Category: New Orleans Life

ursula lecoeur

New Year’s: Will You Go to Your Cellarette?

Mary Reporting. What more fitting day than New Year’s Eve to discuss the cellarette, that piece of furniture once found in American homes to house adult libations under lock and key.  Today, we might grab a bottle of champagne from the back of the fridge rather than opening an elegant mahogany or burled walnut cabinet. […]

Continue reading…

Ursula LeCoeur

Field Trip: Old Absinthe House

Helen reporting. Modern readers think of absinthe as the nectar of poets and artists. Vincent van Gogh, Oscar Wilde and Charles Baudelaire were among the many luminaries said to enjoy the green fairy in copious amounts. Even today, rumors abound about absinthe’s hallucinogenic properties, partly because these artists experienced high levels of creativity, delirium, epileptic-like […]

Continue reading…

A Visit with the Dead on All Saints’ Day

Mary Reporting. November 1st is All Saints’ Day, a holy day in the Catholic Church. The faithful go to Mass on this day, which is set aside to honor all the saints. There are thousands of named saints, canonized through the centuries after much study and authenticated miracles. But clearly there are millions of unnamed […]

Continue reading…

New Orleanians Get in the Spirit of Halloween

Helen Reporting. Halloween is beloved in New Orleans, probably because it gives us an excuse to dress up. Everyone has a costume closet or trunk overflowing with wigs and bits and pieces of fabric, lace, masks, scarves, hats, concepts from costumes past to reconstruct in the present. A space helmet, a bustier, vampy heels and […]

Continue reading…