March 2-8, 2021 Volume 42 // Number 9
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after her owners could no longer care for her. She is the sweetest and silliest girl around and would love nothing more than to find a forever family to love. Menna is playful and very well mannered, she walks well on her leash and enjoys exploring the outdoors.
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It’s
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CONTENTS
MARCH 2 – MARCH 8, 2021 VOLUME 42 | NUMBER 9 NEWS
OPENING GAMBIT
7
COMMENTARY 8 CLANCY DUBOS
9
BLAKE PONTCHARTRAIN 10 PULLOUT
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TALK THAT TALK
‘NCIS: New Orleans’ has a lot on its mind as it comes to an end
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Publisher | JEANNE EXNICIOS FOSTER
MARCH 5 EDITORIAL
Ad Director Sandy Stein 504.483.3150 or sstein@gambitweekly.com
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Editor | JOHN STANTON
Advertising Director | SANDY STEIN BRONDUM
Political Editor | CLANCY DUBOS
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Arts & Entertainment Editor | WILL COVIELLO
Senior Sales Representative
Staff Writers | JAKE CLAPP, KAYLEE POCHE, SARAH RAVITS
Contributing Writers | IAN MCNULTY
After 60 years in business Hans Luetkemeier is announcing a
Retirement Sale
Now through March 26th we invite you to come by for the
Best Selection
of antique & estate jewelry at
50% Savings
Thank you to all of our wonderful customers for supporting us all these years. Hans, Hilde & Yvonne
TUES – FRI 10 – 5 & SAT 10 – 2 | 3246 SEVERN AVE, METAIRIE | 504-454-1170
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Gambit (ISSN 1089-3520) is published weekly by Capital City Press, LLC, 840 St. Charles Ave., New Orleans, LA 70130. (504) 4865900. We cannot be held responsible for the return of unsolicited manuscripts even if accompanied by a SASE. All material published in Gambit is copyrighted: Copyright 2021 Capital City Press, LLC. All rights reserved.
Sister of invention
Six pack THE BIG SIX BRASS BAND PERFORMS A LIVE SET IN THE COURTYARD of the New Orleans Jazz Museum at 5 p.m. Tuesday, March 2. The performance also will be livestreamed via facebook.com/ nolajazzmuseum/live.
Local filmmaker Joe Badon premieres lowbudget horror flick BY WILL COVIELLO HORROR FILMMAKER JOE BADON ISN’T AFRAID to take a leap of faith.
When he was 20, he became a pastor. “When I got saved, I did the whole book burning thing,” he says. “I got rid of all my CDs, my movies, everything. I literally burned them. I was like, ‘This is my life now. I am going to follow God.’ It’s admirable when you’re 20 years old.” In his mid-30s, he and his wife left their nondenominational church. Preferring to work for himself rather than others, he focused on his love of drawing. He worked on comic books, illustrated book covers and found his way into New Orleans’ then burgeoning film industry. Drawing storyboards for directors and cinematographers showed him how filmmaking worked. Then, he wanted to make his own film. “I took my savings, and with my wife’s blessing, we just self-funded ‘The God Inside My Ear,’ ” he says. “We just did it.” How did he spend $8,000 to make the horror comedy? “Half of it was on food,” he says. “It sounds crazy. It’s stupid, right. But we spent $300 a day on food and it was a 13-day shoot. That was the thing. I was like, I am going to make a movie, so I read a book called ‘The Angry Filmmakers Guide’ or something like that. One of the biggest rules was feed your cast and crew. I took it to heart.” During the film festival run of “The God Inside My Ear,” he wrote the script for his next film, “Sister Tempest.” The cast-and-crew screening was supposed to be at Chalmette Movies a year ago, but the theater closed the day before the screening due to the coronavirus pandemic. After months of online screenings in horror film festivals gone virtual, the movie debuts locally at Zeitgeist Theatre & Lounge on Friday, March 5. Badon plans to attend some of the screenings. At the core of “Sister Tempest” are two sisters, Anne played by Kali Russell and Karen played by Holly Bonney (with an art student played by Linnea Gregg, who starred in “The God Inside My Ear”). Their close childhood relationship is upset when they lose their parents, and Anne must become a caretaker for both of them as they grow up. Forced to be the breadwinner,
