Life lately & Sidewalk Film Festival recap

 

Oh there has been SO much fun stuff happening lately. Which is good, because after the post-wedding high I was on a couple of weeks ago after Torry & Nicole's wedding, I definitely needed to keep the momentum going.

I've lived in Birmingham for about seven years now (I think) and for some reason I had never made it to Rickwood Field until a couple of weeks ago. It's been on my list, but it's kind of one of those things where you really need a reason or an event to go there. Luckily the real estate firm I work for played another firm in a softball game, giving me the perfect excuse to finally make my appearance to America's Oldest Ball Park.

I have to say that I was not disappointed. It truly is a beautiful, historic sight to see and I felt an excitement knowing that I was sitting in the stands and walking on a baseball field where greats like Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb and Jackie Robinson have played. If you haven't already, be sure to check out the movie 42 about Jackie Robinson and you can catch some glimpses of Rickwood Field for yourself.

The rest of my past two weeks have been spent taking advantage of restaurant week at Cantina, Slice, Vittoria and Rojo. I also finally managed to get over to Steel City Pops with J one week night. After the not so great dinner I had made us, it was a welcomed treat :)

Then this past weekend was the long awaited Sidewalk Film Festival. I've written about Sidewalk before. It's one of my favorite things that happens in Birmingham every year. It just unfortunately happens to fall on the weekend of my niece's birthday. So I didn't get to see quite as many films this year because of course, baby girl will always come first. Even so, the films this year seemed to be better than usual. Not sure if that's because J picked most of them or if the movie options were just better general. Either way, I'm great with it.

Here's what we saw at Sidewalk and I can recommend that you see all of them—but especially see the ones with an asterisk by them:

• Lil Bub & Friendz - This was about the Internet meme and cat phenomenon, with a big focus on Lil Bub and her owner Mike.
• *Muscle Shoals* - An incredible documentary about the town of Muscle Shoals, Alabama and how it produced some of the greatest recordings in history, thanks to FAME Studios owner Rick Hall.
•  The Suspect - A narrative feature about a small town that gets hits by a bank robbery and the racial profiling that takes place during the case.
• Good Ol' Freda - A documentary about Freda Kelly, the secretary of the Beatles during their 11-year tenure as a band. *A must-see for any Beatles fan.*
• *No Place on Earth* - A documentary about a Jewish family who survived the Holocaust by living in a cave in the Ukraine for almost two years during WWII.
• *Ain't Them Bodies Saints* - Ruth and Bob enter a shoot out with the local police after a bank robbery. When a sheriff gets shot, Bob takes the rap and is sent to prison, but later escapes and comes back for Ruth and his daughter. This is their love story.

I think one of the things I love most about Sidewalk is the opportunity to stay after the movie for the Q&A session. I don't take advantage of it after every film since I am sometimes rushing off to the next one, but it's such an incredible thing to have a director or producer or actor from the film standing in front of you and giving you the chance to ask anything about the film or the process or the budget or anything!

Seriously, if you haven't been to Sidewalk and you live in Birmingham...next year is your year to attend.

Life lately

Apparently the name of the game lately has been working out and eating. Oh wait. Who am I kidding? That is always the name of the game. So yeah, clearly things haven't been too different.

But what was different was that I finally took advantage of the free (yes, free!) aerobics classes at Railroad Park recently. Joy and I went to yoga one Thursday evening, while Ashley and I opted to get "crunk" on a Monday night. Both were enjoyable, but the Crunk class was definitely harder. I was a sweaty girl afterward and I probably definitely looked ridiculous while trying to do these dance moves, but it was fun.

A couple of weekends ago I went with J to Mississippi to see/meet some of his friends. It was a super good time, but unfortch the only pic I was able to get was the one he took of the Bell Tower at Ole Miss—which is his alma mater. I wish we had made it to Oxford earlier on Saturday so I could've seen campus in the daylight. But we did at least get there in time to drive around town and visit Rowan Oak, William Faulkner's home, before sundown. Our next priority was obviously food so we headed directly to the square and ate at Boure, which was pretty good stuff. This meant the campus walking tour had to be taken at night, but it was still a nice experience to walk around and hear his and Hannah's stories about the good ole college days.

This past holiday weekend was kind of insanely busy with visiting both of our families on the actual  Fourth of July. We ate more than our fair share of bbq, hamburgers, hotdogs and homemade ice cream. (Ok, maybe that was just me!) Friday was spent mostly with my mom as we shopped and got a few projects done around the house and then my dad came in that afternoon. I left them to hang with some of the girls from the climbing gym and we ended up grabbing food from the Off the Hook food truck...love their shrimp po boy..it's delish!

Saturday was a busy workout/errand/chore day followed by an evening Barons game in my company's suite with J and my officemate Leslie and her family. Then Sunday afternoon I went back to Regions Field for another Barons game, but this time the Triumph Services junior board was hosting a special event for the participants of Triumph. We ended up getting upgraded to a rather large suite and it was such a good time, even though the Barons ended up (barely) losing. Follow that with a "see ya later" dinner to Kyle at Slice (the 'wing and a prayer' pizza just might be my fav) and it was one exhausting, but fun filled weekend.

The dish on Birmingham: a love letter to my town

I can't lie. On Monday, when driving home from an amazing long weekend of camping at the Ocoee River in Tennessee, I actually groaned out loud as we approached town and I saw the "skyline" of Birmingham (that is, if you can consider four tall buildings a skyline?).

