MARDI GRAS MAGIC
TALENTED
FEATURES
ON THE COVER
GRAS MAGIC Talented artists who create the fanciful floats of the season
Baton Rouge-native Caroline Thomas has worked full-time for the float production company Royal Artists since 2012. Here, she designs floats for Proteus and Rex, the last of the 19th century Mardi Gras parades. Above Benny Anderson, now in his second full year as a Mardi Gras artist.
MARDI
JANUARY/FEBRUARY
Changes in the New Year
THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR always marks change and new beginnings. I’m generally happy for the start of it because it’s a good marker for making plans and setting goals. It’s also a time to take stock, to reflect and see what might be done a little differently. While I’m not a big resolutions person, I do break out a new notepad or journal and set a few goals for the year. They usually revolve around health, travel and writing. I find that, throughout the year, those are the things I tend to take my eye off of and before I know it, whatever I’d been working on has slipped away, and I haven’t even realized it.
This year, we’ve made a few changes to the magazine as well. In place of the Homes column, we’re expanding Traveler. We thought it would be interesting to take a deeper dive into what to do around the state. The column also has a new name — drumroll please — L A Rambler! It will offer an up-close look at places around Louisiana from an insider’s perspective. Former Louisiana Life editor, Melanie Warner Spencer, will be taking us along for a ramble as she explores cool spots and fun things do throughout Louisiana.
Another change will be former Editor-in-Chief Errol Laborde stepping down from his long-time position at Renaissance Publishing. We are so grateful for his many thoughtful contributions over the years. For those of you who’ve read the magazine for a while and enjoyed Errol’s columns on Louisiana culture and history, you, like me, have probably appreciated his depth of knowledge and interesting perspective. His accolades are so many, it would be difficult to include them all here. Holding a Ph.D. in political science, Errol has produced and been a panelist on Informed Sources, a weekly program on WYES-TV. He has numerous awards, serves on the board for the Tennessee Williams and New Orleans Literary Festival, and has published several books, including his most recent, “When Rex Met Zulu.” More than his many credentials, Errol is a cultural ambassador for the state and for New Orleans, in particular. He will continue to write his column for Louisiana Life in an online format, which you can find at Louisianalife.com.
In this issue, you’ll find a weekend trip idea when visiting Vicksburg, Mississippi as well as Mardi Gras around the state and a glimpse of foraging in Poverty Point. For more Mardi Gras content, there are several delicious recipes to celebrate the occasion in Liz Williams’ column.
Here is hoping to a good start to the new year for everyone and a fun and safe Mardi Gras. Cheers.
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Reine Dugas
EDITOR REINE@LOUISIANALIFE.COM
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Kevin Rabalais
Writer and Photographer
Kevin Rabalais, an Avoyelles Parish native, writes and photographs the Natural State series for Louisiana Life. His work has appeared in The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Australian, the New Zealand Listener, and the Argentine magazine Revista Ñ. He teaches in the Department of English at Loyola University New Orleans.
What are you Reading?
Kevin Rabalais
After this book, Joan Didion became a literary institution while still in her 30s. Her contemporary, Eve Babitz, was the center of ’60s and ’70s L.A. cultural spheres.. Lili Anolik’s “Didion & Babitz” chronicles the pair’s friendship.
Melanie Warner Spencer
This is a beautifully rendered, alternatehistory fantasy novel set in 1893, exploring prejudice, powerlessness, sisterhood, motherhood and revolution through the three young and estranged Eastwood sisters in New Salem.
Cheré Dastugue Coen
I’ve followed Penny’s Chief Inspector Armand Ganache series for years, enchanted by her quaint village of Three Pines of Quebec, a town absent from maps and full of fascinating characters.
Melanie Warner Spencer an award-winning journalist, editor and photographer whose work has appeared in publications, including Reuters, throughout the United States and around the globe. Spencer has been a staff features reporter and columnist at The Austin American-Statesman, a senior reporter at The Houston Chronicle and also served as editor of New Orleans Bride, New Orleans Homes, Acadiana Profile and Louisiana Life magazines. In her spare time, Spencer is a private yoga teacher and Ayurvedic nutrition counselor, cat mom and member of The Merry Antoinettes Mardi Gras marching krewe in New Orleans.
Cheré Dastugue Coen is a food and travel writer, photographer and author and owner of the whimsical blog, Weird, Wacky & Wild South. Her fiction includes two series of Louisiana romances and the “Viola Valentine” paranormal mystery series under the pen name of Cherie Claire. She remains passionate about her home state of Louisiana, believing that gumbo, crawfish étouffée and chicory coffee makes all things right with the world.
Let the Revelry Begin
It’s party time in New Orleans
BY LISA LEBLANC-BERRY
From Twelfth Night to Superbowl LIX, ‘tis the season of king cakes, epic parades and official NFL events. Nothing gets Carnival season started like the celebrated Phunny Phorty Phellows’ Twelfth Night (January 6) streetcar ride festooned with “It’s Carnival Time” banners, as 70 costumed revelers and the Storyville Stompers usher in the official start of Mardi Gras 2025 (March 4; phunnyphortyphellows.com). Showcasing the magic of Mardi Gras, the firstever Super Bowl parade (February 8) is a new $1 million procession heralding New Orleans’ 11th Super Bowl (February 9), featuring elaborate Super Bowl LIX-themed floats from Barry Kern with New Orleans-born rapper Lil Wayne and celebrity riders tossing NFL-themed throws as dozens of high-stepping college bands march through the French Quarter. Streamlined on Nola.com (visit nolasuperbowl.com for all Host Committee events).
LAFAYETTE
Dramatic Reenactment
The Denver-based dance troupe Cleo Parker Robinson Dance and the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra led by Grammy-winning composer/artistic director Adonis Rose, join forces for “Sacred Spaces” (January 29; Heyman Center). Inspired by the 2019 burning of three St. Landry Parish Black churches, it was conceived by Jacqueline Lyle, executive director of PASA. “Cleo and Adonis had never met prior to their collaboration,” says Lyle. “When Cleo went to the dance studio at ULL, among the dancers were two daughters of one of the church pastors. What you see on stage is what happened in that dance studio. The narrative came from the people in the church on that tragic night. Debbie Caffery’s photos from the fires are projected on the back wall.” (heymanncenter. com).
THIBODAUX
In King Cake Heaven
The Louisiana King Cake Festival (February 15) in downtown Thibodaux offers an abundance of flavors from 50 vendors plus live music, parades and family fun (last year, 47 vendors served over 19,000 bites of king cake). Every VIP ticket goes to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library providing free books to kids from birth to age 5 (louisianakingcakefest.com).
LAKE CHARLES
The Gators are Back
The alligators have returned to Cypress Alligator Pond after “vacationing” at Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge, their temporary abode while their home was getting a makeover. A new, extended observation deck gives visitors a closer look at the gators. Originally built in the 1990s, it’s the most visited site in Lake Charles, according to Michael Castille, director of community services (507 N. Lakeshore Drive).
BREAUX BRIDGE
The Love Mural
After two years of work by regional artists led by Jessalyn Newton, the famous Pont Breaux “birthday wall” has been transformed into a vibrant mural titled “For the Love of Breaux Bridge” that incorporates the heartfelt messages and birthday wishes that have been appearing for the past 20 year at the intersection of Reese and Bridge streets. An ArtSpark Grant contributed to the project’s success (info: acadianacenterforthearts.org/ opportunities-for-artists/).