P H OTO B Y J A S O N K R U PA
Helen Gillet
she’s no longer a close companion, and Karen resents her sister’s authority as she starts to date. But there’s a whole lot more. In the opening scenes, there’s a cascade of sci-fi, horror and absurdity, with newsreel footage of Hitler and atomic bomb detonations, illustrations and monster movie-style scenes. The film delves into paranoia, the occult, alien beings, gore, apparitions, marauding Nazis and all sorts of references to cult classic and oddball films, such as “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.” Anne is judged for her actions, but not by a religious figure — by a council of aliens. Badon follows his own vision throughout. “It feels like the Japanese film ‘Hausu,’ ” he says. “Anything could happen. It feels like you are on a journey. I don’t want to go so far where it’s nonsense. I want it to feel like a journey, but the journey feels like a crazy dream. When you get out of the dream, you tell it to a friend, and you’re like ‘Oh, I see why this represents this and that represents that.’ But in the middle of the dream, it feels like chaos. It’s a dream logic that I am going for.” Based on the appeal of “God Inside My Ear,” Badon had big plans for “Sister Tempest.” “I wrote it as a million-dollar-budget movie,” he says. “I was thinking, ‘I’m not going to worry about any locations or anything. I am just going to write from my brain.’ ” When he didn’t immediately find investors, he decided to do it himself on a small budget. He completed a $25,000 crowdfunding drive online. Then scene-by-scene, he figured out how to cut corners and make things happen. A scene he had planned for a
P H OTO P R OV I D E D B Y J O E B A D O N
Kali Russell stars in ‘Sister Tempest.’
beautiful desert landscape instead was filmed in the bizarre clutter of the yard of a thrift store in Lacombe. Some scenes are intentionally low budget. “My whole life’s dream is to make Godzilla films,” he says. “Old-school Godzilla films. Not CGI shit, old-school shitty models.” So, in “Sister Tempest,” a giant alien stomps through a cluster of toy cars and skyscrapers created by gluing photos of buildings onto plywood, Badon says. It’s representational enough to work, and it’s also funny. The only screening of the film he’s attended in person was at a drive-in film festival in Austin, Texas. He’s had to settle for online reviews for fan feedback. One person gave it three stars and wrote, “I don’t know if I was particularly horny watching this film, but I had a consistent chubby.” Ready to shake off the inactivity of the coronavirus shutdowns, Badon now has an agent and is about to start shooting some short films that he hopes to get in larger film festivals. “One short film is ‘The Blood of the Dinosaurs,’ ” he says. “It’s kind of a Mr. Rogers parody. They teach you where the oil comes from. It’s wonderfully weird. It’s going to be strange, but not as creepy as it sounds.” “SISTER TEMPEST” OPENS MARCH 5 ZEITGEIST THEATRE & LOUNGE 6621 ST. CLAUDE AVE., ARABI, (504) 352-1150; ZEITGEISTNOLA.ORG
New vibes CELLIST AND VOCALIST HELEN GILLET, drum and vibes player Jason Marsalis and trombonist Rick Trolsen perform in an installment of the Scatterjazz series at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 3, at Broadside. Find tickets at broadsidenola.com.
In the zone PIANIST MARK COLEMAN PLAYS A RANGE OF BLUES, funk and more. He’s at the keys of Piano on a Truck at Zony Mash Beer Project at 5 p.m. Thursday, March 4. Find information at zonymashbeer.com.
Crude symphony SWEET CRUDE AND MUSICIANS FROM THE LOUISIANA PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA mix it up at a live show at the New Orleans Jazz Museum. The Haydn’s Lark String Quartet features Crude’s Sam Craft on violin and Jack Craft on cello, plus LPO conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto on violin and Amelia Clingman on viola. There’s also a set with the full lineup of Sweet Crude plus some LPO string players. The show is at 6 p.m. Thursday, March 4. Find tickets at lpomusic.com.
