Elle Decor Came to Birmingham

To BirminghamMom shelter magazine junkies, I hope you didn’t miss the feature on Birmingham in Elle Decor magazine’s Jan/Feb issue.

We’re used to being a praised in our hometown favorites, Southern Living and our dearly departed Southern Accents and Cottage Living. We can even empathize with Elle Decor since it recently lost its own sister publication, Metropolitan Home, although it’s safe to say we southern women weren’t Metropolitan Home’s largest demographic anyway (loft living in Birmingham is still regarded as an unproven but promising experiment).

The article, by Beaty Coleman, outlines recommended dining and shopping destinations and includes the obligatory salute to Vulcan’s bare rump. She particularly favors the “bucolic enclave” of Mountain Brook, even chumming with the “Brookies” and admiring their neatly clipped boxwood hedges (note to Beaty: My own husband discourages my riding through some of these areas for fear of yet another landscape project inspiration).

She also gives a shout out to the “over the mountain” suburbs of Homewood, Vestavia and Hoover, so she’s clearly gotten an insider’s view of the area. Nonetheless, it’s fun to see the city shared with a broad national audience, some of which might discount our own proud claims by thinking we probably just don’t know any better.

Side story: Coleman describes the pedestrian-friendly villages of Mountain Brook as being “so accommodating some citizens rarely venture beyond a two-mile radius of home.” This reminded me of a guy from Mountain Brook who claimed to have never eaten at a chain like O’Charley’s or Chilli’s in his life.

Now, I’m not saying he’s missed any good food on that account, but there is something to be said for having the typical American restaurant experience. There is more out there -  good and bad - than a fennel tart (no offense to Chez LuLu).

Image credit Lena Corwin, Elle Decor