Anonymous Visitor
Benito Juárez in New Orleans
BY CHRISTOPHER LOUIS ROMAGUERA
Season of the Swamp
It’s not often you get to read speculative fiction set in the past, but Yuri Herrera’s “Season of the Swamp” is able to achieve just that, by filling in the blanks of what Mexican patriot Benito Juárez’s time in New Orleans was like. It is a known fact that Juarez spent about 18 months in New Orleans in 1853, but what encompassed those months (before Juárez would become president of Mexico) is far less certain. Herrera writes about Juárez and a group of Mexican exiles’ experiences as they travail through the unique city in the young country of the United States, steeping the novel with the history of Mexico and New Orleans, with the beautiful style of writing for which Herrera is known. 160 pages, $26
Walkin’ Blues
“Walkin’ Blues” is the first novel by renowned New Orleans author, activist and thinker, Kalamu ya Salaam. The novel follows famed bluesman Robert Johnson, one of the most mythicized musicians in United States history, as he tries to go through Mississippi and makes it to Louisiana. “Walkin’ Blues” fills in the gap of what Robert Johnson was doing before the infamous recordings he made in 1938. The novel is a great addition to the biographies and myths written about Robert Johnson and the South. 300 pages, $19.95
The Flat Woman
Vanessa Saunders’ “The Flat Woman,” is an experimental novel set in the not-so-distant future in a world where seagulls fall from the sky and the government blames women for climate change. In “The Flat Woman,” we follow an unnamed female protagonist as she raises herself, after her mother is incarcerated for “climate crimes.” The protagonist questions her passion for the environmental movement as she begins a romance with an activist. This book blends humor, the absurd and drama in a way that almost makes the world feel more lifelike. Saunders won the FC2’s Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize. 160 pages, $18.95
That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America
A part memoir, part nonfiction exploration of the U.S. political climate that has increased book banning and the fight for the right for books to be readily available for the public to read. Jones’ book addresses book banning but also her personal journey, dealing with death threats and online harassment ever since defending books. Jones is a renowned librarian who teaches in the same middle school (now for 22 years) that she attended in Livingston Parish. She is the founder of the Louisiana Association of School Librarians. 288 pages, $29.99
VANESSA SAUNDERS
YURI HERRERA
KALAMU YA SALAAM
AMANDA JONES
Voice of a Bluesman
Chris Vincent croons of the past and the present
BY VERONIKA LEE CLAGHORN
Chris Vincent is surrounded by guitars and sunlight in his French Quarter home. His blind golden mutt Cindy, a Vieux Carré oracle and flâneuse, cocks her head as Vincent plucks strings from his 1947 Gibson L7 named “Gloria.” From northern New Jersey, Chris Vincent is a bluesman who in another life rose to the surface from the bayous of Louisiana. He came here in 2022 for the second time in his life on a journey not many people travel to The Big Easy to take: the road to sobriety.
After a divorce, achieving sobriety and the passing of his father, he decided it was time to go south and settle in the only place he says has ever felt like home.
“I couldn’t write the stuff I was writing anywhere else but here,” he says. “This place is fertile in ways I can’t really describe. Everybody is here for different reasons and a lot of them are searching inside of themselves looking for something. ”
His sobriety gets him up early and he spends the time as the sun rises songwriting and workshopping the music he will eventually tinker with and develop throughout the day. Many songs get written in one session and are refined over 24 to 48 hours. It’s an amplified and fast process that he believes came from not doing it for so long in the years when alcohol clouded his creativity.
“This little story would not be so cut and dry,” Vincent sings on his April 2024 album’s title track “Things Have Changed.” “Things have changed … and so have I. I rode and I tumbled, folded and crumbled a thousand times before.”
His voice reverberates with a tone of hopefulness that outweighs the darkness of his past.
“New Orleans allows for the lyrical substance of the songs a lot of the time and as far as the guitar is concerned, I’m very much a student of jazz.” He says his jazz inspiration and abilities, honed with playing alongside NOLA notable drummer Johnny Vidacovich, ensures that not all of his songs sound the same.
He recalls the very first step into his lifelong musical adventure. The first time he ever played the guitar, it was an open B chord while trying to learn Bob Dylan’s “Tangled Up in Blue” at age 15. “I remember finding a guitar book (we didn’t have the internet back then) and being so proud of myself when I went from a B to a C chord.”
That was his initiation into the foray of the artist life before he laid down his true foundation in New Orleans, the birthplace of his songwriting capabilities.
On “New Orleans, My Darling,” he croons about the city having had its way with him. However, the city that inspires Vincent as a songwriter is not defined by the same somber path depicted in cautionary tales like “House of the Rising Sun,” but rather highlights the positive aspects of New Orleans. Like the mighty Mississippi that flows several blocks from his house, he is always changing and evolving.
In February, local filmmaker Gian Smith approached him at a show at The Howlin’ Wolf. He had been enchanted by Vincent’s song “Half Block Cadillac” and immediately asked the guitarist to do the score on his “Sopranos”-esque film, “The Capitalist.”
Fun Details
Vincent lights up talking about his latest project with Vidacovich. They formed The Real Deals and have an album on the way. Vidacovich is a hero to him.
Astrological
Sign Leo or Virgo cusp Aug. 23
Instagram @ chrisvincentmusic
Songwriting Motto
“Nobody found Jesus on prom night.”
Sipping what he calls his “rocket fuel,” Vincent reflects on what he really does when he’s not playing guitar and he can’t really think of anything else.
“What can I say? I’m an addict. I traded one addiction for the other.” T
Q&A
What advice would you have for someone who wants to play guitar starting later in life? Practice! Play the guitar for your own reasons and on your own time and don’t rush going out in front of people before you are ready. And more than anything else, enjoy it.
What is the most memorable guitar performance you’ve ever witnessed? Charlie Sexton with Bob Dylan in Asbury Park about 10 years ago. Charlie is an unbelievably inspiring player. In New Orleans, it was a jazz bass guitar player named Dave Stryker at Snug.
Where should someone who is visiting New Orleans go to see live music? Snug Harbor and The Davenport Lounge. Snug is a pure listening experience.
Head and Heart
Colby Hebert uses custom hats to tell a story in Lafayette
BY JEFFREY ROEDEL
PHOTOS BY ROMERO & ROMERO
Big city trends, like water draining down the Mighty Mississippi, can take their time reaching Louisiana, but like a shard of driftwood turned over countless times by the river currents, those trends are uniquely changed during their journey down South.
A decade ago, Colby Hebert was early to pick up on one of these fashion movements among his film industry colleagues from Los Angeles. While working in the wardrobe and props departments on movie sets in New Orleans, the New Iberia native noticed one curious accessory that artists around him liked wearing. Unexpectedly, the former actor found a new way to combine his love of storytelling, his flair for fashion and his deep roots in Acadian culture.
“It was Holy Spirit, light bulb and lightning bolt all at once,” Hebert says. “I was struck. I knew I wanted to learn how to make hats. Approaching them from a designer’s perspective, getting personal, individualized and more stylish with them wasn’t very common at the time. In New York and L.A. maybe, but it hadn’t clicked in the deep South yet.”
Largely self-taught — though he’s quick to credit the seasoned milliners who shared invaluable advice along the way — Hebert was experimenting at home with fur felt, shaping and design work while still working on movies. With his thick Cajun patois, friends started calling him “The Cajun Hatter” on sets, and the nickname stuck.
In 2016, he launched his first line, and now “The Cajun Hatter” is the name on the outside of his shop on Jefferson Street in the growing creative enclave that is downtown Lafayette. Inside is a wild wonderland centered around the reassembled remains of an 80-year-old fishing shack, complete with vintage furniture, a bar and an island sprouting all manner of fabrics, found scraps of nature and colorful stalks of feathers for patrons to choose from. Naked straw and beaver and nutria fur felt hats gaze down from dark green walls like an adoring crowd.
“We can sculpt what someone wants on the spot — we call this the swamp,” says the married father of three,
Q&A
If you could design a hat specifically for anyone, who would it be and why? My brother who passed away before I started doing this. And lots of historical figures: Jean Lafitte, Napoleon Bonaparte, Louis XIV, Francis of Assisi, Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway.
Is it true that some people just aren’t “hat people”? Entirely false. Not only can anyone look good in a hat, but everyone can pull off a variety of hats. You’ve just got to take into consideration the shape, size, proportions, color and style of the hat, and the shape and size of your face and head, the proportions and structure of your body, the tones of your hair, eyes and skin and your personal style.
Personally, what’s your favorite hat and why? My favorite hats are ones that have the same color ribbon on it as the felt. I love the profound and timeless elegance found in a simple, monotone hat.
moving swiftly to the back of the shop to his finishing nook filled with tattered suitcases of ribbons and thread, a chalkboard wall, a classic Singer and an ASM Industrial sewing machine and a few dozen colorful spools standing guard. “Hats have always been about craftsmanship, skill and tradition, and that’s a beautiful thing. But designers are on the opposite end, divining something that hasn’t happened before. I appreciate both.”
He encourages clients to bring their own ideas and memorabilia to weave into their hats.
“Even though he’s Cajun and I’m Sicilian and Romanian, we are cut from the same cloth,” says Sammye Pisani, who walked into Hebert’s shop when it was on Magazine Street in New Orleans, and ended up collaborating on events with the hatmaker. “We just sat and had a cocktail and got to know each other, and the hats that resulted were amazing. He’s easy to connect with.”
Hebert’s first collection, called Louisiana Icons, displayed the unique charm of the state with pieces like Magnolia and Carnaval. “At first I just wanted to reflect the culture and tell everybody, ‘This is who I am, and this is where I’m going with this,’” he recalls. “As I moved forward, the custom hats help people tell their own story. It’s mutual. It’s a collaboration.”
Fascinated by the Southwestern landscape, writer and marketer James Ludeau brought in a turquoise and sterling silver band made by a Native American artist in Santa Fe, a clutch of pins from New Mexico and a hawk feather.
