Enjoy this view for free with your $2.50 burger at Tip Top Grill

There’s no use pretending there is any substitute for the sugar-white sand beneath your toes, but let’s be grateful that there are some fun restaurants and activities that can shake up your routine or serve as an excitement-builder for the real thing. Until you can pack for a getaway, consider:

BEACH/OCEANSIDE

Dine at the Fish Market for plates heaping with shrimp, crab claws, and the freshest fish. The 280 and downtown locations have great details in the design (downtown has more of a Mediterranean feel with cypress trees outside and white stucco walls inside) and all locations have patio dining.

Joe’s Crab Shack on hwy 280 has a sand play area for the kids just like the like the dining spots at the beach. It’s a chain, yes, but I would argue that the best time to visit such a chain is when you can’t visit a bona-fide crab shack on the coast. (You aren’t one of those people who goes to Pensacola and eats at Red Lobster, are you?)

Alabama Splash Adventure Wave Pool and sand beach – it’s completely contrived, but on the plus side, no worries about sharks at dusk.

MOUNTAINS

This we can do; heck, we’re already in the Appalachian foothills. Choose from the trails at Oak Mountain, Ruffner Mountain, or a number of other spots.

Head to Shades Crest road for a burger at Tip Top Grill in Bluff Park. No kidding, this is a fantastic view and the burgers are tasty. Here’s a little secret: Breakfast is good, too! If you have early risers, head to Tip Top for a biscuit and watch as sun warms up the valley below. Wouldn’t recommend the restroom, though (small, outdated) so have everyone go before you leave the house.

For a creek side experience, head to The Depot in Helena, which is literally next to a bright red caboose (photo op!). The train really does pass by here, but you need to be heading to the nearby park that gives you access to the water and a play area. There aren’t the big, smooth rocks of the Smokey Mountain rapids, but the advantage is that the water isn’t rapid in the first place. It feels more like a community fishing hole, and did we mention that the burgers and hot dogs at The Depot are great? Dine on the back patio and enjoy the view if you don’t care to wade in.

BIG CITY

If the Big Apple is too far a stretch, settle for the Birmingham Art Museum and its lovely cafe. From there you look out upon courtyards that could be an urban oasis in any city.

Max’s Delicatessen – have piled-high Ruben, potato latkes or matzo ball soup. It’s not the Carnegie, but the food is still delicious.

Theater productions – quit griping and check out the live theater scene in Birmingham, not to “support the arts” but because it is good stuff. Birmingham Festival Theater will present The Last Flapper June 13 – 29. The play is about Zelda Fitzgerald, Alabama’s most famous party girl. Don’t tell me you would go see DeCaprio in Gatsby yet miss out on showing Zelda some love.

Trattoria Centrale – This is your Little Italy bistro, complete with little tables and freshly made pizzas and salad. The brightly polished espresso machine is a thing of beauty.

Cheesecake Factory – a chain, yes, but let’s not get snobbish over good cheesecake. The Factory has an abundance of cheesecake selections, an outdoor patio overlooking the mountains, and some killer gelato. It’s the closest we can get to Rome. Go during the week and at off hours to avoid a wait.

EPCOT CENTER

There’s no tram or three o’clock parade, but two places in town have a particularly Epcot-like vibe inside:

Olexa’s, Mountain Brook – Consider it an indoor Parisian street corner complete with street lamps and french blue shutters. Even if Olexa’s were completely generic, the food would distinguish it as the perfect spot for lunch (warning: only the most secure of men is not self conscious eating here). Try a slice of quiche or the wonderful almond chicken salad and DO NOT MISS the triple layer chocolate cake. Get the ganache on top and repeat: “French women don’t get fat.”

Iguana Grill, Hoover – See a previous post. You can go anyplace for Mexican (and honestly, Iguana isn’t distinctive insofar as the food goes), but you can’t enter such a complete escape to another world in any of the other strip mall spots.

Gin Phillips is an award-winning author residing in the Birmingham area.  A mom, friend, wife and daughter, Gin can pass a golf course in Birmingham and create an entire fiction story described in such detail that you wonder if she actually sees the world differently.  When the rest of us see a tree, she sees the shades of green, hears the rustle of leaves and might even go so far as to ascribe a personality to the tree.  It’s in this space that Phillips will transport your children to a magical place set in Birmingham.   Your child will love reading this story, especially after listening to Gin talk about her inspiration for the story.

Snacks may also be involved!

Celebrate reading and local mom, Gin Phillips, on Thursday from 4-6pm at Alabama Booksmith (2626 19th Place South) in Homewood.

