Baking cookies is an integral part of the holiday season, don’t you think? Cookies for Santa, cookie swap parties, cookie boxes for neighbors and friends; the list of reasons to bake cookies during the holidays goes on and on. I, personally, reach for cookie recipes no matter what season it is, simply because I love to bake cookies. Like most human beings, I too have swooned, drooled, and marveled over the chewy, sometimes gooey, flavorful bliss of a cookie fresh from the oven, but in all honesty, it’s the simple, familiar, and comforting process of baking cookies that really does it for me. Baking cookies, particularly during the holiday season, is comfort in its purest form; and I believe it’s a comfort we should share. 

It’s not hard to find a good meal along Alabama’s coast. So, it should be no surprise that chefs in Orange Beach and Gulf Shores have extra-special plans for New Year’s Eve. Fish from the Gulf of Mexico covered in Gulf crab at Villagio Grille and Coast Restaurant. Lobster and dick prosciutto gnocchi at Cobalt the Restaurant. The eating is good for New Year’s Eve. Evergreen celebrates Alabama’s most famous sausage with its second Conecuh brand New Year’s Eve Sausage Drop, while Tacky Jack’s restaurant and tavern will toast the occasion with a beachy favorite, the Bushwacker. Here are some options to ring in the new year at the beach with a full and satisfied belly. 

Yes, fireworks and countdowns are the stars of New Year’s Eve, but the party doesn’t have to begin there. A final great meal for 2022 sets the course for great food to come in 2023. At many Birmingham restaurants, New Year’s Eve isn’t just one more Saturday night. Chefs in one of the country’s best culinary mid-tier cities are creating special menus to celebrate with their food-loving fans. For some diners, it’s an opportunity to ring in the new year early and get home before things get too crazy. Or it can be the starter course for a long and memorable New Year’s Eve. Here are a few Birmingham restaurants hosting special New Year’s Eve events. This list is far from exhaustive, so check in with your favorite spot to see what they might have. 

Restaurants across north Alabama will party all night on New Year’s Eve, with special menus and midnight toasts. Sip champagne and watch the fireworks from a tower high above Florence at the 360 Grille. Enjoy music with your meal in Mentone at the Wildflower Café.  In Huntsville, celebrate birthdays for both 2023 and The Poppy and Parliament. Or if you’re staying at Lake Guntersville State Park for its big New Year’s Celebration, round out your experience by indulging in the multi-course special menu at the nearby Rock House Eatery. Here are five fun New Year’s Eve food events to attend:

Shopping is extra-sweet in Mobile for those making this month’s Cocoa Crawl through downtown’s LoDa Arts and Entertainment District. Organized by the Downtown Mobile Association in the vein of similar promotions in other cities, the crawl is designed to attract shoppers to shop and eat in the historic district. Through December 31, participating merchants, cafes, and bars will offer special chocolate drinks either soft or hard, and treats like fudge and hot chocolate pound cake.

In the prepared-food industry, like so many others, winning awards at prestigious competitions and drawing kudos from influential fans like Oprah Winfrey creates a buzz that money can’t buy. Harpersville-based Stone Hollow Farmstead is earning compounded interest on that account. It recently retained a place on the list of “Oprah’s Favorite Things,” won a top prize from the Specialty Food Association’s annual Sofi contest, and was named a runner-up in the Made in the South Awards by the Southern tastemaker “Garden and Gun” magazine. 

Eggnog, hot buttered rum, and cranberry spritzes galore! Nothing says festivity like a Christmas cocktail. From holiday-themed takeovers at our favorite craft cocktail bars to special menus and a one-of-a-kind igloo experience, there are the best places to celebrate with spirited spirits this holiday season. 