“It’s like a scrapbook and a conversation-starter,” Ludeau says. “And they are like tattoos, you’re always thinking, ‘I gotta get another one.’”
Hebert’s Shades of the Swamp collection features natural dyes he creates using plants harvested from the Atchafalaya basin.
“My vision has always been to define the fashion of deep south Louisiana, in an elegant but badass and unique way,”
he says. “How does a hat promote a culture? Well, if it makes someone proud to be Cajun, or Creole or from South Louisiana, that’s one way.”
Hebert calls the aesthetic “swamp chic.”
“Acadiana is lucky to have a quality hatmaker here, because it’s still rare,” says the well-traveled Ludeau, who has had five custom headpieces made by Hebert. “These hats are such an extension of your personality. They’re all like different characters sitting in your wardrobe.”
As highly-personalized works, Hebert’s creations are taken as keepsakes from a proud, communal culture, and thoughtful memories of an individual’s journey; future heirlooms, alive now with the indelible experiences, the resilient verve and the cherished loves held close by each wearer.
Just as fine artists channel their feelings and inspirations into colors on canvases, words on pages or images on screens, Hebert sees hatmaking as an expression of something more esoteric, and in some ways, more real, than the raw materials. His inherent drive to promote the language, music, spirituality and culinary character of Cajun life has never wavered, and at 33, he’s positioned to pass that passion to a new generation.
“The palette is the hat, and that’s the vehicle for it all, but that’s not what it’s about at the root,” Hebert says. “This is a preservation effort.” T
Sabrina Schmidt
Preserving a way of life through the eyes of a St. Bernard Parish artist
BY JOHN R. KEMP
ODD HOW THINGS HAPPEN. The 51-year-old Schmidt, a lifetime resident of Chalmette, is a relative newcomer to the full-time “art for art’s sake” world. For almost 30 years, she enjoyed a successful career as a graphic designer. Then in 2020 with the coming of COVID-19, Schmidt was able to step away and head into the natural landscape to free her imagination and talent.
“It’s something I always wanted to do,” says Schmidt, who studied art and design at the University of New Orleans, Loyola University and the New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts. “Every time I traveled or just observed nature, I was always planning a painting. I was always composing, setting up compositions and thinking how I would create those colors. I’ve done that for so many years and then the pandemic hit. It allowed me to get out there every day and paint. It was a quieter time with less responsibilities. The second reason, we were empty nesters, and it was my time.”
Attentive observers might spot her on a sunny or rainy day out painting along the streets and back roads of St. Bernard Parish or in St. Bernard’s little villages Delacroix and Yscloskey or across the levee along the Mississippi River “batture” — that muddy no-man’s land between the levee and river. They also might see her painting on the side streets of old New Orleans neighborhoods or in City Park painting under the Dueling Oaks, “trying to create that feeling of standing under the oaks.” Her images of decaying small-town factories, ancient oaks, auto junkyards and other moments in the natural landscape call to mind what novelist John Steinbeck once described as the “poetry of place” as he traveled across country with his poodle Charley.
Schmidt describes one outing along the batture in Poydras at the lower end of St. Bernard Parish: “In the winter, I painted a scene on the river and the sun was setting. It was that winter light coming through the tree
branches. You could feel all of the emotions of that day.”
The award-winning Schmidt, whose work has appeared in important juried shows in Baton Rouge and New Orleans, is focused on documenting and telling the story of St. Bernard’s rapidly disappearing landscape and way of life, especially through the “eyes and perspective” of artists. She believes the region and people have important stories to tell and preserve. To do so, she often invites groups of artists from Southeast Louisiana to join her on painting forays into the St. Bernard landscape, towns and villages. After one such invitation, Schmidt organized and curated a 15-artist, plein-air exhibition that opened in December 2022 and ran six months at the Crevasse 22/The River House art gallery in Poydras.
“I feel it’s important,” she says, “for artists to paint as much as possible because the area is changing so quickly with every storm and hurricane that comes through here. We also must document our fishermen, too. They are a dying breed and we need to document that life. I find life along the river interesting, too, with all the old oak trees and history.”
By painting on location, or en plein air as it’s called, Schmidt’s loose, painterly, impressionistic style “that leans toward naturalism,” as she says, responds to the given light, the colors, humid atmosphere and sensory spirit of her surroundings.
Exhibits
CAJUN
Luster: Realism and Hyperrealism in Contemporary Automobile and Motorcycle Painting
Paintings of classic automobiles and motorcycles, Feb. 1-April 30. Historic City Hall & Cultural Center, Lake Charles. cityoflakecharles. com
CENTRAL
The Art of Joe Ray Paintings, sculpture, photographs by Alexandria-born artist, through Feb. 15. Alexandria Museum of Art. themuseum.org
PLANTATION
Top Left HefeweizenSt. Stephen’s Church Bottom Left Look on the Bright Side Right Bright Light on the Batture
“Painting makes me feel alive,” she says. “In plein air painting or painting from life, there’s always a sense of discovery. There’s so much that goes on when you are outside. You feel the air, smell the scents around you and the vibe of being outdoors. It all goes into the painting. When I’m painting in the city, my husband comes with me and when he’s playing his guitar, my brushstrokes are different. They go with the beat of his music. I’ve also painted in the rain. The colors are beautiful in the rain. I have to use a lot of umbrellas, but I love trying to capture the mood of the weather, the atmosphere.”
Inspired by nature and color, Schmidt has this “drive and need to share” with others the feeling, essence, and experiences of what she sees and paints. She says, “Trying to capture what I’m seeing is not all pleasant, and you go through so many emotions. It’s not always successful, but I love the challenge. The challenge keeps me going back.”
Whether Schmidt is following that challenge and drive to “capture the essence, color and mood” of a moment along the levee in St. Bernard Parish or in the streets of New Orleans, her paintings remind viewers that Steinbeck’s “poetry of place” is all around us.
For more information about Schmidt and her work, visit sabrinaschmidt.me T
In a New Light: American Impressionism 1870-1940
Survey of American Impressionism, through March 23. LSU Museum of Art, Baton Rouge. lsumoa.org
NOLA
John Scott: Blues Poem for the Urban Landscape Acclaimed artist visualizes the history of New Orleans, through Jan. 26. New Orleans Museum of Art. noma.org
NORTH
Clyde Connell and Pat Sewell Work by two renowned North Louisiana artists, permanent show. Louisiana State Exhibit Museum. laexhibitmuseum. org
Mardi Gras
MBY LIZ WILLIAMS PHOTOS AND STYLING BY EUGENIA UHL
ardi Gras in Louisiana this year will come after more than the usual celebrations, since we also are shoehorning the Super Bowl into the calendar. For those who love hoopla, having black and gold king cakes may be in order. For those who want a more traditional Mardi Gras, they could explore Cajun Mardi Gras or Mardi Gras in the suburbs of New Orleans. Regardless, it is our duty to celebrate Mardi Gras for our own enjoyment and to preserve our cultural responsibilities.
Bloody Mary
4 cups prepared tomato juice
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
1 cup vodka
8 celery sticks with leaves
8 pickled okra spears
ADD into a pitcher the first 5 ingredients. Stir well. Serve the pitcher with a glass of celery sticks and a second glass of long okra to use as stirring sticks. Near the pitcher, make a bottle of hot sauce available.
ON THE TRAY with the pitcher and the other supporting things, have 8 rocks glasses rimmed with salt at the ready.
RIM your glasses with salt by dipping the rim of the glass into a saucer with lime juice. Dip the rim of the wet glass into a saucer of salt. It will stick to the rim. You can use this method to rim a glass with salt for a margarita or with sugar for a sidecar. Makes 8 4-ounce drinks
The Courir de Mardi Gras takes place in Cajun country of Louisiana. It is a traditional day of masking and riding together as bandits on horseback or even running with the task of assembling the ingredients for the day’s gumbo. In more modern times, trucks are used to carry the runners from house to house. The riders stop at homes or farms along the way to obtain the necessary ingredients — chasing chickens and pigs, procuring onions and bell peppers and stealing sausages and all of the components of something delicious. The runners wear traditional fringed costumes and sing traditional songs that beg for food.
Regardless of the Mardi Gras that you celebrate — a sophisticated ball complete with faux royalty, streetwalking parades that wind around the city, family Mardi Gras parade watching in the surrounding parishes or a traditional courir — there will be food. And there can be no shame in taking a little bit of this and a little bit of that from all the ways that Mardi Gras can be celebrated. What is important is that the food be delicious, that it be easy to eat and that it’s always at the ready.
