If you bake pies you may have experimented with different recipes to find your ideal crust. I know I have. I can’t begin to remember how many ingredients, combinations of ingredients and techniques I’ve tried over the years. I’ve used…
Our family calls it “La-La Day” – Louisiana Purchase/Louisiana Statehood Day, April 30 – and this year’s was a good one. My Louisiana belle was off on a sister-sister getaway but our (ahem) doc and juris-doc sons Paul and Matthew…
Barbecue is so deeply ingrained in the psyche of the South that natives from North Carolina to Texas will argue heatedly and endlessly about the merits of their local barbecue traditions. But Louisiana usually gets left out of the conversation.…
Snowy EgretShhh,” she says suddenly. It’s early March and wildlife photographer Nancy Camel is at Lake Martin, surrounded by the woods and waters of Cypress Island Preserve in St. Martin Parish. That’s not news; she’s there most any time, with…
Composing a menu can be either a dreaded chore or a rewarding challenge. The latter is much more fun of course, and it prolongs the enjoyment of the evening. Diners, whether family or guests, enjoy the food but the cook…
Restaurants open, close and change so frequently that even the most conscientiously researched restaurant guides are usually a bit dated when first published; and it’s all downhill from there. Relying on a guide that’s a year or two old can…
This old Municipal Association coffee mug with its fine-print list of towns, Abbeville to Zwolle – a constant companion through half of Louisiana Life’s 25 years – is as good as a journal for recording memories of past adventures.There are the Big…
Postcard, circa 1911, showing the then recently built pavillions1906It was a relatively new century – a new age – and fairs were the bee’s knees. The Louisiana Purchase Centennial Exposition had been held in St. Louis just two years earlier,…
Fall often brings some of our nicest weather. Unless we have a hurricane, you can almost hear the entire state breathe a great sigh of relief when the summer heat finally breaks. With clear blue skies, lower humidity and some…
Weekend Favorites When I was finalizing a move back to Louisiana from New York 15 years ago, I told friends that the house I had found was originally built as a camp. Initially, it didn’t occur to me that “camp”…
The Atchafalaya, Louisiana’s best-loved swamp Like most outdoors adventures in Louisiana, wetlands explorations are best done when temperatures are perfect and barometer readings are tolerable. That means spring or fall. The tiebreaker for the Great Atchafalaya Swamp is that fall’s…
Suitable meals for summer by STANLEY DRY My favorite summer meal is grilled food, a salad and a cold bottle of dry rosé. If there’s any meal more welcome than that on a hot day, I don’t know what it…
Searching for Louisiana's good grapes by PAUL F. STAHLS JR. For a road trip that’s perfect for summer – “cool” enough, in fact, to repeat in any and every season – let’s blaze a trail through the southeastern parishes seeking…
by PAUL F. STAHLS JR. When it comes to luring tourists, the St. Landry Parish village of Grand Coteau prints no brochures, runs no ads, concocts no slogans or sales strategies. One reason is that it has not a single…
by STANLEY DRY Other states may herald spring with the arrival of shad roe, fiddlehead ferns, a final melting of the ice or robins returning from the South, but in Louisiana, crawfish are the true harbingers of the season. It’s…
The day is shaping up to be unseasonably perfect for early September – 7 o’clock and the breeze through this great stone courtyard in Monroe is cool enough to chill the coffee. Louisiana has a newly designated “Ancient Mounds Trail”…
I love all kinds of cooking and baking, but there is no kitchen task I enjoy more than making soup. The very process of combining a variety of ingredients in a single pot, letting them simmer while their flavors meld,…
