Around The State

Midnight Trains

Let us pause a moment to consider midnight trains: Winston Hall is a Shreveport musician, song writer and music history buff. His town was once the home of the “Louisiana Hayride,” a Grand Ole Opry-type radio concert that helped grease…

Pelican Briefs: Ship It, Don't Shuck It

Good Eats chef-owner, Boyer Derise, has expanded his Baton Rouge and Lafayette-based prepared food delivery service locations with the all-new Bayou Carlin Oyster Co. The Delcambre native is now shipping grilled Gulf oysters (via dry ice) with four topping options:…

Travel Resolutions

Forget those diet resolutions.  When do those 10 pounds ever come off? Especially with Carnival following the holidays. Instead, resolve to visit cities and towns in one of America’s most fascinating states — Louisiana! Here are suggestions to put on…

Floating Along

My mother always sewed my Mardi Gras costumes growing up, leaving room for turtlenecks and T-shirts should the weather turn cold. One never knows what Louisiana winters will bring. The weekend could prove warm and mild, our faces basking in…

Farther Flung: The Path of History

There’s so much on the horizon for Natchez this year.  Dunleith, the historic plantation with its sprawling estate and cozy fine dining restaurant, opens this spring after a long renovation. The historic home built in 1885 was acquired by the…

Socially Distant

As we head into fall, and the heat abates, thoughts turn to the outdoors. What better place to enjoy the cool, refreshing weather than Louisiana’s…

Art Al Fresco

Are you tired of staying home watching the news? Do you need something uplifting? Try art. While COVID-19 has disrupted the schedules of art galleries and museums, Louisiana has…

Learn It, Grow It

The LSU AgCenter’s Louisiana Farm to School Program has launched a new educational website, Seeds to Success. The project offers free educational resources on agriculture and nutrition and includes growing guides, lesson plans and info on careers in agriculture, food…

In Play

When casinos reopened in May, they followed many other Louisiana businesses by limiting their offerings — in this case gaming positions — and decreasing the facility’s capacity to allow for social distancing. Safety precautions were put in place, including requiring…

Hike and Bike Y'all

Tammany Trace Abandoned train corridors can be reincarnated into excellent biking and hiking paths, and such was the case in St. Tammany Parish. The parish government purchased land once owned by the Illinois Central Railroad and created the Tammany Trace,…

La Nouvelle Louisiane

Louisiana is known for its food and music scenes (as it should be!), but has so much more to offer. So, we’ve curated a new list. We are proud to present La Nouvelle Louisiane—the best of what's new in the…

Backroads and Byways

A few weeks ago, my husband Mark was losing it. He’s an extrovert, at risk due to asthma and we are 24 weeks and 195 days into this COVID-19 dumpster fire. Our medically approved activities include: Neighborhood walks and bike…

Interactive Artscape

It resembles a New Orleans courtyard, with indigenous plants for hair,” says multimedia artist Skye Erie, creator of the compelling “Garden of Legends” featuring seven statues of famous musicians in JAMNOLA’s luminous Finale Room. The quirky, 12-room interactive exhibition ranges…

Beach Vibes

Summer’s here and the beaches are calling. Coastal Alabama is not only open for business but offers plenty of ways to get outside and stay at least six feet away from others. There are 60 miles of Gulf beaches and…

Nature Heals

Mark Elliott had spent 70 straight days working in his kayak outfitter warehouse after having to send five of his employees home due to COVID-19. Spring was usually a time when interest in paddling surged, but the phones weren’t ringing…

Best Hospitals

There is one major source that provides credible ongoing analysis of hospitals: Medicare, which, as the federal health insurance program for people 65 and older, as well as certain younger people with disabilities, often provides funding for many of the…

Pelican Briefs: New Oenophile Alert

Total Wine & More, a wine superstore (with 205 locations in the U.S.), is slated to open soon in the former Stage retail space at 4407 Ambassador Caffery, featuring wines from every wine-producing region in the world, more than 2,500…

Travel: Get Out

Trust spring to fill us with urgency to get outdoors, and never more so than spring 2020 with cabin fever posing the second-greatest threat to our physical and mental wellbeing. So, what’s keeping you? Many of Louisiana’s great short-trip destinations…

Art: Holding On

Louisiana photographer Cate Colvin Sampson, inspired by the writings of Southern novelist Flannery O’Connor, joins a growing chorus of artists and photographers raising warnings about South Louisiana’s endangered wetlands and a way of life for the people who have lived…

Literary Louisiana: Off the Shelf

MAGICAL TALE The Lost Book of Adana Moreau by Michael Zapata This book is a hard-to-describe tale of twists, turns and mysterious manuscripts. It starts in 1929 New Orleans, where a young woman writes a popular science fiction tale, falls…

Pelican Briefs: Innovative Measures

LSU researchers and hospital leaders have recently created, obtained fast-track federal approval for and started running coronavirus tests at a newly minted River Road Testing Lab. The new lab testing capacities could give coronavirus test results to the most critical…

Drastic Measures

The Louisiana coast is many things to many people. Home. A livelihood. Vacation. Beauty. A breath of fresh air. With over 7,000 miles of squiggly coastline — more than any other U.S. state besides Alaska and Florida — Louisiana waterways…