Tag: Mobile

Top of the Class: The Hummingbird Way

What happens when a former Executive Chef for the State of Alabama opens a restaurant in the heart of Mobile’s Oakleigh Garden District? And not just any restaurant, an oyster bar. One that specializes in fresh catch and local produce.

A lot of things happen. A beloved old neighborhood gets a vibrant business, local fishermen and farmers have a market for their catch and produce, and Mobile gets one of the best seafood restaurants in the South. Jobs, culture, and a thousand beautiful nights are created. Everyone wins.

This is what Chef Jim Smith, owner of The Hummingbird Way, has done for the Port City. So it is that I found myself having dinner there back in early November, enjoying a flight of raw oysters and feeling more than a twinge of regional pride for Coastal Alabama’s culinary culture, when the bartender flipped the channel on the TV and … there we were.

“I’m here in Mobile, Alabama, in the Oakleigh Garden District,” chimed Guy Fieri’s familiar voice. A shot of the restaurant and the grand live oaks that line the neighborhood floated across the screen. Fieri is the host of the Food Network’s long-running hit-show “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives,” whose episodes on the Food Network have struck a chord with a national audience for almost two decades. His trademark spastic energy and no-collar vibe (think Sammy Hagar after the Red Rocker went blonde and you’ve got it) made for an odd mashup with the laconic nature of Mobile’s most historic neighborhood. It is as languorous as Fieri is not, but Fieri knows good food, and so it is no surprise that he has come here in search of America’s great eateries.

Read more from Mobile Baykeeper’s CURRENTS.

Breaking The Habit: Mobile’s Kiss-Off To Single-Use Plastic

Old habits die hard in America. And one habit that has been especially difficult for Americans to kick is our wide-ranging and unrelenting addiction to single-use consumer plastic.

What makes plastic so insidious, and quite frankly so disturbing as a pollutant, is its omnipresence and longevity in our environment. It’s in the land, it’s in the air, it’s in the water, and now, it’s in our bloodstream, in the form of micro-plastics (which are generally considered to be any form of plastic less than five millimeters in length). And it’s not going anywhere anytime soon. (It is said that a plastic grocery bag will remain in the environment for up to 500 years.)

While plastic’s long-term effects on human health are still the subject of inquiry and debate, according to the Plastic Health Coalition, a research and advocacy alliance, we do know that micro-plastics disrupt endocrine function in humans, not unlike PFAs and other toxic chemicals. And it’s not just humans that fall prey to its poison. It’s been forecasted that by midcentury there will be more plastic by weight in our oceans than fish, a fact that augurs grave consequences for our fisheries and marine life. If that’s not enough, recent reports reveal the skies are now raining micro-plastics at a level much greater than previously thought. That fact alone should be enough to make the multitudes weep. Read more.

The Crichton Leprechaun Song

I live in Mobile with the leprechaun
I want the gold from the green jolly mon
I shine my light but I can’t see enough
Some say he’s a crackhead who got the wrong stuff

Gonna take my backhoe gonna root up his tree
Leprechaun make a shadow when the people try to see
People draw the leprechaun make him look like a fool
Leprechaun gonna teach them the golden rule

Everybody see the leprechaun
Everybody see the lеprechaun
Everybody see the lеprechaun

Say yeah
Say yeah

Leprechaun he don’t live anymore around here
City chopped down his tree and the cops took his beer
I miss the leprechaun and it makes me feel cold
Due to the inflation we all need the gold

Everybody miss the leprechaun …..

(Word and music/ Caine O’Rear)