These ideas should get you started. Remember you are trying to fill people’s stomachs, but you need to have fun too. That means pots of chicken liver pâté or bowls of a delicious deviled ham with rolls or bread for people to made a sandwich to take with them to the parade route. Don’t forget this is the last day to eat king cake for some time, so be sure to have enough for everyone to have a slice or two. And it’s not a sin to use the leftover king cake for bread pudding or French toast on Wednesday. T
Louisiana Guacamole
6 large ripe avocados
6 scallions, sliced thinly on the bias, green and white parts
Juice of 2 limes
6 tablespoons olive oil
1 inch square of fresh jalepeño squeezed through a garlic press
Zest of 1 lime
¼ cup of chopped cilantro
1 pint of cherry tomatoes cut into quarters
Salt to taste
HALVE the avocados, remove the seed, and scoop the flesh out with a spoon. Place into a bowl and mash roughly with a fork.
MIX all of the ingredients. Serve with a basket of corn chips.
Crawfish Shells
1 stick butter
3 tablespoons tomato paste
1 onion, finely chopped
1 red bell pepper, finely chopped
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
Slurry of 1 cup of water mixed with 2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 pound peeled Louisiana crawfish tails
4 or 5 scallions, finely chopped, both the white and the green
1 bunch parsley leaves, finely chopped 6 or 8 puff pastry shells
PREHEAT oven to 325 degrees.
MELT butter in a large skillet. Add tomato paste and whisk. Allow the tomato paste to caramelize, about 15 minutes, then add onions and cook for 10 minutes. Add bell pepper and cook for 5 more minutes. Add pepper, salt and paprika.
STIR the cornstarch slurry and add to skillet. Whisk and allow mixture to heat. Add the remaining ingredients except for shells. Continue cooking at a simmer for 20 minutes.
ALLOW the mixture to cool. Adjust seasoning to your taste. Place the shells on a cookie sheet and fill with the mixture. Cook for 5 to 10 minutes. Transfer to a platter and place on the serving table. Makes 12 regular shells or 48 mini shells
Dirty Rice
Dirty rice is best hot, but it can be eaten at room temperature. Instead of dirty rice, jambalaya and plain white rice on the buffet table, use dirty rice as the accompaniment for gumbo and beans. It keeps the buffet table less crowded and adds flavor.
3 tablespoons bacon drippings
1 pound ground beef
½ pound ground pork
½ pound chicken liver or a mixture of chicken liver and other chicken organs like gizzards and hearts (If you choose not to use organ meats, replace these ingredients with an additional ½ pound of ground pork)
2 yellow onions, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped
3 stalks celery, chopped
4 to 6 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tablespoons cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups long grain rice
1 ½ cups beef broth
1 tablespoon paprika
½ cup finely chopped parsley
Hot sauce
IN A LARGE CAST IRON SKILLET, melt the bacon fat and brown the ground beef. Remove the cooked beef from the skillet and reserve. Brown the ground pork and remove the pork from the skillet and reserve. If using, brown the organ meats. Reserve the cooked meats.
REMOVE all but 3 tablespoons of fat from the skillet. Sauté the chopped onions for 10 minutes, Then add the peppers, celery and garlic to the skillet. Stir and sauté for about 5 minutes or until the vegetables are soft.
ADD the spices and stir well. Add the rice and reintroduce the meats to the skillet. Stir well. Add 3 ½ cups beef broth. Bring the entire mixture to a simmer, the stir again. Cover and reduce the flame until the rice is cooked.
REMOVE the dirty rice from the skillet and place in a bowl. It really tastes better the next day, so you can make this the day before Mardi Gras, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. When ready to serve, reheat in a microwave or the oven (remove the plastic wrap before reheating). Garnish with paprika and chopped parsley. Serve with hot sauce on the table. Serves 6 to 8
TALENTED
ARTISTS WHO CREATE THE FANCIFUL FLOATS OF THE SEASON
MARDI GRAS MAGIC
t Cantrell Studios in Kenner, René Pierre ascends a ladder to put the finishing touches on an 8-foot teapot. Behind him looms a 10-foot chef who grins as he grips a dough roller the width of a great blue heron’s wingspan. To the chef’s left rises a colossal bottle of Crystal hot sauce, and beyond, scattered across the 12,800-square-foot warehouse, perch dozens of other props. Some sit atop floats. Others await their ride. Here, a papier-mâché King Kong preens next to a fiberglass jester. There, a green witch snarls near a trampoline-sized plate of beignets.
Step into any Mardi Gras warehouse, or den, and enter a Carnival dreamworld. While the oversized tableaux of a parade rolling through city streets can spark an Alice in Wonderland effect, props and floats loom even larger in spaces such as this, where Pierre and other artists bring them to life. Their shared goal: to make Carnival a reality for the estimated 1.4 million annual visitors who attend parades in New Orleans alone.
“We want to show the world,” Pierre says, smiling as he inspects the teapot opening, now vibrant yellow. He then provides a list of the “we” he has in mind, all the carpenters, electricians, welders, costume designers, sculptors and painters, those “unsung heroes who spill their blood,” as Pierre says, and work year-round to make Carnival happen. These artists preserve a tradition that has thrived in Louisiana since the Krewe of Comus first rolled in 1857. Their work presents an annual opportunity to witness one of the world’s preeminent unticketed spectacles.
On the calendar, it occupies the days between Twelfth Night and Mardi Gras Day. For the artists, it’s perennial, a lifeblood. Pierre began work as a professional Mardi Gras artist 40 years ago. His passion for this world began in elementary school, when he started making miniature Mardi Gras floats out of shoeboxes. At age eight, he entered a competition and won. Then he designed and built more miniatures. He entered other competitions.
Top Manuel Ponce and René Pierre still work with pen and ink to design Mardi Gras floats. Pictured here are Ponce’s rough concept and finished drawings for this year’s Krewe of Orpheus and, below, Pierre’s design for the inaugural Mystic Krewe of Nyx. Facing page Pierre puts the final touches on a prop at Cantrell Studios.
“I would always win,” Pierre says, as joyous at the memory as he is when examining his most recent work inside the den. After graduating from high school, Pierre began exhibiting his miniatures at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. Soon after, Kern
Studios started selling them. Today, nearly 50 years after his first competition, Pierre’s fingerprints are present at every stage of the Mardi Gras process. He continues to make miniature floats. He also builds and designs the big ones.
As many as five years in advance, a Mardi Gras krewe will send its upcoming theme to artists such as Pierre and Manuel Ponce, an artist at Kern Studios who designs floats for Bacchus, Cleopatra, Hermes and Orpheus. After receiving the theme, Pierre and Ponce get to work the old-fashioned way, with ink and paper. They submit those drawings to the krewe. Once approved, other artists begin the long process of building, sculpting and painting.
Like Pierre, Ponce balances design work with other roles. He started at Kern Studios before the 1984 World’s Fair. Now, almost everything he creates revolves around Mardi Gras. Besides designing floats for
parades in New Orleans, San Antonio and at Universal Studios Florida, Ponce also produces artwork for doubloons, medallion doubloons and Mardi Gras cups. “I took so much for granted because I grew up with this,” he says. “Now, it comes naturally.”
When Pierre isn’t designing floats, he’s painting props. When he isn’t painting props, he’s building floats or making miniatures. Walking through Cantrell Studios, he notes which artist designed which prop, and who painted what. “Everyone deserves their credit,” he says. In one warehouse corner, he finds Mike Rohli, a Mardi Gras artist with 35 years of experience. Setting down a can of paint, Rohli says, “All these floats are like a big coloring book.”
Pierre approaches one of them, now finished and awaiting its position in the parade. “It’s not Volkswagen,” he says. “It’s Rolls Royce.”
Fifteen miles away, on a quiet street in Gentilly, Ínez Pierre sits
Cantrell Studios serves as a vendor where artists finish work begun in other Mardi Gras dens.
Right Ínez Pierre is owner of Pierre Parade Productions, the only Black-owned floatbuilding company in New Orleans.
in the office of Pierre Parade Productions. “I’m going to tell you the truth,” she says. “I always hated Mardi Gras.” As a child, she had no choice. Parades peppered the Gentilly landscape. They were also her grandmother’s obsession. Once Ínez attained teenage freedom, she made a decision: No more.
Then one day in 1986 while studying at Delgado Community College, everything changed. “I met Mr. Mardi Gras,” she says. “René Pierre. I heard God’s voice say, ‘That’s gonna be your husband.’ She also heard René’s footsteps. “He pursued and pursued and pursued.” René’s enthusiasm for all things Mardi Gras eventually won Ínez over. He enlisted her help to build his miniatures. The couple married. One day, René said, “I’m going to build you a float so you can start your own business.”
In 2018, they started Pierre Parade Productions, the only Blackowned float-building and float rental company in New Orleans. Business thrived. Ínez’s ambitions grew. The floats she offered became more and more ornate. She developed a mantra: “Change the face of Mardi Gras.”