May's soup was delicious. True to form, though, we particularly loved the cheese wafers.

This summer, have your kids learn about the cuisine of other cultures without a single homework assignment.You don’t need to buy an ingredient, research a country, or make a costume. The work is done for you.

Coffeeology, the cafe in the Hoover Public Library, offers a Global Cuisine program all year round in addition to its regular menu of sandwiches, salads and soups. Global Cuisine features a different culture each month, with authentic dishes prepared by trained chefs who have already experimented  with the recipe (so that you don’t have to risk a new recipe fail at home).

Even the best teacher couldn’t do such a thorough job of delivering on a lesson plan. Each Global Cuisine menu includes several courses, so you can choose an entire meal or a simple dessert. While your meal is prepared, have the kids read the country-specific trivia being flashed on the screen behind the counter. Ooh! a stealth lesson even as they thought they were out of school! Gotcha.

The iced cookie, authentic enough for the pickiest eater

And if your kid is so picky even a Mexican burrito is too exotic for him, then he can’t object to Global Cuisine’s country flag cookies. Consider that this cookie enterprise would have meant several hours of baking for you as well as some Google flag research. If he pauses a moment to study the flag cookie before he devours it, he may even recognize the featured country at the next Olympic opening ceremony.

Coffeeology is in a library, so don’t expect the lesson to stop at the bakery counter. The Coffeeology staff provides a short presentation in The Plaza coinciding with it’s featured cuisine each month. If you’re there on a presentation Saturday, you can expect to see slides of the country, its history, indigenous crops, etc. (Before you think “yawn,” remember that this isn’t like being in a classroom. You can be eating the whole time.) Each presentation is followed by samples of food and coffee from the featured country.

You pay good money to read this stuff at Epcot in Disneyworld.

Finally, and this is the best part, get yourselves Global Cuisine Passports. They’re free and get stamped during each month you purchase from the Global Cuisine menu. Each stamp means an additional 10% discount for the following month’s purchase, up to 40% discount altogether. Like any real passport, the fun is in getting more stamps and reminiscing about your experience.

Hopefully you are already participating in the summer reading programs offered at each library branch through the Jefferson County Library Cooperative. Make the Hoover Public Library one of your stops for returning books and you can grab a globally flavored lunch or snack while you’re there. (By the way, have you seen the automated book return, a marvel for young kids? Or the silent booth, which unfortunately you cannot lock yourself into for the full day?)

Show the kids that there is more to global cuisine than the Chef Boyardee and ramen noodles in the home pantry.

Your sweet baby boy needs the strong stuff nowadays

My, how the kids giggled about watching the educational video on puberty in class: “Just Around the Corner.” Getting past the annoyingly catchy tune, the video promised a metamorphosis with body hair, body odor, and an oily T-zone. Despite the tone of optimism, puberty sounded pretty like a pretty dismal passage into adulthood.

Now the T-zone has come to pass and so has oily hair. Boys are favoring slightly longer hairstyles, especially bangs, and even morning and afternoon showers may not be enough to keep their hair bouncin’ and behavin’. (Right now a dad is saying the cure for this is a visit to the barber shop and a #2 trimmer, but there are plenty of moms who like their boys’ longer style).

I’m generally not enthralled with expensive hair products,but after weeks of fussing at my son about his hair and trying several products, I was receptive when a stylist cutting my son’s hair gently suggested that she knew of a shampoo that could cure a grease-bomb. Actually, she didn’t say that, but I got her point.

When she assured me that only a dime-size amount was needed and the bottle would last awhile, I was willing to try it. I’m glad we did, since this Paul Mitchell Tea Tree Shampoo has been transforming. The kid’s hair is shiny and still smells fresh even into the afternoon. Barring sports or playing outside in the heat, it doesn’t feel necessary to direct him to the shower right after dinner. The rosemary/tea tree fragrance is masculine enough that I don’t have to plead with him to use it, and it’s not overwhelming like Axe, which is enough to choke a mom who is beyond the otherwise irresistible effects implied in the commercials.

At $12 or so a bottle, it’s not cheap, but watch for Ulta’s regular coupon for 20% off or $3.50 off a purchase of $10 or more. It’s true that only a small amount is needed, even though a busy summertime with two showers a day takes a lot of shampoo. Unlike girls, boys don’t have a lot of products to help them cope with what’s just around the corner of puberty (medicated concealer, face powder, ponytails), so it seems that an effective shampoo is the least we can get for them.

Why is it some of the the best chicken places slack off with the condiments?

