Music may feed the soul, but you still have to feed the stomach. OffBeat asked Jazz Fest musicians what they eat at the Fair Grounds: “What I usually do at Jazz Fest,” says saxophonist Donald Harrison, “is set up a day for eating and the main focus is not the music. I don’t eat the [...]
I was having a hard morning in the Marigny, and I blame it all on New Orleans Cake Café and Bakery. Mulling over the menu and the white board of specials, I agonized between the Spanish omelet with a biscuit and homemade jam or the French toast with pecans and orange syrup. The French toast [...]
Talk to anyone old enough to remember the first Jazz Fest in 1970, and they probably have a story about a killer show by the Meters, Bois Sec or maybe Roosevelt Sykes. Odds are they can’t help but mention that tickets were only $3. And then they’ll shake their heads sadly about the $50 gate [...]
Sixty years ago, crawfish was cheap food for poor people. “My father would say, we’re so poor we’re going to have to eat crawfish,” says Marcelle Bienvenu, food columnist and cookbook author. “I remember my mother saying, don’t eat crawfish in front of strangers because they’ll think you’re barbaric.” Today crawfish is an icon of [...]
Can you find great gumbo outside this state? I imagine that many Louisiana exiles have located passable gumbo elsewhere. When they long for home, they can order a foreign-born bowl that makes them happy if not fully satisfied. I grew up in the barbecue belt, and that’s how I feel about smoked beef, ribs and [...]
On a crisp Sunday afternoon, John Calhoun crouches down to tend rows of kale, carrots and collard greens. He fertilized the soil of his small farm on North Rampart Street with coffee grounds from Cool Brew and manure from the Marigny stables, where the mules that ferry tourists through the French Quarter live. A few [...]
World’s Healthiest Pizza, a New Orleans-based chain, is far from meek. Its Web site preaches the miracles of fiber. Customers don’t offer endorsements; they testify about reaching “dietary nirvana” through red sauce. The motto is a friendly reminder that the other way leads only to death: “Our pizza won’t kill you like the others. Promise.” [...]
Anyone who has visited Laurentino’s in Metairie knows the owner, Xavier Laurentino. He is a gregarious Spaniard, a self-trained chef and the unofficial ambassador of paella, Manchego cheese and patatas bravas to the greater New Orleans area. No one who saw the second season of Bravo’s Top Chef can forget Marcel Vigneron. He was the [...]
”How are you going to beat having Emeril Lagasse on the avenue?” asks Craig Cuccia, founder of Café Reconcile. He’s not talking about St. Charles Avenue. He means Oretha Castle Haley in Central City. With a little luster from Lagasse and the lure of a charitable cause, Cuccia believes that he can draw crowds of [...]
