It took a huge effort to leave the comfort of my space heater on a cold day and head to the French Market in the Quarter for a cooking demonstration. Only the promise of a taste of turtle soup spurred me on. The festive Christmas decorations put me in a jubilant mood. As I raced […]
Mary Reporting. My mother once accepted a phone solicitor’s offer to receive 15 magazine subscriptions for three years for only X dollars a month. My father was horrified by the expense, but we soon became a family of magazine readers. Life, Look, Time, Newsweek, Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, Esquire, The Saturday Review of Literature (remember that […]
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 […]
Ready to try a soup that’s not made with a roux? Leek and potato soup is delicious and easy to make in under an hour. According to Mobilian Eugene Walter—novelist, cookbook author and family friend—in his book Hints and Pinches, leeks were grown in Gulf Coast regions prior to World War II, but then fell […]
Mary and Helen reporting. Today, our personal laptops are never far out of reach. A lady in the 18th and 19th centuries owned something very similar—but far more elegant—a lap desk. A fancy lap desk is an authentic accouterment of a fashionable Regency or Victorian lady. Made of mahogany, Brazilian rosewood—or of pine veneered with […]