You can’t live in Alabama for long without trying most of these, but some will take effort:

1.  Know barbeque. This is a lifelong pursuit, but start ‘em young and they will be able to speak with authority in Texas, North Carolina, or Memphis and declare whether the Q is worthy of an Alabamian’s palate. At minimum, the Alabama native should have tasted barbeque from:

• Dreamland – in particular, the ribs
• Full Moon – for dessert, chocolate dipped cookies for the kids (three layer carrot cake for mom)
• Jim N Nick’s
• Bob Gibson (Decatur) – white sauce is a must
• Greenbrier (Madison)
• The Shed (Mobile)

2.  Celebrate the meat and three. Just about every town has a steam table that slops up the best fried okra, butter beans, and ubiquitous cheese-topped casserole. Of course your kids should know fried chicken, fried green tomatoes, biscuits and cornbread. (Everybody wants to blame our lard for the diabetes epidemic, but I bring your attention to the honey buns, cheese curls and sodas that are dispensed from vending machines).

3. Speaking of fried: Every Alabama kid must have tried fried chicken, fried green tomatoes, fried okra, and fried pies. For heaven’s sake, we’re not suggesting a steady diet of these things, we’re just saying they are what makes you a blood-brother with your southern cooking heritage. These can’t come from Cracker Barrel, either (nothing against the CB). They should come from a greasy spoon, hole in the wall, or grandma’s stove.

4. Dine in a “white tablecloth” restaurant. It’s taken a few James Beard awards and Iron Chef victories, but Alabama is finally getting recognition for its inventive chefs.  There are all sorts of wonderful restaurants in the state, and Southern Living has done its best to keep us informed. The kids should be old enough to appreciate the effort, flavor, ambiance, and cost of such a meal (wait, will they reach that point before they have a home mortgage?), but don’t let them get through high school without having experienced fine dining.

In Birmingham, good choices include:

• Highlands – the wait staff are top notch and your kids could learn from their respectful, courteous demeanor. Let the kids know that good manners and service pays off, because we’ll be tipping 18 – 20% of the bill.
• Hot and Hot Fish Club – tiny dining area and a wait, even with reservations, but worth it
• Bottega – bonus: with high ceilings and stone surfaces, this place is so loud that you can’t create create much of a stir. Dine outside next to the fountain if you want to be sure any noise is disguised.

5. Attend a fish fry. There are volunteer fire departments that have been having regular fish fry fundraisers for over 20 years. (Check out Underwood-Petersville in North Alabama.) Is the primary purpose of these volunteers to fight fires or fry fish? Who cares! Just don’t cause a careless fire and distract them from their higher purpose. (A catfish plate at Cypress Inn is an alternative, although you completely miss the firefighter aspect.)

6. Have homemade peach ice cream, preferably at Peach Park in Clanton. Nobody can get down I65 without spotting the giant peach water tower, and that’s your signal to prepare for ice cream. The bushel baskets full of peaches, the whir of ceiling fans, even the occasional fly, is the authentic summer experience.

7a. Eat Royal Reds on the Gulf. Once a kid has developed a certain amount of manual dexterity, it’s time for her to put away the popcorn shrimp and move on to peel ‘n eat. Order Royal Reds by the pound at a steamer (every Alabama beach has them) and head outdoors to devour them. The shells are easy to remove and the shrimp is perfectly flavorful, not too hot, and needs very little in the way of accompaniment. (For the uninitiated, the heads are gone, so “ewww” will not be tolerated.)

7b. BONUS Know how to make your own cocktail sauce. Consider this a clever party trick to impress anyone not blessed to live within a day’s drive to the Gulf. All you will ever need is ketchup, horseradish, and Worcestershire sauce. Any kid likes to experiment with ketchup, and there is absolutely no harm that can come from getting this wrong.

8. Have a meal in one of the “local” chains: Milo’s for a hamburger with the special sauce and the extra dab of meat that makes no sense. Guthrie’s for the original chicken fingers and sauce. Jack’s for a biscuit, especially if you are in a small town and can join the elder statesmen who gather there for breakfast.

9. Eat peanuts – both fresh roasted and boiled. Kids, there was an economic crisis in Alabama even before Mercedes came here to help revive us. The soil was exhausted and the crop yield was weak. Enter George Washington Carver to show us the benefits of crop rotation and the wonders of the peanut.

You have to try fresh roasted peanuts at the Peanut Depot (Morris Avenue) or the Nuthouse in Mobile, an experience that shames popping a tin of nuts from the grocery. As for the boiled variety, you can’t go down a road in south Alabama without coming across a gas station or produce stand selling boiled P-nuts. You’ll be amazed by how the same peanut can taste so different depending on the preparation.