But the thing is, even though I groaned, I truly do love this place.

As I think I heard someone say recently, Birmingham is a city that is neither too big nor too small. But like the tale of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, it's 'just right.' I like that it's not so big that I am too timid to get out and explore roads to see where they will take me and who they will take me to. And it's also not so small that there isn't anything to do on a random weeknight. I always feel like I could run into anyone that I know at any moment when I'm out on the town, but suprisingly I very rarely do.

Don't get me wrong, Bham definitely has its fair share of problems. Traffic can be annoying (though I know we have it easy compared to many other cities), jobs (or at least really fun, cool ones) can be hard to come by and of course there is the always ongoing political mess that I don't even completely understand (or want to understand for that matter).

But as an optimist, I like to look at the bright side. I like to look at all the amazing things my city has to offer:

• Railroad Park, an award-winning urban greenspace that hosts free exercise classes, concerts & other events
• a beautiful new stadium downtown for our minor league baseball team, The Birmingham Barons
• incredible restaurants including those owned by award-winning chefs like Chris Hastings & Frank Stitt (but let's be honest, you're more likely to find me at the J. Clyde, Rojo, El Barrio, Saw's or Slice)
• UAB Health System—one of the top four largest academic medical centers in the country
• a pretty decent music scene thanks to venues like The Bottletree, Workplay and the new Iron City
• new developments including an entertainment district downtown and the revitilization of the Avondale area
• three top-notch colleges: Samford, Birmingham Southern and UAB, which was recently named the 10th best medical school in the nation by the U.S. News
• a variety of offerings for the outdoor enthusiast including 50 miles of biking and running trails at Oak Mountain State Park, more biking & running trails plus a zip line at Red Mountain Park and boulder fields for climbers at Moss Rock Preserve
• the unbelievably gorgeous renovated Historic Alabama Theater, which hosts concerts and their summer and holiday film series
• the Sidewalk Film Festival, which I think is the coolest event Birmingham hosts all year long
• and of course plenty of great shopping opportunities at both small boutiques around town and larger stores at the Summit

I swear my list could go on and on, but I'll stop here and hope that I've covered most everything I love about my (now) hometown. I'm sure I left a few things off, but I can always save those for another day.

And honestly, when you get down to it, it's not just about the awesome things I can do in Birmingham, but it's more about the awesome people that I get to share my adventures with. I have been so fortunate to have developed my framily here in Bham and now I've started to branch out with other great friends, thanks to the tons of people I have met through the climbing gym and church.

Basically what it all comes down to is, if they say 'home is where the heart is', then my home is in Birmingham—whether I live here forever or not.

Or to make that a broader statement, as the group Alabama sings "My home's in Alabama, no matter where I lay my head."

ps. If you want to see/read an entire 40 page piece on the state of Alabama which will be featured in the upcoming Delta Sky magazine, you can find that here.

Guide to Birmingham Dining, vol. 2

In honor of Birmingham Restaurant Week (8/17 - 8/26), I thought this would be an ideal time to follow up on my last Guide to Birmingham Dining. I personally love restaurant week. It's a pretty awesome way to price consciously try out many of the restaurants you wouldn't ordinarily hit up on a regular basis (unless you are ballin out, in which case, we all know I am not). Each of the restaurants have a specially prepared menu they feature for restaurant week and most (especially dinner) are three courses. If you visit their website, you can choose from a $5-$15 lunch or a $10-$30 dinner.

So I figured I'd pick some of my favorite places in town who are participating this week that I haven't featured before. Ready? Here we go!


{one} 26
Cuisine: Eclectic fusion-type dishes
Address: 1210 20th Street South
What to expect: To feel far away from Birmingham when you sit in the pretty swanky and intimate interior of 26.
Pricing: $20±

Link to their restaurant week menu

{two} Slice 

Cuisine: Unique pizzas

Address: 2921 Highland Avenue 

What to expect: An upscale, yet also causal pizza cafe. It's kind of like a sports bar meets a somewhat fancy restaurant...if that makes sense. 

Pricing: $10-$20±
My favorite regular menu item: This little piggy

Link to their restaurant week menu

{three} Ocean 

Cuisine: Fresh Seafood

Address: 1210 20th Street South  

What to expect: The most incredible seafood dishes...ever.

Pricing: $30±

My favorite regular menu item: The pan seared scallops

Link to their restaurant week menu

{four} Highlands Bar & Grill

Cuisine: Southern with a twist

Address: 2921 Highland Avenue

What to expect: To rub elbows with a large percentage of the most influential people in Bham while eating delicious dishes created by award-winning chef Frank Stitt.  

Pricing: $30± 

Link to their restaurant week menu

{five} La Paz

Cuisine: Mexican

Address: 99 Euclid Avenue

What to expect: A busy, bustling and child-friendly restaurant in the heart of Birmingham's coziest neighborhood. 

Pricing: $10-$20±

My favorite regular menu item: Baja fish tacos

Link to their restaurant week menu

{six} Little Savannah

Cuisine: Southern with a twist

Address: 3811 Clairmont Avenue 

What to expect: A charming restaurant serving a menu created with only the most local and freshest ingredients possible.  

Pricing: $20-30± 

My favorite regular menu item: Shrimp and grits

Link to their restaurant week menu

Bon appetit! And enjoy restaurant week!