Sweet Grown Alabama Blogs

Meet 2026 Sweet Grown Alabama Ambassador, Roscoe Hall, a Birmingham-based artist and chef who brings Alabama agriculture to life through creativity and flavor. With a deep appreciation for local ingredients and the people who produce them, Roscoe blends his passion for art, food and storytelling to showcase the heart of Alabama’s communities. From the kitchen to the canvas, he celebrates the connection between farm, food and culture, highlighting the small businesses that make local possible. Follow along as Roscoe shares inspired dishes, artistic perspectives and meaningful stories that honor the pride, craftsmanship and hard work behind Sweet Grown Alabama. Discover more about Roscoe’s journey and his unique love for Alabama-grown through his own words.

1. Who is Roscoe Hall? 

My name is Roscoe Hall, I am a Chicago native but have been a Birmingham resident for years. My ties to the region overall is a sense of home. Alabama is like a magnet, once you live here, it’ll draw you back due to its simplicity. The history within progression is very interesting to me. My career/passions have embodied the South’s ability to just try to make wrongs, right. I'm a chef and a visual artist. I have cooked around the nation for nearly 26 years. However, I got my start here in Birmingham. I started painting to calm myself down after working long services at many amazing restaurants throughout the country. I have been extremely lucky to progress in both careers. Within my food and visual art I tell a story of the region. I take crops and make inks/pigments in my paintings to tell a deep story of an artist working and living in the state of Alabama.

2) How did you begin your artist/chef/social media journey?

I would say like everyone else, I started using social media for awareness of what was going on in other places. It then became a strategic career game, quickly it turned into a portfolio of work, good times and progression. It was never a sought out journey, considering
my age this is still a very new outlet and its one I’m still not sure about. 

3. What is your all-time favorite meal?

That is an easy one! Salmon Crouquettes, a loose scrambled egg, buttered white rice and a solid biscuit.

4. What drives you to promote your community and local products?

As a working chef I’ve always been lucky to build a relationship with local purveyors. I seem to always ask the right questions and each answer given made me feel closer to the regional products supplied and ones yet to come. How the Gulf seafood laws work, to finding a farm that is still being enriched after nearly 100 years in the Blackbelt. For me the passion is telling the story of those that grow it. I do this by treating the product with absolute accuracy for culinary and visual arts.

5. Where is your favorite spot in Alabama?

It would have to be the original Dreamland BBQ in Tuscaloosa, as it's my family’s spot. My grandfather and grandmother started Dreamland BBQ in 1956. My mom grew up on that property and later in life when I moved here to finish high school I’d come home to that location. Growing up building skate ramps and having too much fun behind the original Dreamland made for a great childhood.

6) What is your favorite Sweet Grown Alabama product and why?

I’d choose local stone fruit and peas. A stone fruit is a fruit with a hard pit in the center that encloses the seed, like peaches and plums. Stone fruit captures seasonality at its most fleeting, that brief window where sweetness, acidity and sun all line up. Peas, on the other hand, are humble and grounding—tied to labor, timing and restraint. Together they represent what I love most about Southern food: immediacy and care, and pleasure and work existing side by side.

Keep up with Roscoe Hall on Instagram as he shares about local products this year!