10.  Sip sweet tea. Tea is the universal, centuries-old beverage, but it took the southern heat to inspire sweetened tea over ice. Sweet tea is a primary indicator for when you’ve strayed too far from home, geographically speaking. When the restaurant doesn’t serve sweet tea, you’ve gotten lost.

Any good restaurant should serve fresh-brewed tea. Barbeque joints and meat & threes are reliable sources of strong sweet tea.

Only one problem - nobody is going with me on my escape.

That thundering, squealing noise you hear in your head is the approaching herd of children who are about to be out of school for the summer. They’ve been academically useless for the last two weeks and can only think of summertime and being out in the wide, wide world of their own back yards or your back seat as you shuttle them to camps and lessons.

So Hoover Library’s Summer Adult Reading  theme of  “Escape Into Reading” is a proper objective for your mom summer. Sure, it’s all fun and games right now as you readjust schedules and indulge in swimming, vacation, and chasing fireflies instead of homework assignments. But in a few weeks, you will be ready to pass out the water bottles and retreat to the playground sideline for a mental vacation of your own.

The great thing about the summer reading program for adults is that it offers you an excuse for some fun. For every five books you read, you may register for prizes donated by area merchants and Friends of the Library. First prize is a Kindle Fire, surely the equivalent of winning a bicycle in the kids’ reading program. You could win movie tickets and feel completely justified in using them for a grown-up movie instead of an animated feature.

Bring chairs, picnics, blankets (remember to consider if the ground is wet) and/or pillows to make your movie experience comfortable.   The kids will love watching a movie outside and you’ll love the price.

Shows begin around 8pm but families should arrive early to enjoy dinner and activities beforehand.

Here is the 2013 Free Friday Flix / Summer Movie schedule.

May 31st          Brave

June 7 th         Ice Age Continental Drift

June 14^th Escape from Planet Earth

June 21st         The Odd Life of Timothy Green

June 28^th Hotel Transylvania

July 5^th The Lorax

July 12^th Madagascar 3

July 19^th Wreck it Ralph

Brunswick Riverview Lanes – 2908 Riverview Road, Birmingham, AL 35242

-          Kids bowl for free this summer if you sign up for the Brunswick Bonus Zone

-          Free game coupons are emailed monthly (May 29^th, June 29^th and July 29^th)

Lightning Strikes – 3600 Roosevelt Blvd., Trussville, AL 35235

Vestavia Bowl –  1429 Montgomery Hwy, Vestavia, AL 35216

The two bowling alleys above participate in a nationwide program called KidsBowlFree.com. From May 4^th through September 8^th, kids, age 15 or younger, who register at KidsBowlFree.com will receive 2 free games of bowling each day during the summer.

Oak Mountain Lanes – 300 Bowling Lane, Pelham, AL

Beginning, May 20^th, parents can register each child online to receive 2 free games each day, shoe rental is $2.25/pair.

**The kids bowl free deals do not include shoe rental which is generally about $3/pair but varies by venue.

Bring seats, blankets and dinner. Seating begins at 7pm and the movies begin at 8:15pm.

Schedule:

Friday, June 4th:   UP

Friday, June 11th:  Princess Bride

Friday, June 18th:  E.T.

Tickets are $8/person.

Schedule of movies:

Sunday, June 9, 2013 @2pm                        Fried Green Tomatoes

Sunday, June 16, 2013@2pm                      Gaslight

Sunday, June 23, 2013 @2pm                     The Princess Bride

Sunday, June 30, 2013 @2pm                     Singin’ in the Rain

Friday, July 12, 2013 @7pm                          Blazing Saddles

Sunday, July 14, 2013 @2pm                       The Help

Friday, July 19, 2013 @ 7pm                         Cool Hand Luke

Sunday, July 21, 2013 @ 2pm                      To Kill a Mockingbird

Friday, July 26, 2013 @7pm                         Grease   (sing along version)

Saturday, July 27, 2013 @ 2pm                   E.T.

Sunday, July 28, 2013 @ 2pm                      Sound of Music

Friday, August 2, 2013 @ 7pm                     Mamma Mia

Sunday, August 4, 2013 @ 2pm                  The Goonies

Friday, August 9, 2013 @ 7pm                     Forbidden Planet

Sunday, August 11, 2013 @ 2pm                Forrest Gump

Friday, August 16, 2013 @ 7pm                  Animal House

Sunday, August 18, 2013 @ 2pm                Gone with the Wind