Top dog PIANIST JOE KROWN CONTINUES HIS FIRST SATURDAY-OFTHE-MONTH PERFORMANCES on the balcony of Dat Dog on Frenchmen. At 2:30 p.m. Saturday, March 6, at 601 Frenchmen St.
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ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
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N E W
O R L E A N S
N E W S
+
V I E W S
Let’s never do that cold thing again, mmmk?
# The Count
Thumbs Up/ Thumbs Down
37
A group of 39 local restaurants are taking part in a “Fish Fry
The number of streets and parks named after racists that have been submitted to the City Council and city planners by the Street Renaming Commission for renaming recommendation.
Fridays” campaign during Lent to benefit Hospitality Cares, a crisis grant-and-resource program for out-of-work hospitality workers during the pandemic. The restaurants will donate $1 from every fish fry sold on Fridays to the program. Hospitality Cares is an initiative of the United Way of Southeast Louisiana and the Louisiana Hospitality Foundation. The full list of participating restaurants can be found at fishfryfridays.org.
Tricia Diamond is making her house float honoring the city’s female musicians a permanent fixture on Laharpe Street. The house float, called “New Orleans Queens of Sound and Soul,” features sculptures, flags and murals depicting Irma Thomas, Shirley Goodman, Melissa Weber, aka DJ Soul Sister, Tarriona “Tank” Ball, Magnolia Shorty and others. Diamond, whose father was blues legend Billy Diamond, worked with artists Monica Rose Kelly, Savanna Stephens, Tyla Maiden and others.
Rep. Steve Scalise still won’t
admit the 2020 presidential election wasn’t stolen. Scalise, the number two Republican in the House of Representatives, appeared on ABC News’ Sunday show “This Week” on Feb. 21 and was asked by host Jonathan Karl to acknowledge that President Joe Biden won the election, is the legitimate president, and that the election was not stolen. Scalise affirmed that Biden is the president but then waffled and deflected rather than confirm the legitimacy of the election.
The City Council commissioned the panel last summer to identify streets and parks in need of renaming in the wake of George Floyd’s death at the hands of a police officer and ensuing nationwide protests. Last week the panel formally submitted its list to the council, which will meet with city planners and constituents to decide which ones will be renamed in honor of Civil Rights leaders, musicians and other culture bearers who have made positive contributions to New Orleans. A DVO C AT E S TA F F P H OTO B Y I A N M C N U LT Y
C’est What
MAYOR LATOYA CANTRELL LOOSENS COVID-19 RESTRICTIONS, EFFECTIVE FEB. 26
?
COVID-19 RESTRICTIONS WILL BE LOOSENED IN NEW ORLEANS,
city officials said Thursday afternoon. The new set of rules go into effect on Friday, Feb. 26 at 6 a.m and put the city — which has been under stricter guidelines than the rest of the state — in line with the rest of Louisiana. Gathering sizes can increase to 75 indoors and 150 outdoors while restaurants, breweries, libraries, offices and businesses can host up to 15 individuals at a single table. Bars without restaurant permits can continue to operate at 25% capacity and those with restaurant permits can continue at 50%. The city also said outdoor stadiums can welcome visitors up to 25% capacity, while indoor sports facilities can host 15% capacity. A mask mandate remains in place, as do recommendations to maintain physical distance. According to a news release from Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s office, the administration made this decision based on sustained, declining numbers of new cases of the virus and a positivity rate that is below 2%. The vaccine rollout has also likely played a role in their decision, as distribution ramped up this week and a new tier of people, including school workers, became eligible under guidance from the Louisiana Department of Health. The announcement came from the city just over a week after Carnival ended — a period that was marked by freezing temperatures, shutdown bars, canceled parades and popular streets being closed to foot traffic and other celebrations. For more information about restrictions, visit the city’s website. — SARAH RAVITS
Which dive bar bathroom did you miss the most on Mardi Gras Day?
