Tag: Gainesville

The roughly 1,500 Afghans who’ve arrived in Atlanta since last fall mark a substantial increase in the metro’s small Afghan population. Familiar comforts are sparse: The only Afghan grocery in the area is Kabul Market off Lawrenceville Highway, known for its freshly baked Afghan bread. Since the beginning of Operation Allies Welcome, Georgia hasn’t been a top destination like Virginia, Texas, or California—but Atlanta itself has been among the top 10 cities for Afghan resettlement, and the only major one in the Southeast. Here is the story of how one family is building a life here.

Inspired by cabanas at beach hotels, Angela Blehm designed this custom shelter for her family’s Gainesville pool.

Whether you’re hiking at FDR State Park or going to check out a North Georgia waterfall, these are the best sandwiches—and tacos, biscuits, churros, and soft-serve—to fuel your adventure. (The cheddar grouper sandwich, by the way, is a destination in its own right.)

Overall, Latinx people make up 9 percent of the state’s population but one-third of its COVID-19 cases, according to Georgia Department of Public Health data for which ethnicity was reported.

As the heat turns up, so does the volume at outdoor concerts just a short drive from Atlanta.

It’s hard for Amanda Wilbanks to remember a time when baking didn’t symbolize love and family. The 31-year-old Gainesville-based Southern Baked Pie Company founder and newly minted cookbook author’s earliest memories are filled with time spent in the kitchen with her mother and grandmother.

Angela Blehm spent her childhood painting. So it’s no surprise that her adult life is full of beauty and imagination. The artist and her family live on a gently sloping lot overlooking Lake Lanier, but the tranquil setting belies the dramatic palette indoors.

No one else sits at Betty Toney’s table. It’s not that she needs all that space. The 73-year-old retired hospital clerk takes up just a quarter of the rectangular surface, where she’s arranged her $27 book of Bingo sheets, her multicolored daubers, and her dinner—egg salad sandwich, plain potato chips, Dr Pepper with ice in a Styrofoam cup, and two M&M’s chocolate chip cookies.

Everywhere Jason Smith turned, it seemed death surrounded him. As a medic in the smoldering battlegrounds of Iraq, he performed CPR on fatally wounded Marines. Back home he was involved in a car wreck that left him with a traumatic brain injury and killed a friend. Before long he began hallucinating.

The garden spread its tendrils this spring with two new spaces totaling nearly 200 acres. In Midtown, the previously undeveloped Gardens in Storza Woods, one of Atlanta’s last remaining mature hardwood forests, opened in May, the first new addition since 2010’s Canopy Walk.