Gumbo Weather
When readers ask about the prominence of food in my books about New Orleans, I always say I can’t imagine not writing about it. Food is as much a part of the city’s fabric as jazz, Mardi Gras and humidity, and I know from living there eleven years that when people aren’t eating they’re usually talking about it. The city has been a gustatory destination for well over two centuries, so when I began Creole Son about French painter Edgar Degas’s 1872-3 visit, I knew I had to include the local cuisine. The Creoles famously loved to eat, and because Degas’s mother Celestine belonged to that particular ethnic group, it’s reasonable to assume he did too. As a well-educated Parisian of some means, he no doubt had a...
Read MoreDixie 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...
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