13.4%
19.6%
25.8%
SNAKE AND JAKE’S
GOLDEN LANTERN
BIG DADDY’S
R BAR
19.6%
21.6%
MIMI’S (RIP)
Vote on “C’est What?” at www.bestofneworleans.com
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OPENING GAMBIT
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COMMENTARY
Time to eliminate ‘qualified immunity’ for police abuse A LOUISIANA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES SUBCOMMITTEE recently
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approved a proposal to eliminate sweeping protections from lawsuits for police officers who kill or injure people. This is a long-overdue change to an unjust law, and we urge state lawmakers to approve the proposed reforms swiftly. Known as “qualified immunity,” many of these laws have deep roots in racism. In Louisiana and elsewhere, they took hold in the post-Reconstruction Era as part of an effort by white supremacists to roll back civil rights protections for Black citizens. Unfortunately, such laws have worked as intended. They continue to reinforce systemic racism and too often have turned the judicial system into a functional enemy of Black people by allowing police to abuse Black Americans with impunity. Last summer’s murder of George Floyd by police shined a bright light on the issue of systemic racism and violence within police departments, but Floyd’s death was hardly an isolated or far-away incident. There are countless examples of police abuse here in Louisiana, including a Baton Rouge cop’s recent chokehold of an unarmed, 13-year-old Black kid. The incident, captured on video, quickly went viral. Though we harbor a healthy skepticism that today’s Legislature will embrace anything “progressive,” we remain hopeful that lawmakers will pass the proposed changes to our state’s immunity laws. The changes approved Feb. 24 by a special subcommittee of the House Civil Law Committee have support from the ACLU and many other reform advocates. The Louisiana Illuminator notes that the proposed changes also have received cautious but crucial backing from the Louisiana Sheriff’s Association and the Fraternal Order of Police. That support will, we hope, assuage any concerns among conservative lawmakers. For generations, police unions and other defenders of the status quo have used the specious “a few bad apples” argument as a political billy club to beat down efforts to fix obvious, systemic problems. Their efforts have succeeded, but at great cost to society. Despite regular examples of police misconduct and abuse, officialdom’s default response has almost always been, “We need more cops.” Meanwhile, the abuse continued.
P H OTO B Y DAV I D G R U N F E L D / T H E T I M E S - P I C AY U N E | T H E N E W O R L E A N S A DVO C AT E
Protesters gather on the Mississippi River bank at the end of the demonstration at Jackson Square on June 5, 2020.
But ultimately, whether or not the majority of police officers work hard to protect citizens is not what is at issue. The question is whether it is right for any police officer to be given such broad immunity in cases of abuse. It’s a question much of the nation is now facing after last year’s spasm of police violence — and the public outcry against it — forced all of us to confront the long-ignored issue of police abuse. This week’s cover story on how “NCIS: New Orleans” has tackled this and related issues underscores that shift in America’s consciousness. Until very recently, no one would have conceived that a TV cop show loved by aging white conservatives would openly address hot-button issues such as eliminating systemic racism, ending the cash bail system and supporting the Black Lives Matter movement. It sends a clear signal that these ideas, long considered “radical,” are now squarely within the bounds of “reasonable” discourse. Eliminating qualified immunity won’t fix all the problems of modern policing. However, if it saves even one Louisianan’s life, it will be worth the effort — and cops who follow the law have nothing to fear. We urge lawmakers to enact this needed reform.
