The newly resurrected East Lake Farmer’s Market is hosting a Collards Cook-off on opening day (May 1st).  Over on the Oakhurst Message Board, East Lake Market co-founder Amy Williams taunts cocky collards cookers with promises with regional bragging rights if they enter the contest.

As a deprived transplant, I think it’s a dang feet in itself that I even LIKE collards, but no one should expect me to rattle off my top 5 picks, starting with my great-grandmother’s recipe extending down through an array of local spots hidden in dingy strip-mall corners of Atlanta.  I just don’t have the background.  I chalk it up to nurture over nature.

So I’m curious, my more nurtured collards colleagues, where do you get your best collards and what is it exactly makes them so darn tasty?

The AJC’s Peach Buzz reports…

Who was that enjoying Southern cuisine at Watershed in Decatur? None other than The Boss herself, Diana Ross, sharing butter bean hummus, salmon croquettes and a hot veggie plate with two lunch companions. First V-103’s Ryan Cameron rang us about this, as he and Atlanta Grammy winner Ciara were there. “The Boss shut it down!” he reported. But Buzz confirmed it with sous chef Robbie Kornacki, who gave the Motown legend’s table a complimentary pimento cheese and celery appetizer. “We do have a lot of celebrities here,” Kornacki said. “but I think people were kind of shocked to see her. I was. But yes, she was here —- hair and all.”

What other celebrities have done Watershed in the past?