Then came the global pandemic. In November 2021, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell cancelled the city’s public parades. The Pierres worried their business would evaporate. On television one day, they saw Megan Boudreaux discuss her plans to start the Krewe of House Floats. Painting and decorating houses, Boudreaux explained, would provide a safe way to bring Carnival to the city during the pandemic. Watching Boudreaux speak, René recalled childhood memories of throwing beads off his front porch, pretending it was Mardi Gras Day. By then, Ínez had known him long enough to decipher his thoughts. “Rather than have the parade come to you, you go to it,” she said. René got to work. In less than three months, he designed, built and painted 64 porch floats. At night, he would return home to Ínez. Massaging his hands, she freed his locked fingers one by one.
Today, Ínez looks back at the grueling work during the pandemic as a period that solidified her desire to continue a life she never imagined before she met René. “Some people are geniuses in their fields,” she says. “René can tell you the schedule for the 1965 parades. He can tell you who painted the floats of any given year and who designed them, who was the first to do this and that. And I have to tell him, ‘But you can’t remember to put down the toilet seat?’”
On Claiborne Avenue in New Orleans at the Rex Den, Baton Rouge native Caroline Thomas walks past a display of her 2025 float designs. Thomas has worked full-time for the float production company Royal Artists since 2012. Here, she designs floats for Proteus and Rex, the last of the 19th century Mardi Gras parades. Like René Pierre, Thomas’ artistic passion and purpose unfolds in a warehouse world of floats and gargantuan props. As a student at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, she strove for a career as a fine arts painter. Then she became curious about international Carnival art. After developing a particular interest in the costumes of the
Caroline Thomas’ drawings from the Krewe of Proteus line the board inside an Uptown New Orleans Mardi Gras den in the same order that they paraded on Lundi Gras 2023.
Emmy Award-winning Trinidadian artist Peter Minshall, she longed to see this work as a member of his intended audience: on the streets during Carnival. Thomas soon found herself in a taxi in Port of Spain. Without prompting, the driver pontificated about the social and cultural importance of Minshall’s work. “That blew my socks off,” Thomas says. Creating parade and street art, she realized, could be just as valid a way to tell stories as exhibiting in museums and galleries. “You could make this your life’s work,” she told herself. “This can be a form of self-expression that brings people to the streets.”
In Trinidad, Thomas found her inspiration. In Louisiana, she had already developed deep roots for the tradition of Carnival art. “There’s a visual language that everyone who grew up here understands,” she says. “It's not just some superfluous party, but something with grand ambitious narratives and deep spiritual meaning.” Continuing through the Rex Den, she passes artists and carpenters going about their work. “Nobody gets trained as a Mardi Gras artist,” she says. “They come from everywhere: tattoo artists, graffiti artists, mural artists, fine artists.” About half have training in the fine arts. Less than three miles from the Rex Den, one of them circles a grimacing 8-foot pirate.
Benny Anderson graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2022 and is now in his second full year as a Mardi Gras artist. From the pirate, he turns to consult a clipboard that contains anatomical sketches, renderings of pirates, and a photograph of a woman exaggerating an angry expression. “I pulled this from the Internet to remind me what a mean pirate looks like,” he says, tapping his finger against the woman’s forehead. The clipboard rests on a table near the pirate, and Anderson rips off a thin strip of corrugated cardboard to demonstrate how he shapes such a sculpture. He brushes it with contact glue and then molds the cardboard in his hands. “This is how you mold it over the wooden armature,” he says. To that shape, he adds a layer of butcher paper. Next comes a layer of papier-mâché. The final step involves brushing the sculpture with white waterproofing paint. After a sculptor gets to this stage, painters such as René Pierre or Caroline Thomas will take over. “My job,” Anderson says, “is to create as much depth and detail as I can so that they have more definition to work with.”
In 2023, Benny Anderson constructed this prop as a 1980s roller derby figure. For this year’s parade, Anderson repurposed the prop and turned it into a pirate.
Facing page Caroline Thomas designs floats for Rex and Proteus, the last of the 19th century Mardi Gras parades.
When they can, Pierre, Thomas and Anderson repurpose props. Last year, for instance, Anderson’s pirate paraded as a 1980s roller derby girl. He steps back to observe the transformation. “I gave her a big 80s hairdo and roller skates. Now look at her.” To start from scratch, Anderson typically needs two weeks to complete a prop. Repurposing props cuts that time in half, something he appreciates since, like many Mardi Gras artists, he doesn’t get paid until he finishes a project. Those projects commence when Thomas sends him a picture of her drawings. Those drawings begin after a krewe sends her its theme. Those themes continue a cultural conversation that explorers Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville and Bienville started when they disembarked near the mouth of the Mississippi River on Mardi Gras day, 1699, and planted the seed of Carnival in the New World.
To put it all in perspective, to provide proper justice, you would have to include everyone, all those carpenters building floats that will sit atop 19th-century chassis, each of the artists who works at home and bedazzles T-shirts and coconuts and high-heeled shoes. You would have to track the year-round work of all the krewes who gather on weekends to sew and bead their costumes and everyone else who dreams Carnival into life. They toil behind closed doors, many of them inside warehouses that hum with industrial fans or pop tunes escaping tinny speakers or the raucous symphony of a Louisiana downpour. But above that noise thrums an aura of anticipation. One day, these floats and props will exit the warehouse, and artists like Benny Anderson will be on the streets, masked and costumed, awaiting their arrival.
Circling his pirate one more time to check if he’s missed a spot, Anderson smiles. In his eyes, there’s a glimmer of excitement. “I just get happy seeing it,” he says. T
CARNIVAL SEASON IS CELEBRATED ALL OVER LOUISIANA, GUARANTEEING THERE’S SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE FROM TWELFTH NIGHT TO FAT
TUESDAY AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN
BY MELANIE WARNER SPENCER
It
’s true New Orleans gets the most attention when it comes to Mardi Gras and no one would argue that it’s the biggest and perhaps depending on who you ask most notorious.
BUT CELEBRATIONS BIG AND SMALL, quirky and decadent are held from the top of the boot to the bottom throughout Carnival season. While we can’t include every parade and party across the state, if you want to try something new to you, we have a roundup of everything from cookoffs and galas to dog parades and chicken runs up to and on Fat Tuesday, which falls late this year on March 4. Grab the glitter and mark your calendar for some of the biggest and best Carnival celebrations in the world.
CARNIVAL SEASON OFFICIALLY BEGINS on the last day of the 12 days of Christmas with Twelfth Night (which is Jan. 5). This is also the first time it’s “legal” to eat king cake, so plan accordingly. Celebrate the beginning of the season in style with Lake Charles’ Twelfth Night Parade Extravaganza at the Event Center, where last year’s parade royalty makes their final farewells in glittery, feathery Mardi Gras finery amid dancing, door prizes and lots of pomp and sparkle. In 2024, Lake Charles’ Mardi Gras Museum of Imperial Calcasieu broke ground at its new 6,000-square-foot building at 641 Enterprise Blvd., in the Nellie Lutcher Cultural District. Make time to take in the special exhibition of costumes from the Mardi Gras Museum’s collection. The exhibit is scheduled for early 2025. On the Friday before Mardi Gras, the Merchant’s Parade is the place to be in Lake Charles. This night parade is the first of the big weekend and known for its luminous floats and abundance of throws. The festivities are in full swing on March 1, with the World Famous Cajun Extravaganza and Gumbo Cook-off at the Lake Charles Event Center, plus the quirky and fun Krewe of Barkus Parade at the corner of Ryan and Broad streets downtown. Sample your fill of seafood, chicken, sausage and game-based gumbos from professional chefs and amateur cooks during the Gumbo Cook-off. At Barkus, proud pups in their Mardi Gras finest strut the streets and ride on owner-drawn floats for an afternoon of fun. On March 3, prepare for another evening of glitz and glam at the Mardi Gras Royal Gala at the Lake Charles Event Center. Thousands of attendees turn out to view a promenade of the royalty from
Lake Charles’ Mardi Gras krewes followed by music and dancing. On Fat Tuesday, options abound with a celebration to fit any preference. Downtown’s Second Line Stroll is a low-key, family friendly walking parade with marchers donning costumes or their group’s color theme. Mardi Gras music and festive vibes abound. A short 20 minutes from Lake Charles, you can celebrate Cajun Mardi Gras with the Iowa Chicken Run in Iowa, which starts at 8 a.m. with the parade rolling at 10 a.m. Trucks, tractors and ATVs serve as floats and participants wear everything from T-shirts and jeans embellished with fringe to full fringed courir de mardi gras regalia complete with capuchon (a coneshaped hat). The Lake Charles festivities culminate with the Mardi Gras Southwest Krewe of Krewes Parade featuring over 60 krewes rolling for four miles starting at 5 p.m. It’s known as the most popular parade of the season and the rousing grand finale of Carnival in Lake Charles.