Does everyone know what cookie butter is? I have to ask because I, too, at one point in my life was unaware of the heavenly spread that is cookie butter. I remember trying cookie butter for the first time when my husband and I, newlyweds at the time, lived in Nashville, Tennessee. I picked up a jar at Trader Joe’s after reading a label that essentially said “here’s some delicious, creamy peanut-butter-esque spread, but we swapped the peanuts for cookies. Try it!” So I did. And do you know what I found? Bliss. For those of you who don’t know, cookie butter is a sweet, creamy spread made from pulverized spiced cookies—think those Biscoff cookies you get on an airplane. Its flavor is reminiscent of gingerbread, which makes it perfect for holiday baking. 

These chocolate pecan pie bars are a simpler, more delicious take on a classic! Full of deep flavors like browned butter, chocolate, and bourbon, these pecan pie bars are not only simple to make but great for feeding a crowd!

It’s a new dawn at Belle Chevre, which has been making nationally- and internationally-recognized artisanal goat cheese in north Alabama for three decades.

Patrick Campbell is deeply into cocktails. The bar head at Key Circle Commons in Mountain Brook stocks spirits from distillers that share his passions for sustainability and craft. He goes to great lengths to make syrups, infusions, and other mixers using fruit, herbs and produce from local farmers. He finds fulfillment taking classic cocktails and giving them his own unique twist.

The Thanksgiving guest list is long and your free hours are few. How do you feed a crowd, and not even break a sweat? Let someone else do the cooking—or at least supplement some options. Meat-and-threes, barbecue restaurants, veggie specialists, and caterers throughout Alabama offer special holiday-themed menus for Thanksgiving and beyond. Sometimes, they even bring it to you. Whether you need complete meals, or just some sides to supplement your main meat, here are a few places around the state to try. And don’t forget the pie.

It’s been a momentous six years since Big Beach Brewing Company in Gulf Shores opened its retractable doors to the public and pulled the first beer from its distinctive hand-blown glass tap handles. Envisioned as a small neighborhood pub, Big Beach instead blossomed into a mid-sized, family-friendly 12-tap microbrewery and music venue where head brewer Rod Murray cooks up 310-gallon batches, mostly ales, for a growing mix of tourists and locals.

At lucky tables around the state this Thanksgiving, someone is carving up a fresh pasture-raised gobbler grown on an Alabama farm like Heritage Hills Farmstead in Cullman County, Goose Pond Farm in Morgan County, or Bates, the beloved turkey house in Lowndes County.

Check out some of the finest food trucks from south Alabama and the Gulf Coast and wash it all down with the best brews from Bama and surrounding states, all this weekend at Gulf Shores. The inaugural Coastal Alabama Food Truck and Craft Beer Festival is set for Saturday, November 12, and Sunday, November 13, at the Town Green. More than a dozen food trucks are in the lineup, along with a baker’s dozen breweries. Admission is free, and the festival is open to the general public from noon until 6 p.m. Food and drinks from the trucks must be purchased.

{You can always count on beans} When the weather cools down, Alabama cooking is all about the bean. A staple harvested during the long hot summer becomes winter’s go to […]

Huntsville’s Yellowhammer Brewing, one of Alabama’s oldest operating beer-makers, is celebrating its 12th anniversary with three ultra-special releases, including one that’s been more than two years in the making. That batch gains complexity from spending 24 months in recycled wooden barrels previously filled with premium bourbon. Another is flavor-infused with fresh raspberries. The official annual anniversary brew marks time in a barrel once used to finish maple syrup.

Nestled between the sound of the flowing Tennessee River waterway and wide-open green spaces fit with wrap-around porches and momma’s home cookin’ is Downtown Decatur.

With any old house, you can expect a skeleton or two in the closet. Some even are haunted by resident spirits. But the 195-year-old mansion that houses Gaines Ridge Dinner Club in Camden, Alabama is one of the few haunted houses where you can order a shrimp cocktail and 16-ounce ribeye to go with the ghost stories.

{Cherchez la femme} Cherchez la femme is an expression I first heard repeated in a law school class. Coined by French novelist and gourmand, Alexander Dumas in his novel “The […]

{Let’s get the Soup Season Series stirring} We’re sharing three soup recipes with you this fall and winter, all inspired by iconic Alabama food and restaurants. The first stop on […]