QUIRKY PLACESPirate’s pathHe caused the Spanish merchant ships much grief, but Jean Lafitte never attacked an American vessel. Perhaps his breeches weren’t quite as tight as Yul Brynner’s (who played him in The Buccaneer), but he remains a dashing and…
WORTH WATCHINGUncorked artAlthough it was a warm Saturday night in June and my birthday doesn’t come until August, I was being treated to an early gift from my brother, Tim, and his wife, Pat, who are well-aware of my fondness…
FORK IN THE ROADHere comes Mr. JourdanOn a balmy evening late in spring, I attended a dinner party at Muriel’s, a restaurant charmingly placed catty-corner from Jackson Square. I don’t know if it was the fan-shaped window hanging from the…
QUIRKY PLACESHush, hush, sweet hauntedWhen Kevin Kelly purchased Houmas House Plantation, he stripped it of the bland white Americanization that a former owner had imposed upon it. In the Creole tradition of its original early-19th-century owners, Kelly lavished the beautiful…
QUIRKY PLACESCotton up to ghostsConcordia Parish, across the Mississippi from antebellum Natchez, was believed to have first been visited by Hernando de Soto in 1542, and it is now the home of Frogmore, a working cotton plantation owned by Lynette…
QUIRKY PLACESTransylvania StationHanging high above Louisiana in the northeastern corner of the state in East Carroll Parish, the tiny unincorporated town of Transylvania flies at you out of nowhere as you travel along Highway 65. The tall white water tower…
Visiting North Louisiana is a little like going to the Smithsonian Institution – there’s something for everyone, and you’re going to need more than a week to see everything it has to offer.When the prehistoric Gulf of Mexico finally receded…
Go to St. Joe’sNewly refurbished and snatched from decay, St. Joseph Plantation is another jewel that can be added to the precious necklace of plantations encircling both banks of the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Driving either…
FORK IN THE ROAD Bull RunOnce you’ve reached the simple white Spanish façade of Pamplona Tapas Bar and walked through the pepper-red door, you might find yourself looking instinctively for Ava Gardner, Tyrone Power or Papa Hemingway himself. This eatery…
“Alec’s” best kept secretI had a relative who briefly took over my great-grandmother’s home in Avoyelles Parish in the ‘50s and redecorated the old place. She stripped the doors off of ancient solid-mahogany armoires and turned them into bookshelves painted…
CAUSE TO CELEBRATEWorth all the fuzzIt’s been 57 years since Ruston held its first festival to rightfully celebrate Lincoln Parish’s stellar fruit –– the succulent sunset-colored orb known as the Ruston peach. The 2008 Squire Creek Louisiana Peach Festival will…
LOUISIANA GROWNAzaleas As a child, the appearance of azaleas in the dusky colors of a New Orleans spring always meant that the freedom of summer was just around the corner –– days filled with baseball, swimming, peaches, watermelons, plums, trips…
CAUSE TO CELEBRATEA class act On Jan. 7, 2008, Louisiana State University became the first college football team in the history of the BCS National Championship to victoriously raise the crystal football as national champs twice. Belonging to arguably the…
LOUISIANA GROWNBayou of the snake It has been geologically, archeologically and paleontologically recorded that once the Mississippi River flowed much farther west than its current course, threading its mighty way through present-day Acadiana. Old Man River began to hear its…
PROFILETara! Tara Bounds, 25, a native of Central Louisiana, was born with Down syndrome and a heart defect that required two open-heart surgeries before she reached the age of 5. Growing up as a cherished child allowed to run free…
It’s enough to turn anyone into Ernest Hemingway. Louisiana, with its strange, mysterious and dangerous beauty, offers both rugged adventures for the sportsman and such mystical sights as an enchantress moon rising over the French Quarter that can make one wax poetic. The Bayou…
Northern LouisianaCAUSE TO CELEBRATEThe power of graceMissy Crain, artistic director of the highly acclaimed, Monroe-based Louisiana Delta Ballet, was sitting in a church service one day when the preacher asked the congregation, “What do you have to give in return…
Northern LouisianaQUIRKY PLACESThe Music Never DiesTodd Weaver, of Louisiana Spirits Investigations, sets up a paranormal investigation at the Municipal Auditorium.(Jim Hudelson/The Times PHOTOGRAPH) Even the skepticism of paranormal investigator Brad Duplechien, Director of Louisiana Spirits Investigations, [see “Central Louisiana”] couldn’t…