THE FESTIVITIES KICK OFF IN SHREVEPORT
on Jan. 18 with the Krewe of Sobek parade at the Louisiana State Fair Grounds. The Krewe of Sobek was created to promote unity and culture in the African American community and bring Mardi Gras to Shreveport’s minority communities. Sobek is the ancient Egyptian crocodile god known as a protector of the innocent so, of course, parade goers can expect crocodile throws from the krewe. This year’s theme is Sobek in Candy Land. Party people will have to wait a little over a month for the next parade, but it’s a doozy. The Krewe of Centaur rolls on Feb. 22 in Downtown Shreveport. This super-krewe sports approximately 800 members and calls itself one of the largest single-group parades in the Ark-La-Tex. Expect family fun and lighted floats, so whether you catch the beginning during daylight hours or the end of the parade after nightfall, you’ll see it all. In the weeks between parades, visit the Krewe of Gemini Mardi Gras Museum at 2101 E. Texas St. in Bossier City to take in over a decade of Mardi Gras history and
Strutting their stuff on Mardi Gras day at the Lake Charles Second Line Stroll
(top left) Pups on parade at the CAAWS Mystic Krewe of Mutts Mardi Gras Parade in Baton Rouge on February 16 (bottom left) Attention! The Krewe of Centaur rolls on February 22 in Downtown Shreveport (right) The fiery Krewe of Carnivale en Rio parade is a must -see in Lafayette on February 21
magic, before catching the Krewe of Gemini live and in-person on March 1 in Downtown Shreveport. Marchers, riders on horseback and the krewe’s signature doubloons, plus toys and other festive throws make this parade a must. While everyone loves a big parade with even bigger floats, the Krewe of Highland neighborhood parade brings a spirit of whimsy to the occasion on March 2 in the Highland Historic District. Expect homemade floats (think wagons, riding lawn mowers and shopping carts), creative throws, including food like ramen noodles, Moon Pies and hot dogs and lots of artful, zany and sometimes irreverent fun.
Parents take note: The City of Shreveport’s designated alcohol-free zone is near Veterans Park on Clyde Fant Parkway.
IF IT’S TRUE that New Orleans is the adult Disneyland of the United States, the state’s capital just 82 miles away in Baton Rouge is the state’s family-friendly counterpart. It stands to reason then that the Mardi Gras festivities are built with families in mind. The celebrations begin on Feb. 15 with the Krewe of Oshun parade, which had its inaugural roll in North Baton Rouge in 2020. The next day, party with your pets at the CAAWS Mystic Krewe of Mutts Mardi Gras Parade downtown. This annual parade is the largest fundraising event for the Capital Area Animal Welfare Society and helps fund its spay and neuter programs. Furthermore, who doesn’t want to see a Chihuahua in a tutu and a shih tzu dressed as a crawfish? Look for the big parades to start rolling the weekend of Feb. 21 with the first and only
all-female Krewe of Artemis, named after the powerful Greek goddess sired by Zeus. This night parade is crowd favorite for kids of all ages who strive to catch one of the krewe’s signature high heeled shoe throws. It’s a day chock full of parades on Feb. 22 with the Le Krewe Mystique de la Capitale Parade, Krewe of Orion and Mid City Gras festivities. The big weekend features Friday night’s fantastical Krewe of Southdowns nighttime parade and the popular and quirky Spanish Town Mardi Gras on Saturday. The Spanish Town parade, organized by the Mystic Krewe for the Preservation of Lagniappe in Louisiana, is a wacky, irreverent, colorful, satirical, flamingo-filled romp and said to be the Red Stick’s largest parade. Wrap up your weekend of festivities with the Krewe of Shenandoah’s parade on Monday, March 3 in the Shenandoah neighborhood. If you are still in the mood to party on Fat Tuesday and want to keep with the family-friendly theme, drive a little over 40 minutes to New Roads for the oldest carnival celebration outside New Orleans. Plan for a day filled with parades, live music and loads of fun.
IN FEBRUARY, Cajun Country comes alive with Carnival parades and celebrations in towns big and small. Lafayette falls under the heading of big with seven days of parades. The first weekend kicks off on Feb. 21 with Krewe de Canailles Walking Parade and is capped off the following night with the eye-catching Krewe of Carnivale en Rio parade. After a few days' rest, revelers enter a gauntlet of parades and parties beginning with the Krewe of Allons “Kick-Off” Parade on Feb. 28. Cheer on your friends as the Krewe of Oberon, the oldest children’s krewe in Lafayette (founded in 1928), and other krewes take center stage and the kids strut their stuff during this daytime Children’s Parade on Mar. 1. Later that night, revolution will be in the air as the Krewe of Bonaparte, Acadiana’s largest krewe, takes to the streets. All who skip this call to celebrate risk exile.
No matter where the parades are, you can always find Carnival fun, from Friday until Mardi Gras Day, at the Le Festival de Mardi Gras a Lafayette at the CajunDome. Bring the entire family for rides, bands and parades. One of the country’s coolest Mardi Gras day traditions is just north of Lafayette in Eunice. The Eunice Courir de Mardi Gras has been happening as long as Eunice, founded in 1894, has existed but the tradition goes back centuries. Arguably, the most distinctive celebration in Louisiana, the locals don handmade costumes and gather ingredients for the community gumbo by “begging” their neighbors. To cap off the day, the capitaine releases a chicken and the race is on — aka all hell breaks loose. Once caught, the honorable fowl is added to the delicious gumbo and it's time to feast. Allons! It’s probably worth mentioning that chicken runs can be boozy affairs. So, for the families with kiddos in tow, don’t forget to check out the familyfriendly Old-Fashioned Mardi Gras Run at Vermilionville Living History Museum on Feb. 23, which offers the kids a chance to get in on the chicken chasing. T
TRAVELING AROUND JEFFERSON PARISH
DOWN THE BAYOU OR JUST UP THE STREET, THERE’S SOMETHING NEW AND EXCITING FOR YOU TO DISCOVER AROUND EVERY CORNER OF JEFFERSON PARISH!
Lakeside Shopping Center
Celebrating 65 years, Lakeside Shopping Center continues to be the premier shopping destination not only for the New Orleans area but for the Gulf Coast region. The Center features more than 100 stores and is anchored by Dillard’s, Macy’s, and J.C. Penney making it the largest mall in the Greater New Orleans area with over 1.2 million square feet of retail space. In 2025, Lakeside Shopping Center will be hosting the Jefferson Parish Bicentennial Gala on June 14th. To learn about more exciting shopping opportunities in the New Year please visit lakesideshopping.com.
Visit Jefferson
Strolling the winding trails through a mossdraped canopy of cypress, meandering down a historic bayou to see wildlife up close, blazing through the swamps on an exhilarating airboat adventure. Those are just a few ways to navigate the waters of Jefferson Parish. New Orleans’ next-door neighbor is a sportsman’s paradise all its
own. From world-class shopping to unparalleled dining, Jefferson Parish serves up southern hospitality at its best. Just minutes from the Big Easy’s downtown, there is so much to explore in Jefferson. So visitjeffersonparish.com and take home memories that will last a lifetime.
Lauricella Land Company
Lauricella Land Company is a third-generation, family-owned commercial real estate development and management company. The company was founded in the early 1940s and has developed shopping centers, hotels, self-storage facilities, apartments, single-family neighborhoods, and theaters in the New Orleans metropolitan region. In addition, the company owns Elmwood Center, the largest open-air shopping center in the Greater New Orleans area. Louis Lauricella took over the day-to-day operations of Lauricella Land Company in 1986. Since then, his accomplishments have included the development and re-development of over 2.5 million square feet of commercial (primarily retail) space. Over the past 15 years, Lauricella
Land Company has been directly involved in over $1B of construction.
Jefferson Parish Bicentennial
On February 11, 2025, Jefferson Parish will turn 200 years old. To celebrate the parish’s Bicentennial, Parish President
Cynthia Lee Sheng has scheduled several events to commemorate its culture and history. One of the biggest events will be held on Saturday, June 14th, when Jefferson Parish will hold its Bicentennial Ball inside Lakeside Mall. The extravaganza will feature local and national artists performing throughout the evening. A visit to the Jefferson Community Foundation website (jeffersoncommunity.org) will provide ticket information for those wishing to attend the special event.
