Best non-chain breakfast place: Waysider Restaurant in Tuscaloosa
Boasting a breakfast like grandma used to make, patrons come craving the made-fromscratch biscuits topped with red-eye gravy and other breakfast fare. Opened on Feb. 8, 1951, this out-of-the-way eatery is painted red and features plenty of Alabama football memorabilia on the walls -- and you may even see a coach or player or two. Runner up: Busy Bee Cafe, Cullman
Best historic cemetery: Magnolia Cemetery, Mobile
This historic city of the dead, shaded here and there by old oak trees, was established in 1836 on 36 acres of land in what was then outside the city limits; today, it’s in the heart of historic Mobile and contains 80,000 grave sites. Adjoining Magnolia is a national cemetery containing the graves of more than 6,000 veterans and the cemeteries of Mobile’s two Jewish congregations. Runners up: Coon Dog Cemetery in Colbert County in northwest Alabama (featured in the October 2013 Alabama Living), and Oakwood Cemetery in Montgomery (where country music icon Hank Williams is buried)
Best article, feature, photo or helpful tip you read in Alabama Living in the past 12 months: Recipes
We’re well aware of the popularity of our reader-submitted recipes each month, but we were a little surprised to see them win by such a large margin -- more than three-to-one over the next closest answer. But we’re glad to see that you also enjoy our monthly “Worth the Drive” features by Jennifer Kornegay, and “Around Alabama,” which lists events and festivals. We’re planning a similar reader opinion contest for 2015, so let us know any suggestions for categories you’d like to see! Contact us at agriffin@ areapower.com.
Orange Beach resident is contest prize winner Miranda Dodgen of Orange Beach wasn’t sure how she and been a member of Baldwin EMC since 2012. was going to pull off getting Christmas gifts for friends and Not surprisingly, many of her answers reflected her love of family last month. That is, until she got the call Alabama’s Gulf Coast. “I’ve been going to the from Alabama Living that her name was drawn beach all my life with my family,” she said. “ I as the winner from all the entries in our “Best was taught how to catch blue crabs in the surf at of Alabama” contest. a young age by my mother. It has been a favorite “You have made my day!” she exclaimed after pastime of mine ever since. One night we netted being told the news that she’d won the $500 cash 52 crabs and had a crab feast!” prize. “Thank you so very much!” At her job at the Michael Kors store at the Miranda was one of several hundred Alabama Tanger Outlet in Foley, Miranda is able to share Living readers who entered the contest, voting on her enthusiasm for the state’s beaches: “I have Miranda Dodgen categories from best place to take a selfie to best the opportunity to meet people from all over the place to get married in Alabama. “I think I’ve world on vacation on Alabama’s Gulf Coast!” told every single person I’ve encountered about this!” Miranda A graduate of Troy University, she enjoys touring Alabama’s said. “It has really made my Christmas.” historic homes and learning about Alabama’s history. – Lenore Miranda, who grew up in Ozark, has lived in Orange Beach Vickrey
18 JANUARY 2015
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