9
CLANCY DUBOS
G A M B I T > B E S T O F N E WO R L E A N S . C O M > M a r c h 2 - 8 > 2 0 2 1
@clancygambit
Spring Collection
What to rename Lee Circle? No need to look afar, mes amis THE DEBATE OVER WHAT TO CALL STREETS AND PUBLIC SPACES currently
named for Confederates and other deplorables will not end soon, but let’s agree that New Orleans needed to go down this road. Let’s also agree that we need to press on. The City Council’s Street Renaming Commission finished its work on Feb. 24, compiling a list of 34 streets and three public parks to be renamed, along with a list of suggested new new honorees. Commissioners deserve our thanks. They tapped an array of experts to research the histories and personalities behind dozens of streets and spots that many citizens (correctly) thought honored white supremacists. Turns out not all of the suspect street names honored the dishonorable. For example, Gen. Taylor Street was named for President Zachary Taylor and not his son, a Confederate general. Commissioners recommend not renaming that street. The next move is the City Council’s. It must formally propose each recommended name change, followed by City Planning Commission review and then a final vote by the council — which hasn’t even decided when to get started. Suffice it to say still more proposed changes could come at any time. To no one’s surprise, the toughest call for commissioners was coming up with a new moniker for Lee Circle. To the surprise of some, if not many, they settled on honoring no one in particular: Égalité Circle. Huh? “Equality” was one of the underpinnings of the French and Haitian revolutions, and our city has historic and cultural ties to both France and Haiti. Commissioners also noted that the American civil rights movement was all about equality. They doubtless figured nobody would oppose that name, even if they proposed spelling it in French. Au contraire, mes amis. There’s a reason why commissioners struggled with this one, and it has nothing to do with Lee, who had no
linens & cottons
F I L E P H OTO B Y M I CH A E L D E M O C K E R
pandemic hours mon - sat 10 - 5:30 7732 m a p l e 865 . 9625
The statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee is lifted from its pedestal at Lee Circle as it is removed by a crane on Friday, May 19, 2017.
roots in our city. Whatever its name, the circle is a local landmark, not quite as recognizable to tourists as St. Louis Cathedral or the Superdome, but certainly a special place for New Orleanians. So why not name it for something more … New Orleans? Égalité Circle is actually the commissioners’ third stab at a new name for what was originally Tivoli Circle. They first proposed Leah Chase Circle, till someone suggested putting the beloved Creole Chef’s name on Orleans Avenue, which runs past her famed restaurant. Then they tried Harmony Circle. Too nebulous, apparently. Besides, we already have a Harmony Street. Which makes me wonder: Why are we ignoring the obvious? To locals, Lee Circle will always be the place where New Orleanians have gathered for generations to watch Mardi Gras parades. So why not Mardi Gras Circle? It’s French — and nobody will mispronounce it. Just to be clear, I don’t have a problem with Égalité, or Harmony, or Leah Chase Circle. But why not honor ourselves by honoring our treasured celebration — especially after we proved this year that Mardi Gras can never be canceled? Sometimes, we don’t need to look too far to find an answer.
AMIA MACAD NUT
Honey Macadam ia Macadamia Cold Crème
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Honey & Oat Wafel!
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BLAKE PONTCHARTRAIN™ @GambitBlake | askblake@gambitweekly.com
Hey Blake,
PRESENTS THE
2021
Spring
PET PHOTO
CONTEST
Send your favorite pet photo to vip@gambitweekly.com for the chance to have your pet published in the March 23 Pets issue inside Gambit.
ONE GRAND PRIZE WINNER WILL ALSO WIN A PRIZE PACKAGE FROM METAIRIE SMALL ANIMAL HOSPITAL.
I was saddened to read about the passing of Jimmy Lemarie, the co-founder of Liuzza’s by the Track. I was surprised to learn the restaurant is not related to Liuzza’s in Mid-City. What can you tell me about the history of the two restaurants? — LUCY
Dear Lucy,
While both restaurants — Liuzza’s by the Track on N. Lopez Street and Liuzza’s on Bienville Street — are culinary landmarks, they have different owners and the proprietors say there are no family connections. Liuzza’s opened on Bienville at N. Telemachus in 1947. Vincent Liuzza, who owned a bar nearby, opened the restaurant to cater to Mid-City factory workers. The restaurant — known for its po-boys, Creole-Italian dishes, and frozen schooners of beer — has had several owners since then. One of them, the late Theresa Galbo, bought the place in 1981 and is credited with creating the Frenchuletta, a muffuletta on a po-boy loaf. Galbo’s son Frank Bordelon now owns the restaurant with his wife, Lori. In 1936, Jack Liuzza opened his business on N. Lopez near the Fair
S TA F F P H OTO B Y I A N M C N U LT Y
Red beans and rice with chicken tenders and a cup of gumbo from Liuzza’s by the Track in New Orleans.