Port Nola (The Port of New Orleans)
The Port of New Orleans (Port NOLA) is a modern multimodal gateway for global commerce and an in-demand cruise port — delivering seamless, integrated logistics solutions between river, rail, and road. Port NOLA is a diverse deep-water port uniquely located on the Mississippi River near the Gulf of Mexico -- with access to 30-plus major inland hubs such as Dallas, Memphis, Chicago, and Canada via 14,500 miles of waterways, 6 Class I railroads and interstate roadways. Strategic alignment with the New Orleans Public Belt Railroad, a Class III connecting railroad, strengthens Port NOLA’s position as an integrated hub and supports the Port’s mission of driving regional economic prosperity.•
Ancient Drama
Preserving Poverty Point
STORY AND PHOTOS BY KEVIN RABALAIS
PICTURE THIS. Three thousand years before the arrival of Columbus, you set out from your village in what maps now identify as Missouri or Alabama, Arkansas or Tennessee. After a parting wave to the few faces you’ve ever known, you slip into a dugout canoe. Afloat for weeks, passing from one waterway into another, you’re headed for the place you know only through legend. And since that legend conjures a site where thousands live and trade, and man has reshaped the earth so that it rises toward the heavens, you assume it can’t possibly be real.
Then you arrive, and your whole world changes. Around the dock swirl hundreds. In their strange language, they offer food and drink, places to sleep for the night as they accompany you away from the dock and up the ridge. At last, you see it. In the distance rises an earthen mound around which bustle hundreds more. Another 2,000 years will pass before the first recorded use of the word “metropolis,” but this is precisely what you behold.
Above The people of Poverty Point decorated objects with zigzags, spirals, spheres, grids and other images. Archaeologists believe their intricate designs prove an affinity for abstract thought. Left and Right Poverty Point Park Manager Mark Brink leads three annual foraging hikes across Louisiana’s sole UNESCO World Heritage site.
“This place was all about drama,” says John Zumwalt, an interpretive ranger at Poverty Point World Heritage Site. Zumwalt stands at the dock, a 50-yard stretch of cleared bank along Bayou Macon. It’s his favorite place on the 470-acre grounds of this National Historic Landmark. From the dock, he climbs the same route people took upon arrival thousands of years ago. “They built the ridge to help prevent flooding,” he says, “but they also wanted to block the view of the city so that you had to climb to see it. The people here were showmen. They even put colors on the outside of the mound to make it more impressive.”
Constructed between 1,700-1,100 B.C., the “city” here contained five earthen mounds and six semi-elliptical concentric earthen ridges that surround a 35-acre plaza. During that time, it was the largest earthen mound complex in North America.
Today, Poverty Point — closest town Epps (pop. 346) — is Louisiana’s sole UNESCO World Heritage Site. For 600 years, the people who lived here displayed what current Park Manager Mark Brink describes as “unusually sophisti-
. At 72 feet tall, 710 feet long and 660 feet wide, the largest mound at Poverty Point took approximately 15.5 million basket loads of earth and approximately one month to build. Lacking local flint, the people here traded hundreds of miles away for the materials they forged into spear points. Mark Brink demonstrates the use of an atlatl, predecessor of bow and arrow, for hunting.
cated techniques” for a society of hunter-fisher-gatherers.
Building the site on Macon Ridge — an ecotone, or transitional area between two environments — made that life possible. The elevated ridge perched on the western edge of the Mississippi River floodplain kept them safe from seasonal flooding and provided an abundance of native plants and wild game. This allowed them to thrive here throughout the year.
To provide a sense of what daily life in that era entailed, Brink leads three annual foraging hikes through the site. Today, visitors from Louisiana and Texas follow him across the plaza. Every few minutes, Brink stops before a tree or bush to provide a new name: pepper vine, persimmon and pawpaw, yaupon holly, muscadine and black walnut. Chewing on leaves, grasses, berries and
grapes, he notes how the Poverty Point people used native plants for sustenance, seasoning and as hallucinogens to connect with “the beyond.”
Besides the year-round bounty they reaped from the land, the people here, who predated the use of bows and arrows, hunted wild game with atlatls. Constructed of wood, typically just under two feet long, an atlatl is a highly effective handheld lever that ends in a hook that launches darts for hunting. Hunters hurled these darts much as you serve a tennis ball.
“It’s the sportsman’s paradise,” Brink says before he bullseyes a bale of hay 30 yards away. The bountiful land and abundance of animals here gave the Poverty Point people time to prepare for trade. When archaeologists began researching the site in 1913, they noted evidence of
Clockwise
a thriving material culture and well-ordered society that devoted much of its time to creating goods, including owl pendants made of red jasper stone and ceramic human figurines. Their trading network reached hundreds of miles in all directions — as far as Iowa in the north and the Appalachians in the east.
“All of this is a work in progress,” Brink says, noting that archaeologists discovered a new mound here in 2013. “We’re just scratching the surface. We want to continue to push the envelope in what we learn about the site, and we want to do everything we can to preserve it.”
One detail archaeologists have learned about the Poverty Point culture continues to fascinate Zumwalt.
“There’s no evidence of warfare,” he says. “Name another city that went 600 years with no war.” Although we may
never know why the people here lived in uninterrupted peace, Zumwalt cites one theory: “So many ethnic groups converged here, and because they all agreed that his place was sacred, it became neutral territory.” As he gazes upon the largest of the site’s earthen mounds, Zumwalt pauses in awed silence, much as, wide-eyed, you would have done upon arrival all those years ago. T
LOCATION
West Carroll Parish
DID YOU KNOW?
A national monument since 1988, Poverty Point became a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site in 2014. UNESCO cites the Poverty Point complex as “an important site not just because of its scale, the integration of the earthworks and the extent to which the complex is intact, but crucially because it was built by hunterfisher-gatherers.” Other UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the U.S. include Yosemite, Carlsbad Caverns, the Statue of Liberty, Mesa Verde and the Grand Canyon.
An insider’s guide to where to stay, eat, drink and get a little nature when you aren’t at parades during New Orleans Mardi Gras
STORY AND PHOTOS BY MELANIE WARNER SPENC ER
NORMALLY, when friends say they want to visit New Orleans during Carnival season, I steer them toward autumn. Don’t get me wrong, I love Mardi Gras. As evidenced by my membership in The Merry Antoinettes, a cake-throwing, champagne-swilling krewe dedicated to Carnival excess and year-round decadence. But, New Orleans is a different place during Carnival. It’s harder to navigate due to parade street closures and paused streetcar services; accommodations are scarcer; restaurants and bars are busier; and revelers are rowdier than usual. So for this inaugural edition of the new LA Rambler travel column, if (after learning the challenges) you plan to visit New Orleans for Mardi Gras (and everyone should at least once), or if it has been a while, here’s this New Orleanian’s guide for hotel stays, eating and drinking when you aren’t at a parade. Plus, provisions and pro tips for when you are on the route.
First, let’s figure out where you are staying. Design lovers will want to book rooms at the Hotel Saint Vincent, located in the restored circa-1861 Saint Vincent Infant Asylum on Magazine Street in the Lower Garden District or in the restored Victorian mansion, The Chloe, on St.
Charles Avenue in Uptown. Both boutique hotels are the brainchildren of hospitality veterans and are on or within walking distance to the Uptown parade route. Steeped in luxe design with tightly curated amenities (D.S. & DURGA bath products at the former and complimentary welcome beverage at the bar, chef-made breakfast and chocolates from New Orleans chocolatier Piety and Desire at the latter, plus fine Italian bed linens at both), each features upscale eateries and see-and-be-seen bars. In the Central Business District, your luxury accommodations might be the Four Seasons Hotel New Orleans or, at a lower price point but still indulgent (and with Richard Branson’s coolness credentials), Virgin Hotels New Orleans in the CBD’s Warehouse District. All the aforementioned hotels have pools, naturally, and are doggo friendly (but check the pet policies for restrictions and don’t bring your fur family to parades other than Krewe of Barkus). In the French Quarter, local hotelier Robert LeBlanc (whose group also owns The Chloe) recently flung open the doors to The Celestine, which was quickly awarded MICHELIN Guide’s new MICHELIN Key designation (the Hotel Saint Vincent is also one of six New Orleans hotels with the classification). The 10-room hotel is everything you’d want in a French Quarter stay, including courtyard balconies and choice antiques, giving it the feeling of a stay in your old-school New Orleanian friend’s home. Rumor has it the parlor bar was once Tennessee Williams’ rooms, so points for provenance. Ponder this while you sip cocktails in the courtyard bar, Peychaud’s.
Facing page Tatlo in the French Quarter is the witchy absinthe bar of your dreams. Go for the vibes and stay to live deliciously through the enchanted cocktails and delectable food. Left Kick back in a classic and lush French Quarter courtyard at The Celestine hotel with cocktails from the onsite bar, Peychaud’s, or a caffeinated beverage from the hotel’s coffee bar.
