Dixie Chicks Redux
Thirty odd years ago, during my Greenwich Village salad days, I was about to forget my dream of being published when I got a surprising call. “You’re Southern and you know history,” my agent said. “So how about writing some historical romances?” I initially bristled since I knew nothing about the genre, but it’s remarkable how poverty influences priorities. Once contracts were signed, I began plotting. Since New Orleans was my favorite city, the setting was a no-brainer. As for my star-crossed lovers, Marie would have the raven hair and violet eyes of my favorite movie star and Morgan would be Welsh, based on my heritage and not Mr. Burton btw. The year was 1840 as the Old South entered its Golden Age of wealth, elegance and...
Read MoreThe Ultimate Webmaster
I rarely think about weddings, even in June, but I admit being excited for my friend Charlotte Wyatt who’s soon to marry Gordon Smith, her best friend since middle school. Since Charlotte and I both hail from Tennessee, I started thinking about some of the extravagant Southern nuptials I attended back in the ’60s when June weddings often looked like animated flower shows. They were pretty, very showy affairs but none remotely compared to an extravaganza in antebellum Louisiana that still has people talking. It was the brainchild of one Charles Durande. Durande was a rather mysterious Frenchman who appeared in New Orleans around 1820 and multiplied his already considerable wealth by becoming one of Louisiana’s largest sugar planters. He not only...
Read MoreNew Orleans BBQ Shrimp: Slow Food Fast
One of the goals of slow food aficionados is preserving traditional, regional cuisine. New Orleans has been doing this for almost three centuries, mainly because Creole food put down such deep, irrefutable roots. Thanks to Louisiana’s incredible natural bounty from rivers, forests, bayous, and the Gulf of Mexico, cooks from France, Spain and Africa were inspired to create America’s one true native cuisine. Their world-renowned gumbos, jambalayas and étouffées are as far from fast food as you can get, and the fact that millions of foodies still seek them out proves they’ve stood the test of time. When a handful of New Orleans chefs reconfigured classic recipes to fit the nouvelle cuisine demands of the ’70s, customers stayed away in droves...
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