Grounds. It was originally a bar and grocery. Billy Gruber and Jimmy Lemarie bought the building in 1997 with plans to open a restaurant. In a 2000 Times-Picayune article, they explained how the place got its name. They would answer the phone, “Liuzza’s” and frequently a caller would ask, “On Bienville?” And they would say, “No, by the track.” They named their place Liuzza’s by the Track to avoid confusion. Gruber, who died in 2016, had worked as a chef at several local restaurants and his family owned the Meal-a-Minit restaurant chain. He created the recipes for which Liuzza’s by the Track became famous, including its gumbo, barbecue shrimp po-boy and garlic oyster po-boy.
BLAKEVIEW FOR YOUNGER READERS, the names may have faded into history, but morn-
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ing radio hosts Roy Roberts and Jeff Hug once ruled New Orleans’ airwaves. “Nut and Jeff,” as they were known, made their debut as an A.M. drive duo 60 years ago this week. Hug and Roberts (whose real name was Roy Robert Makofsky) were both established personalities on WSMB 1350 AM before they were paired together in March 1961. “He was playing records and I was doing the news and we were talking back and forth,” Hug said in a 1980 Times-Picayune profile. Program Director Marshall Pearce called Roberts — the comedian to Hug’s straight man — a “nut.” In a play on the comic strip “Mutt and Jeff,” the duo had their new nicknames. Throughout the 1960s and ’70s, Nut and Jeff’s 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. show was the city’s most popular morning radio show. The format was simple: two New Orleans characters talking about the news of the day, sharing jokes, taking phone calls and chatting with celebrities and newsmakers. “We don’t plan anything. We arrive in the morning, sit down and let it all come out,” Roberts said in a 1972 States-Item article. When their morning show ended in 1988, Roberts retired, but Hug continued working on various local radio stations. The duo was inducted into the New Orleans Broadcasting Hall of Fame in 1993. Roberts died in 1998 and Hug died the following year. Their deaths prompted a tribute from TimesPicayune columnist Mark Lorando, who wrote, “It was Roberts and Hug ... who introduced New Orleans listeners to the comic brand of breakfast-hour banter that now defines morning radio in this town, and every other.”
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ALL THAT LIVES MUST DIE, AND UNFORTUNATELY “NCIS: NEW ORLEANS” is about to
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‘NCIS:
NEW ORLEANS’
HAS A LOT ON ITS MIND AS IT COMES TO AN END
‘NCIS: NEW ORLEANS’ STAR SCOTT BAKULA P H OTO P R OV I D E D B Y SKIP BOLEN / CBS
TALK
pass through nature to eternity, just as the cop procedural and CBS mainstay has begun dealing with heavy topics like race, poverty and the pandemic in a refreshingly honest and clear-eyed way. The New Orleans-shot drama will air its final episode May 16, but the show is ending its seven-year run with a lot on its mind. In just the first nine episodes of “NCIS: New Orleans” season seven, the show has touched on a dizzying range of current events and social justice issues: the tragedies of pandemic life; Black Lives Matter and the 2020 uprisings against white supremacy; police brutality; the cash bail system; the broken justice system; mental health care; activism; sexual assault; LGBTQ issues; unemployment; evictions — and more. Don’t necessarily expect an anti-capitalist reading on the issues. This is, after all, the U.S. and CBS is a massive corporation. But not only has “NCIS: New Orleans” been willing to tackle those topics, it’s done so with a remarkable level of nuance for primetime TV. Between the detective work and gunfights, “NCIS: New Orleans” will give your parents the basics of qualified immunity and a gripping conversation between two Black women about alcohol dependency and mental health care. All in the same episode. And all set against the backdrop of New Orleans. “The beginning of the season,” says co-showrunner Jan Nash, “it was overwhelming, because it did feel like there were so many things that were happening that related to our world and New Orleans and to the lives of these characters. It didn’t feel like we should just ignore them. We had a lot of conversations about how best to attack this.” In one LeVar Burton-directed episode, lawyer Rita Devereaux helps out a Black man who was falsely accused of a robbery and stuck in prison because of the cash bail system. Cash bail is nothing
TALK THE
BY
JAKE CLAPP
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FROM LEFT, CHRISTOPHER LASALLE (LUCAS BLACK), DR. LORETTA WADE (CCH POUNDER) AND DWAYNE PRIDE (SCOTT BAKULA) INVESTIGATE A DEATH ACROSS FROM JACKSON SQUARE. P H OTO P R OV I D E D B Y S K I P B O L E N / C B S
but a scam, Devereaux says, “It’s a poverty tax. It’s been perverted to allow cities to make up money.” Devereaux is able to get the man, Eric, cleared and released from prison. But as NCIS computer specialist Patton “Triple P” Plame points out: “Eric was lucky to have you in his corner. I just wish every kid did.” “We’re not the first TV show to ever try to speak to some of these issues,” Nash says, “and God willing, hopefully shows will stop having to do it. But we wanted to sort of start raising awareness, if nothing else, of some of the underlying issues, while still telling procedural television stories that would be entertaining.”
