Americans have a curious and often tongue-in-cheek relationship with pigs. We love them! Northerners because the pot belly ones are fine pets. Southerners because their bellies, and ribs, and just about all of the animal are fine on plates. We...
Did you ever wonder why New Orleans Mondays are inextricably linked to red beans and rice dinner? Tradition. Way back when, Monday was wash day. And if you have only ever seen a picture in history books, let me confirm your suspicions: those old...
As implausible as it may seem, nearly all of my conversations somehow involve food. The subject can be as complex as environmental injustice subtly depriving people of color of ready access to fresh fruit and vegetables. Or it may be as simple as...
My absentee father passed away when I was 8 years old, and the only family I knew came from my mother’s side. My mother grew up in New Orleans but had “people” in the heart of Acadiana – that is specifically Opelousas and...
Dwayne Boudreaux, owner of Circle Food Store, said his old customer base is gone. Re-opened eight years post-Katrina, Circle Foods, the first African-American owned full service grocery store in New Orleans[i], is now facing challenges...
Recently I went to a Happy Hour for the ubiquitous “oysters on the half shell” special. I was lured in by the glass of champagne and the caviar topping for the oysters, because pure decadence. I had just learned how to shuck oysters – well...
Chicken or the egg? It’s an interesting and eternally perplexing question that has been asked in time immemorial not because we all sit around pondering the origins of poultry but because we as people often do ponder origins, beginnings, where it...
When I was a kid, food stamps were these oddly colored dollar bills that select people used in stores “making groceries”, as we say in New Orleans. I recall being intrigued by the brown, orange, and other colored money cause I wanted pretty...
