If you haven’t ever checked out the options for upscale living at The Retreat at Mountain Brook in Birmingham, Alabama, prepared to be bowled over at the amenities on offer!
With sunrooms and balconies with storage closets and an incredibly pet-friendly park on the property, The Retreat at Mountain Brook affords its community members beautifully landscaped homes and luxurious spaces for leisure. And along with that, the Idea Specialists™ at The Retreat at Mountain Brook are always on hand to provide quality of life suggestions and ideas!
In keeping with the bowled over theme, they’ve decided the focus of this month’s blog should be —you guessed it—bowls!!
Form & Function
From our first cereal bowls to our grandma’s mixing bowls, bowls are part of our memories. They can be pretty, they are certainly functional, and they come in all shapes, sizes, and patterns.
Apartment Therapy, always informative, has a great piece on how to use bowls in all manner of ways. The Idea Specialists™ have long been fans of using wooden bowls to hold keys and spare change by the front door, and ceramic ones for lipsticks and the like in the bathroom.
They also love the convenience of having a kitchen counter garden with herbs and greens in a large metal bowl—healthy and pretty!
And speaking of healthy, they’re all about some all-in-one bowl meals like the ones the Food Network has featured in “24 Wholesome Bowls to Power Your Day.” Chicken quinoa bowl? Yes, please! Bacon and broccoli rice bowl with fried egg? We know what our new go-to breakfast is going to be!
Fun & Funky
Looking for some fun and funky options? Check out Uncommon Goods for everything from bowls made of record albums to sculptural bowls that could be featured in an art museum.
Or, plan an outing with friends to Sips n Strokes Birmingham on Sixth Avenue South to make a bowl of your own—or to Vestavia Bowl or Bowlero Riverview for another kind of bowl entirely. Strike!
Tailgate Yummies
It’s football season, so of course the Idea Specialists™ at The Retreat at Mountain Brook have some ideas about tasty treats to share in bowls on game day, whether you’re tailgating onsite or on sofa! This month, they’re linking to What the Fork for some recipes for gluten-free goodies like jalapeno poppers and loaded “totchos.” Yummy!
Here are some convenient links to key college football schedules:
- Alabama Crimson Tide
- Auburn Tigers
- Birmingham-Southern Panthers
- Miles College Golden Bears
- UAB Blazers
Holiday Planning
While it might still feel like summer outside a lot of the time, the fall and winter holidays will be here before we know it. The Retreat at Mountain Brook Idea Specialists™ have scoped out a couple of possibilities for you to go ahead and put on your calendar, starting with this year’s Christmas Village Festival at the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex Wednesday, November 2, through Sunday, November 6, 2022.
Another community holiday tradition is the Sam Lapidus Montclair Run. It’s the 46th year for this annual Thanksgiving Day race, with the starting gun set for 8:30 a.m. Thursday, November 24, 2022. A portion of every runner’s registration fee is donated to the Alabama Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Disorders at Children’s of Alabama.
Lagniappe
It only seems fitting for The Retreat at Mountain Brook Idea Specialists™ to share the news about the latest addition to the Birmingham food and dining scene with a little flair of French…..because Bar La Fête on Morris Avenue embraces its owner Kristen Hall’s love all things France, especially Paris! A “first look” at it by The Local Palate describes the Southern wine bar as an evening haunt, complete with 11 on-menu shareable plates and a 130-bottle wine list. It joins The Essential all-day cafe and Bandit Pâtisserie, also owned by Kristen Hall and Victor King, who’s a partner in this latest venture, as well. À votre santé!