PREMIERING IN SEPTEMBER 2014, “NCIS: New Orleans” is a spin-off of CBS’ “NCIS” — itself a spin-off of “JAG” — and follows
the New Orleans field office of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which has always raised the question: How many murders, espionage plots and terrorist attacks involving the Navy could really take place in south Louisiana? The show has spent an average of $92 million per season locally, The TimesPicayune | The New Orleans Advocate reported — and it has benefited greatly from the state’s generous state tax credits for the film and TV industry. The show has also been careful to hire locally: 95% of the 250 crew members employed by the production have been locals, says Film New Orleans director Carroll Morton. The show “has been one of the best run productions I’ve ever worked with,” Morton says, “both directly in their relationship to the city, their permitting
processes, but also to our community. They’ve respected the community in every neighborhood they’ve shot in and the venues where they’ve filmed.” In ways large and small, New Orleans and the cast and crew of “NCIS: New Orleans” have become intertwined over the years. A number of cast members have purchased homes in the city or live here at least parttime, including Rob Kerkovich and CCH Pounder, who restored a home in Faubourg St. John. Pounder, an avid art collector, also has loaned some of her pieces to the Xavier University Art Gallery, joined the John T. Scott Guild at the Contemporary Arts Center and was an honoree at the CAC’s 2016 SweetArts gala. Daryl Mitchell, who portrays computer specialist Patton Plame, was a guest at a benefit for the New Orleans Youth Writing
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Center. Members of the cast have ridden in Carnival parades. Producers for the show have paid for clean-up days around the city and made private investments in cultural organizations. Like with a lot of TV shows and movies that have filmed in New Orleans, “NCIS: New Orleans” viewers — especially locals — have had to contend with some clumsy “N’awlins” moments. The show settled into the complexities of the city over the years, but even in season seven, the Zapp’s bags and Abita bottles are sometimes a little too conspicuously placed. And Scott Bakula’s accent is more suburban Atlanta than y’at. Still, “NCIS: New Orleans” has fared much better than others. The cast and crew have shown a willingness to understand and be a part of the city. “‘NCIS: NOLA’ moved from the surface story to actually deeper stories — and ironically in season seven, of all seasons, it’s the one that really got the deepest stories,” says Pounder, who stars in the show as medical examiner Dr. Loretta Wade. “I think in the beginning, you saw lots of dancing in the streets, second lines, things that would clue you in that, ‘Oh this is New Orleans.’ Then after all of that, it got into unsolved problems … You realize there is blight here. There are other things that exist that tells you this city intends to run, crawl, one way or another, to a place of survivorship.” At the same time locals have shown up countless times on screen. The NCIS team got decked out for the Red Dress Run in a season two episode. Memorably, The Revivalists’ set at Tipitina’s was cut short in a season six episode. And in the current season, Bakula’s Dwayne Pride begins hosting physically distanced outdoor concerts, giving the stage to Big Sam’s Funky Nation, Ronell Johnson, and Mia Borders with John “Papa” Gros. WWOZ DJ Cole Williams
CCH POUNDER
P H OTO B Y T E D J AC K S O N / T H E T I M E S - P I C AY U N E
THE NCIS TEAM TAKES PART IN THE RED DRESS RUN. P H OTO P R OV I D E D B Y SKIP BOLEN / CBS
pops into one concert for a remote broadcast. “It kind of became a real love affair with the city of New Orleans and a real love affair with a lot of people who came from it at a different angle,” Pounder says. “The city became a huge character.”
