Carnival Perspectives
One of the things I love most about Carnival is how it changes over time. Not so much the holiday itself, but the way we come to it. A lifelong Louisianian, I’ve been celebrating Carnival since I was a…
Louisiana Life - January/February 2024
Who Gets The Baby?
There was a time when king cakes were a mere side attraction to Carnival, served mostly in classroom parties and during office breaks. A New Orleans’ baker had borrowed from the French tradition of Gallette des Roi and prepared what…
Dames de Perlage
Seated in a rocking chair on South Carrollton Avenue in New Orleans, Carrie Fisher ponders her corset. In the past six months, she’s spent 100 hours beading the artwork she’ll eventually attach to it, and with 100 days until…
A Mardi Gras Sampler
In March 1699, French Canadian Pierre Le Moyne traveled down the Mississippi River to explore the Louisiana colony. It was Mardi Gras, the celebratory Tuesday before Ash Wednesday when French residents have long “lived it up before giving it up.”…
Krewe de Canailles
Acadiana arguably hosts the second-largest Carnival celebration in Louisiana with the requisite balls, parades and special events akin to its massive cousin to the east. But a group of Lafayette residents thought something new was called for, something intimate,…
Celebration in Color
On Mardi Gras Day, La Société De Saint Anne parade revelers march on Royal Street in New Orleans making their way to the river to honor those who died the year prior.
Freedom Summer
Sixty years ago this month, hundreds of African Americans supported by pastors and the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) entered the Forrest County Courthouse in Hattiesburg to register to vote. Later that summer of 1964 the protest evolved into…
Manuel Ponce
Except perhaps for Rio de Janeiro, there’s nothing like Mardi Gras in New Orleans. It’s a visual orgy of brightly-colored floats drawn through city streets in the fiery glow of…
Living on the Edge
From sprinting after his friends through the woods of his native River Ridge, a big plastic Rambo knife in hand, to multiple deployments as an Army Ranger to Iraq and Afghanistan, to cooking in fast-paced New Orleans’ kitchens and sampling…
Tradition at Home
At a Glance Architecture Everett Schram, while at Walnut Grove Design Group Interior Design Gena Pool Square…
Stanley Dry
We suggest that you clip out this column; laminate it if you can or at the very least seal it in a storage bag and place it in a treasured cookbook. Why? Stanley Dry, our long time food expert is,…
Holding Down the Fort
(Left) This plaque on the grounds of Fort Jackson commemorates Louisiana’s first Mardi Gras. Across the Mississippi River from what later became Fort Jackson, Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville camped with his party on March 3, 1699,…
Impromptu Soups
Often listen to music when I cook. Lately, my choice has been “The Complete Million Dollar Quartet,” an impromptu jam session that took place at Sun Records in Memphis on December 4, 1956, with Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee…
Mardi Gras Updates
Due to a police shortage, New Orleans is spending millions of dollars to add law enforcement to keep Carnival safe in 2024. New rules: Only 34 parades are allowed in 2024, no more silly string or mylar confetti canons…
Past and Present
For Today Carolyn Hembree Carolyn Hembree’s poetry collection, “For Today,” tackles grief, trauma, anger, love and living in New abook follows a recent mother who grieves her father who died right before she gave birth to her child. Throughout this…
