TIFTON — What to eat before I die?  That’s what Alabama wants me to consider. You too. They already recommended a hundred places for chowing down and for fine dining.

I’m concocting a recipe of my own, using the illustrated “100 Dishes to Eat in Alabama Before You Die” brochure and honing in on the cooks and chefs, culinary teachers and farmers with living-longer theories.

Let’s ignore the dying idea for now.

Launched my culinary journey in Montgomery, Mobile and Monroeville, also eating and cooking in Auburn and Atmore, and some learning in Perdido.

Don’t you discover some of the best meals on the road in unexpected spots? Culinary, living-longer experts and eccentrics along the way too.

In the process I got my hands dirty at a thriving urban farm in Montgomery, and rested my head in AAA Four Diamond grand hotels in Mobile and Montgomery.

Found out about using more body parts than my mouth to eat wisely. That little lesson happens at Cool Beans Café de Art, the breakfast and lunch place in downtown Montgomery.

“Let your eyes be your guide; choose food colors,” owner Shari Rossman advises. “Eat first with your nose, then your eyes.”

“It’s not so hard to make food from scratch,” Rossman told me as I refilled my Fair Trade organic coffee. “I give my customers ideas to take home.”

She’s been serving good-looking, smells-right food for eight years at Cool Beans but stop now if you assume this is the fringe.

Rossman applies the MBA she earned at the University of Chicago to her love of life in Montgomery, and Cool Beans food.

“We can all address so many health issues naturally with a good diet,” she says. And to her that means local, organic when possible, grass fed meats, good crusty bread, healthy carbs such as quinoa and other grains.

“The culprit’s high fructose.” Rossman won’t have it in Cool Beans.

If fine design aids digestion, Montgomery’s a place to eat. Drink and eat – or simply stroll through The Alley – to experience walls, lighting, tabletops, floors. Really.   

Borrow a faux fur to toss a frozen shot in AlleyBAR, or focus at room temp at the extent of repurposed wood, paper, bricks and beams in this watering hole.

Wander around Central before your lamb shank with sweet pea puree arrives to see how this 1891 grocery looks now that it’s a restaurant.

 Executive Chef Michael Bertozzi visits at tables and says he thinks of his cooking as “ refined southern food with a kick. Playful.

“Local and regional, at least 80 percent. Seafood swimming today.”

So about this design to aid digestion issue?

“Used just about everything old and original,” owner Jerry Kiser told me. That includes the first floor now a wall holding bottles of wine.

More in the Alley, and more close to opening. Guess I’ll eat again in Montgomery.

Vinegar was one of my big discoveries on the road. Made from figs and tomatoes, blueberries and grapes, satsumas and sugar cane. Thirteen kinds, sure to keep me kicking.

That’s what Jim Eddins told me at Perdido Vineyard. Perdido’s the town name too.

Thirty years a Marine officer, Eddins, now farming, emphatic about “growing antioxidants around here.”

Eddins’ two careers merge with his calling to be an environmental engineer.

“That’s what I’ve known I was ever since I took my first land mine out of the beach.” Tough Marine duty.

Of today’s Alabama farming he teaches, “This is a harsh environment and since our plants survive the insects, weather and other extremes, they pass their resilience on to you.”   

I went to Perdido expecting a routine wine tasting place, and got so much more. Neglected to try his Muscadine and scuppernong wines.

Now I need a class to know what to do with so many fruity vinegars, beyond salad dressing, pasta tossing and drizzling on vanilla ice cream.

Wind Creek Culinary Studio in Atmore off I-65 is one of Alabama’s cooking school possibilities. I joined an evening class there with Chef Jay Norris teaching Red Thai curry with fresh Gulf shrimp.

“Learn to do all you can in the kitchen,” he recommends. “The fewer hands that touch your food, the better.”

Norris is a gentle, empowering teacher; some cooking classes create anxiety but his is supportive. And he only charges $55 for a 90-minute class, including the eating.   

Escape is the connecting hotel, one of eight Four Diamonds in Alabama, with level 15 devoted exclusively to culinary and spa visitors. Hypoallergenic everything.

I think that matters because Wind Creek in Atmore is also a casino.

Will one cooking class help my good-health quest? Maybe. But yoga retreats, raw food preparation weekends and other wellness special events here certainly might.

 So will knowing the farmer who grew my kale and cucumbers, squash and tomatoes.

 Jetson Brown farms 25 raised beds in downtown Montgomery. Be serious about getting groceries here, or just stroll along the landscaped, paved Alabama River walk to look into these lush edible gardens.

“America has dietary-related diseases that can be fixed,” Edwin Marty says. He sees Montgomery’s urban farm as a living laboratory giving even more than access to fresh food.

“Flavor grows here,” he says. “Fresh food tastes good and we can teach people to prefer fresh and local in Alabama.”

Marty is Executive Director of the Hampstead Institute. Their goal? Fifty percent of the food consumed in Alabama locally grown.

Their process? Community gardens, food policy advisory groups, kids visiting farms, school cafeterias serve fresh food.

Raise awareness, raise bees, raise backyard garden beds with bricks, not chemically treated wood.

I’m in, and I’m wondering where the urban gardens should sprout in my town.

Another Alabama chef caring about kids and what they learn about food is Garry Anderson. He learned to cook in Ireland, and today is part of the Auburn University Hospitality Management program.

He taught me how to make pasta in the Ariccia restaurant connected to The Hotel at Auburn University and closely tied to culinary education.

One hundred percent job placement, their chef and hotelier graduates, Hans van der Reijden told me. He’s managing director of hotel operations and educational initiatives.

How’s it happening? Seems Alabama builds high school culinary programs, fully funding a dozen and expanding statewide by 250 percent.

Felt honored to take a cooking class myself. You can too, or just stay at the hotel. It’s an independent player within the luxury Capella group.

Tough to get a room on home game weekends, but an option the rest of the year. Chef Anderson teaches once a month, 14 students max. $100 per person.

Plan ahead for a room here or Mobile’s elegant Four  Diamond Battle House when the World Leisure Congress arrives Sept. 7–12, 2014.

First time ever gathering in the U.S., this international group discovers ways leisure can be a force for well-being.  

Access to meaningful leisure experiences is no less than the need for shelter, education, employment and fundamental health care, they say.

How cool is that? International focus to help me relax and I can learn it in Mobile.home of Mardi Gras and site of America’s fourth largest estuary system.

Do believe it’s back to Alabama for me.