Right Designed by globe-trotting interior designer, editor and author Sara Ruffin Costello, the interiors at The Celestine evoke OldWorld-meets-1950s glamour and come with custom linens and toiletries. Bottom No trip to New Orleans is complete without beignets. Skip the lines and get your fix at the location in City Park.
When it comes to bars in New Orleans there’s not enough space on the entirety of the internet to make a comprehensive list, so I’m going to narrow it down to my top four — and may the drinking gods forgive me. In the French Quarter, you must have drinks (and food if you are hungry) at Tatlo, located behind Olde Absinthe House. This space is not only magickally themed but also, the proprietor, Chef Cristina Quackenbush, is a practicing witch. Locally sourced moss drips from the ceiling, along with other herbs and botanicals, an altar takes pride of place near the door and the cocktails are ensorcelled for your pleasure, abundance and protection. No trip to New Orleans is complete without a twirl around the room at the Hotel Monteleone’s Carousel Bar. Yes, it’s touristy. But do the locals love it, too? Also, yes. Pop into the Erin
Rose for dive bar vibes and a frozen Irish coffee. Be sure to get out of the Quarter and visit Cure in Uptown’s Freret Street neighborhood. The James Beard Award-winning cocktail program belies the bar’s neighborhood vibes and friendly bartenders. Cure’s happy hour falls under “too good to be true” territory with an $8 beer and a shot option. Make sure you get the pimento cheese spread appetizer and order an old-school martini with a twist. Or my favorite, a French 75.
This is going to sound repetitive, but we have the same issue with restaurants in the Crescent City that we have with bars. So here, I’m sharing the restaurants I frequent and where I take my friends and family when they visit. If you have only one takeaway from this column, let it be making a reservation at Mosquito Supper Club. In a
Above Cocktails at Tatlo absinthe bar in the French Quarter are crafted with magic in mind and often infused with the spirit of the Green Fairy.
charming, rustic-chic uptown bungalow, Chef Melissa Martin shares her take on her family’s Cajun cuisine, her experience as a Cajun and the bounty of this ecologically fragile region. High Hat Cafe in the Freret neighborhood is all about comfort food and has my favorite dark roux chicken and sausage gumbo in town. Get it with the sweet potato salad. This is a fantastic pre-parade lunch spot and the cornmeal pancakes are a weekend brunch must. Gris-Gris in the Lower Garden District and the same chef/owner Eric Cook’s newly reopened Saint John in the CBD offer top-notch Creole cuisine and vibes to spare. My
husband loves the shrimp and grits at Gris-Gris and the shrimp and the grits and grillades at St. John.
Speaking of food and drink, you’ll need them for the parades. Gourmands, get thee to Meyer Provisions in Uptown, where you’ll find specialty, imported gourmet goodies from Italy and France, as well as local options. Nearby Martin Wine Cellar also stocks gourmet items, plus there is a café. In the French Quarter, pack your cooler at Rouses or Verti Marte.
When you need a break from the onslaught of booze, beads and marching bands, sneak off to City Park Conservancy. Enjoy the New Orleans Museum of Art, Besthoff Sculpture Garden, New Orleans Botanical Garden and a sweet little amusement park, and grab beignets and coffee at a not-so-secret, but far less chaotic and tourist-filled Café Du Monde. Once fortified by nature, art, sugar and caffeine, you’ll feel like you’ve won Mardi Gras. And you’ll be right. T
LOCATION
New Orleans
150
The streetcars have been rolling in New Orleans more than 150 years.
420
Cafe du Monde beignets are fried in cottonseed oil heated to 420 degrees.
800 City Park Conservancy is home to some of the oldest oaks in the world, with some of the trees dating to 800 years ago.
The boudin Benedict features two sunny side up eggs perched atop tender and flavorful cochon de lait over boudin with sturdy, yet tender fried green tomatoes serving as the base. Do not skip on the outrageously cheesy tower of baked macaroni and cheese with red gravy. Bottom: Give your liver a break with the N/A-groni mocktail made with Lyre’s Dry London, Ghia apéritif and Free Spirits vermouth. You won’t even miss the booze.
Right:
Happy Birthday Vicksburg
The historic city celebrates its bicentennial
BY CHERÉ COEN
VICKSBURG HAILS BACK TO 1811, but most visitors equate the Mississippi town with its Civil War history as the site of a major battle that resulted in the Confederacy losing control of the Mississippi River. Since then, the river changed course and Vicksburg reinvented itself with new businesses and casinos. But its history remains in the Vicksburg National Military Park and the city’s beautiful historic buildings.
This year, Vicksburg celebrates its city’s incorporation in 1825 with a long list of bicentennial events. The fun begins January 29 with a storytelling symposium, parade, banquet and other community events. You can find more information at vicksburg200.com.
DAY ONE
MORNING After a European-style breakfast at downtown’s Bohemia Cafe and Bakery, walk off the calories by grabbing a Vicksburg Heritage Walking Trails map from the Vicksburg Convention & Visitors Bureau at 52 Old Highway 27, or visit visitvicksburg.com/walking-trails for an online version. Several routes ranging from 1.5 to 3 miles guide visitors through the historic downtown and neighborhoods. Pause at Catfish Row Children’s Art Park to enjoy regional art pieces and a play area for children, plus the 32-panel Vicksburg Riverfront Murals.
AFTERNOON Continue the downtown stroll to visit museums, art galleries, boutiques and restaurants, most of which are conveniently located on Washington Street. Attractions that tell the Vicksburg story include the Jesse Brent Lower Mississippi River Museum, the Old Court House Museum where visitors can view the largest collection of Civil War artifacts in the South, the Old Depot Museum that contains a diorama of the battlefield and
From Left to Right Vicksburg National Military Park; Civil War Colt 49 at the Vicksburg Civil War Museum; 10 South Rooftop Bar & Grill; Spread at Key City Brewing
Don’t Forget
Vicksburg offers numerous bed and breakfasts, many dating to the Civil War. Some even contain a few guests who have yet to check out.
the Biedenharn Coca-Cola Museum in the building Joseph Biedenharn first bottled the now famous drink.
Carve out time for the Attic Gallery, a shop perched at the top of stairs like heaven, filled with a wide assortment of Southern art.
EVENING Enjoy a signature cocktail and tasty appetizers at 10 South Rooftop Bar & Grill where visitors will find the best view in town — including sunsets — of Vicksburg’s surrounding waterways: the Mississippi River, Yazoo Diversion Canal and Centennial Lake. Then head for a dinner of Southern favorites in the elegant dining rooms of Anchuca situated within the 1830s Anchuca Historic Mansion & Inn.
DAY TWO
MORNING Before the Mississippi River changed course, Vicksburg served as a major port city, with prosperous cotton fields on either side on the river. The city’s wealth and location is why Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant sought to capture the city to stop the flow of Confederate supplies. By the spring of 1863, only Vicksburg and Port Hudson in Louisiana held control of the river. Grant surrounded Vicksburg and performed an assault on the Confederate forces — and the town with residual warfare — from March 29 to July 4, 1863, when Vicksburg finally surren-
dered, followed by Port Hudson, and the river fell to Union hands. The battlefield is now part of the Vicksburg National Military Park where visitors may learn this Civil War history while walking or driving through the peaceful setting. All that history will make you hungry, so head south on U.S. Highway 61 for a culinary and visual treat. The colorful Tomato Place serves up Southern favorites, fresh produce, plants and regional art in what used to be a side-of-the-road fruit stand.
AFTERNOON African American resident Charles Pendleton showcases his impressive Civil War collection at the nonprofit Vicksburg Civil War Museum. He aims to showcase all sides of the conflict, including the role of slavery, and to teach about the contributions of African Americans in the fight. The museum includes a slave cabin, Pendleton’s artillery shell collection and firearms — what he believes is the largest collection of Civil War guns in Mississippi — medical instruments and uniforms and artifacts from the daily life of soldiers.
EVENING The McRaven Home, sections of which date to 1797, rests at the end of a dead-end street, which is fitting since the dead are believed to roam both house and grounds. McRaven has been named as one of the top haunted places in Mississippi, and for good reason. Several of its past owners, plus soldiers who died on the grounds during the Civil War conflict, have been seen or heard there. Both historic and ghost tours are offered year-round, and occasionally, McRaven features a paranormal investigation that’s open to the public.
For spirits of another kind, sample beers such as Mr. Sippi at Key City Brewing Co. within the Cottonwood Public House in downtown Vicksburg. Visitors and locals alike hang out at Cottonwood, enjoying craft beer, trivia night and unique pizzas. T
Trash or Treasure
Mardi Gras remnants
BY KELLY MASSICOT, NEW ORLEANS
