Valentine’s Day is one of my least-favorite evenings to dine out. Restaurants everywhere are overwhelmed. Often, we get stuck with like-it-or-lump-it fixed menus that lack courses for vegetarians—like my wife. Instead, we prefer to stay home. For Valentine’s, we’ve become quite fond of fondue.
Coffee lovers know the best cup is made with recently roasted beans—the fresher the better. Buying from a local roastery, especially one in the neighborhood, guarantees that freshness. Although Birmingham’s regional giants Royal Cup and Red Diamond are more than a century old, today’s modern coffee culture traces to 1993 when O’Henry’s Coffee opened in Homewood selling beans that were roasted in-house. Today, dozens of small-batch producers can be found throughout the metro area. Their coffee beans are available in groceries and upscale markets, served in restaurants, sold online, and stocked in the roasteries’ own cafes.
At the Woodlawn Marketplace in Birmingham, economic empowerment can be both beautiful and delicious. The marketplace is a business incubator created by REV Birmingham, a revitalization and economic development nonprofit. Under a single roof, entrepreneurs pursue their dreams to build businesses around their handmade crafts and food-related products. All are veterans of the periodic Woodlawn Street Market run by REV and the Woodlawn Merchants Association.
Strike up the band and march on down to The Camp in Huntsville for the fourth Mardi Gras in MidCity, a three-week New Orleans-style party that runs through Fat Tuesday on February 21. Organized by Octo Hospitality and Huntsville developer RCP Companies, the pop-up draws inspiration from the Big Easy as it lets the good times roll in the Rocket City.
“It’s like a college class,” the website for the group Discourse BHAM says about its new and unusual lecture series. “But there’s drinking.” Run by three Birmingham residents—two college professors and a publishing agency executive—the goal is to provide a forum where, as co-founder Lawrence Cappello puts it, “smart people talk about smart things.” Only in this case the forum is in a decidedly non-academic setting: a bar.
Anthony Ricciardone charted his current entrepreneurial course as a gardener. Today, he’s a farmer. Oysters are his crop, boutique bivalves that he and partner Chris Head grow in water off Fort Morgan where the salty Gulf of Mexico meets more subtly brackish Bon Secour Bay.
As the Chinese New Year arrives on January 22, families are gathered to enjoy a homecoming, honor their ancestors, and— above all—eat. It’s the new year on the lunar calendar, which uses moon phases to segment the year. In China and other countries that traditionally follow it, the new year starts on the second new moon after the Winter Solstice‚between January 21 and February 20 on solar-based Western calendars.
You won’t need to ride a “White Limozeen” all the way to Nashville to celebrate Dolly Parton’s birthday this month. One is cruising to downtown Birmingham on January 19 to mark the big day with a pop-up at Adios Bar.
Auburn University’s new Rane Center is cooking up an exclusive, food-focused getaway called the Epicurean Experience, bringing in guest chefs and sommeliers, and capping the weekend with a special nine-course dinner at the center’s 1856 Restaurant.
Chefs across central Alabama will make sure no one is hungry when 2022 ends, with special New Year’s Eve menus at some of the region’s finest restaurants. There will be multi-course menus in Montgomery, at Lake Martin, and in Auburn. Nibble on mini lobster rolls and enjoy oysters on the half-shell at a jazz lounge. In Tuscaloosa, an evening of food drink and music culminates in a midnight toast. Here are some places to celebrate the great meals of 2022, and set the stage for more to come in 2023.
