. and Wednesday-Saturday 10 a.m.-5 p.m.
OPINION
Pajamas take center stage
Leslie Snow, Shopper News
I’m at the Miami airport with my husband waiting to catch a flight to St. John for a much-needed vacation. I have a book in my lap and my eyes are scanning the pages, but I can’t focus on the words. There’s too much to see at the airport. Too many people to watch and too much activity to observe.
While I’m sipping coffee and pretend-reading, I notice a family of four studying their boarding passes. The parents are in their mid-30s and the two children, a boy and a girl, look to be about 8 or 10 years old. They’re a sweet looking family, happy and excited for vacation, I guess, and in most ways, they’re unremarkable. I might not have noticed them at all if they weren’t wearing their pajamas.
All four of them, including the adults, were wearing furry wide-leg pajamas festooned with colorful animals, snow-skiing bears, and rainbow unicorns. I chuckled to myself, assumed they had a monumentally early flight, and didn’t give it another thought until I saw another family wearing pajamas.
I put down my book and studied the crowd. Pajamas were everywhere. I turned to my husband and whispered, “Pajamas are having a real renaissance, aren’t they?”
He assumed that was a rhetorical question, but it wasn’t. Because the more I thought about it (and who wouldn’t want to pass the time contemplating the role of pajamas in our lives), the more I realized it was true. We’re living in the pajama glory days.
In my own life, pajamas in their many forms dominate my post-COVID wardrobe. I have the classic pajama, the kind I sleep in at night, but that’s only the beginning.
Because when I wake up in the morning, I simply trade my sleeping pajamas for my morning pajamas. And while “morning pajamas” also have a fancy name, like “athleisure wear,” they are really just pajamas that I wear to walk my dog or go to the grocery store.
And when I come home from a morning of exercising and running errands, I shower and put on my next set of pajamas. I call those my dress pajamas.
Dress pajamas are made of soft fabrics and often have a lovely matching jacket or cardigan. I wear them when I go to lunch with my mother or to the mall, and when I do, people always compliment me.
“I love your outfit,” they say, and I reply, “Thank you! The world has given me permission to wear pajamas in public and I have accepted the challenge.”
Most people laugh. They get the joke because they’re wearing pajamas, too.
I even have a pair of emerald-green crepe pajamas that I wear when I go downtown on a Saturday night for dinner and a show. Those are my formal pajamas. I save those for special occasions.
I’m not sure what to make of our more casual dress code. I’m not sure what I think of full-grown adults passing through airport security wearing fuzzy Captain America pajamas, but I get the impulse. I understand the need to be comfortable as we rush through our busy days. COVID changed the way we think about clothing, and four years later, pajamas are all the rage.
For Christmas last year, I got a cute pair of slippers that I wear around the house. When my daughter-in-law Amanda saw them, she assured me it’s OK to wear them in public.
I laughed at the thought and said, “Great! I have the perfect pair of pajamas to wear with them.”
Leslie Snow may be reached at snow column@aol.com .
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This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Shopper Blog: Bistro is the right space for Knoxville's jazz scene
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