Adios Bar in Birmingham celebrates the owners’ Mexican heritage
When Jose Medina Camacho was growing up, the last thing he wanted to do was work in the hospitality industry. After immigrating from Michoacán, Mexico with his mother and brother at the age of 3, he spent many of his adolescent years working in his uncles’ restaurants in Tuscaloosa, Jasper, and beyond. “My grandfather was a dishwasher at the restaurant,” he says. “All my uncles were cooks. It was kind of like a family affair.”
Batter Together: Recipe for Raspberry Almond Thumbprint Cookies
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.
Visit Cheaha Mountain, the highest point in Alabama
Rising above the clouds, it earned the name, “Island in the Sky.” The Creek Nation labeled it “Chaha,” meaning “high place” in the Muskogee language. At 2,407 feet above sea level, Cheaha State Park towers over the rest of the state as its highest point. Located in the town of Delta in North Alabama, this oasis stretches wide across the horizon in the midst of 2,799 acres of state park, plus the surrounding 392,567 acres of the Talladega National Forest, which in turn encompasses more than 7,000 acres of the Cheaha Wilderness. It affords a rare luxury in these crowded times—miles of vista oblivious to human touch.
Andiamo Lodge offers a rustic-luxe stay in Mentone
When it comes to Southern mountain towns, Alabama isn’t always first to come to mind. While places like Asheville, North Carolina; Gatlinburg, Tennessee; and the Blue Ridge mountains snatch up the vast majority of visitors each year, the tiny northeast Alabama town of Mentone (with a population of just over 300) may be the South’s best-kept secret. At least that’s what Colleen Duffley and Steve Carpenter thought when they purchased a cabin on Mentone’s Little River in 2020.
Ranburne family turns dairy farm into plant nursery, café, and community space
In east Alabama, just miles from the Georgia border, is the tiny town of Ranburne. The community of fewer than 500 isn’t known by many outside of Cleburne County, but in March of 2020 local couple Taylor and Cole Gibbs gave Alabamians a reason to take notice. They opened the Barn of Blooms. a plant nursery and community gathering space selling everything from seeds to shade trees—all grown by local farmers.
7 questions with Caitlin Hastings of Botanica Plant Shop
In 2018, full-time physician assistant Caitlin Hastings was feeling a little burnt out from work. As a creative outlet, she began helping friends and mutual acquaintances incorporate houseplants into their homes. Soon, that blossomed into weekend pop-ups where she sold pre-potted plants with care instructions for novice plant parents. And when the side hustle’s growth outpaced her operation, Hastings took a leap of faith and opened Botanica, a modern houseplant shop specializing in tropical, desert, and rare plants in downtown Birmingham. Since opening in August of 2019, Botanica hasn’t stopped growing. In 2020, they opened a second location in Huntsville, and have no plans to slow down any time soon. We sat down with Hastings to learn more about her love for plants, her plans for Botanica, and the ridiculously cool spaces she creates in her stores.
