Welcome to “My Perfect Birmingham Saturday,” a column where About Town asks Birmingham residents from different walks of life how they would spend a Saturday in the Magic City if they had it their way (and COVID notwithstanding).
Today’s Saturday was planned by Brit Blalock, who serves as director of marketing at Birmingham’s Innovation Depot. Brit’s job is no small task – she works every day to tell the stories of the roughly 700 people that work inside the Depot or for a company headquartered within the sprawling 140,000-square-foot building. “I’m essentially the voice of the organization, internally and externally,” she said. During the week, you’ll find her handling public relations and managing the brand of the Depot, but, on Saturdays, you’ll likely find her taking a hike, reading a book, or making breakfast with fresh eggs from her backyard chickens.
I live in Avondale, and my partner and I like to sleep in on Saturday mornings. I start my day going out back, where we keep chickens. I’ll collect some fresh eggs and I’ll generally make us an egg dish or French toast. I like to cook breakfast at home on the weekends. Then I’ll work out in our garden for an hour or so and tend to the chickens, getting their water and food refilled.
Then I’ll grab my partner Leila and our rescue chihuahua named Ruby and go to Ruffner for a late morning hike. It’ll be something quick – Ruby is small and can’t do super long ones. She’s a little thing, and she loves it. She’s got a lion’s heart.
Once we wrap that up, on our way home we’ll stop by Harvest Roots. We’re big kombucha drinkers, so we’ll refill our jugs and try out new flavors. They generally have food of some kind, so we’ll spend our Saturday lunch there trying something brand new. It’s fantastic quality, and the people who run it, Lindsay and Pete, are outstanding and true artisans of their craft.
After that, we’ll drop Ruby back at home and head over to Thank You Books. I love the ladies who own it. Leila and I are both bigtime readers – I studied English and creative writing in college, so it’s smack in my wheelhouse. We’ll grab a couple of new titles to take home and read for a while.
My favorite brewery in town is Trim Tab, so we’ll spend the afternoon outside having a beer there. Then we’ll probably go across to Automatic, sit at the bar, and eat oysters. I was raised in Orange Beach and my family owns a seafood market called Blalock Seafood, so I’m a lover of all things fresh seafood. Oysters and champagne at the bar is primo for me.
From there we’ll probably catch one of the late showings at Sidewalk. I love the people who own Sidewalk, and I’m a bit of a movie buff and like the arts films that make it to Sidewalk.
We’ll wrap up the evening by stopping by Big Spoon. I’m allergic to dairy, and they have outstanding vegan flavors there. I’m always pumped to see the newest thing there, and I’ll take a pint home – it’s so good. They always have the sweetest staff, too.
We’ll go home from there and call it a day.
- As told to Rachel Burchfield
