Culture

Tenacious Talent

The music industry knocks down more than it lifts up. But for Maggie Koerner, a bluesy singer/songwriter who has done more than her fair share of time in the trenches of the music machine, talent was never in question and…

Jambalaya

Along with gumbo, jambalaya is one of the most famous and emblematic dishes of Louisiana cooking. Like gumbo, jambalaya can contain a multitude of ingredients from land and sea in combinations that vary greatly from one cook to another. The…

Louisiana that was

So you’ve learned by browsing back issues that this Louisiana travel column has been around awhile –– ever since we got our first “attractions” to publicize, like Driskill Mountain and the Kisatchie Wold –– but it turns out it’s not…

Heads Up

Even people who don’t like seafood love shrimp.In one preparation or another, shrimp appears on menus all over the country. It’s a restaurant staple as ubiquitous as steak and much more versatile. Shrimp can be cooked just about any way…

Go West

Like the Left Bank of Paris, there’s another side of New Orleans you’ve maybe never suspected, despite the implication of those twin bridges and the Canal Street Ferry. They must go somewhere! Well, in the grand scheme of things, they’re…

Chosen Frozen

Early last summer, after paying $4 for a pint of ice cream, I did a quick mental calculation and was horrified to realize what I might spend over the next few months feeding my habit. So I bought a small…

An Acadian Journey

The year just ended was the 200th since the birth of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, America’s first great poet and revered in Louisiana as author of Evangeline, a Tale of Acadie. So 2007 in the bard’s home state of Maine was…

Complementary Cast

I want foods to taste like themselves, but I also enjoy dishes that are a synthesis of many ingredients, some of which are not readily identifiable. Often it is those supporting elements that round out and enrich the principal ingredient…

Traveling Gournet: Radical Gumbo

Not long ago, four couples were having drinks before dinner, chatting about this and that while nibbling on almonds roasted with smoked paprika and homemade bread with cheeses. As often happens, the discussion turned to food and cooking, and from…

TRAVELER: Back on Track

This year, along with the usual azaleas and Spring Fiesta home tours, spring promises St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans an even greater gift. Streetcars. First, some terminology: It’s crawfish, not crayfish; parishes, not counties; neutral grounds, not medians; and…

Undertaking a Tour

Historian, author and attorney Payne Williams of the Natchitoches Historic Foundation is already recruiting spirits to make gravesite appearances during the town’s popular Sacred Places Tour in mid-March. South Louisiana towns are preparing for the All Saints Day whitewashings and…

Louisiana pies

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…

Visiting History

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…

Louisianians Barbecue too, ya’ll

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.…

Webad

Shopll Web22

Get the best of Louisiana Life delivered to your inbox!
Discover the distinctive, culture, people, food and fun destinations of beautiful Louisiana.

------LOUISIANA CALENDAR------

Photocontestwebad