AT THE TAIL END OF SEASON SIX, in March 2020, “NCIS:
New Orleans” aired the episode “Biased.” Written by Talicia Raggs and directed by LeVar Burton, the episode centers on the tensions and divisions that build in the aftermath of a white NOPD officer shooting and killing an unarmed Black man in the middle of a party. The officer claims he saw a gun when, in reality, it was the man’s cell phone. “I think we were already on our way to addressing issues in story form,” Pounder says, “which made the audience have to make decisions. It’s not absolutely clear who did what, but what is clear is that there is a systemic part of our storyline that exists in the real world, that there is systemic racism in our country.” “This is not going to go away with our shows showing it, but you’ll see that these things exist,” she says, adding “they’ve been part of the storyline for years and
years, but not necessarily a laser focus.” Indeed, from its first episodes the show has dealt with issues of race generally, and specifically the relationship between the Black community and law enforcement. For much of its run, the show often stuck to the formulaic approach that have served shows like “Law & Order” and “NCIS” so well: Bad thing happens; police and Black people come into conflict; white cop and Black leader work together; crime solved; racism over. But over the show’s life, “NCIS: New Orleans” began to slowly change, and the “Biased” episode marked a significant shift in tone away from traditional simplistic notions of good guys vs. bad guys and toward an acknowledgement that the world is a messy, complicated place.
“NCIS: NEW ORLEANS” HAD TO WRAP its sixth season
short when the pandemic took hold of the city. Within days, co-showrunner Christopher Silber says, they began discussing ways to safely ramp back up production when the time was right. Production on the 16-episode season seven started in September — and filming is expected to end in March. The production developed a set of safety protocols, like
limiting travel from California to New Orleans and more controlled access to sets. They also decided to include more two-part episodes, which would control the number of new people being introduced into the production and give the crew more time to safely work. Plus, there was the benefit of being able to craft stories that developed over more screen time. “Because of some of the practical concerns of having to deal with Covid protocols and safety, it allowed us as writers to think about stories a little bit differently,” Silber says. “Yes, we’re there to solve crime, but it gave us an opportunity to lean more into our characters and into their lives and open up the show in a way that we’ve always wanted to.” New Orleans itself has presented the opportunity over the years — and especially during season seven — for “NCIS: New Orleans” to more easily incorporate a range of heavy topics or have those storylines weave together. One of the season’s first scenes finds Dwayne Pride, the agent in charge of the New Orleans field office, watching the local TV report of a new respiratory illness being found in the city just days after Mardi Gras. He’s in the Tru Tone, the bar he
owns, with his half-brother Jimmy and their friend, Jasmine, and anxiety and uncertainty loom heavy in the air. No one is sure what COVID-19 is or what it’ll mean for New Orleans. Still, Pride drops the only knowledge he knows: Wash your hands and avoid touching your face. The episode, “Something in the Air, Part 1,” premiered in November and for audiences tuning in months into the coronavirus pandemic and with the gift of hindsight, it can almost feel like the story unfolds in fast-forward. And in some ways, the show is trying to get its world up to speed. But it’s also a reminder of just how quickly everything changed in the first weeks of the pandemic: flights are canceled, masks start to appear, restaurants, bars and music venues are closed and hospitals are overflowing. “We’re not in any way trying to suggest that we’re the end all, be all to what people have gone through in this experience,” Nash says. “We can’t possibly do that. But we wanted it to feel hopefully true to what some people have been through and give them the opportunity to feel like they’re being seen. We really wanted people to know we saw them and we gave a shit.”
WHILE COVID HAS BEEN a
through line for much of the seventh season, so too have been issues of race and criminal justice. For instance, one of the season’s storylines involves a panel put together by fictional Mayor Zahra Taylor to address systemic problems and income inequality in the city with the hope of the city coming back stronger after the pandemic. The committee is created in the wake of a series of murders committed by NOPD officers. Rather than toe the police union line that these are the actions of a “few bad apples,” the show takes the issue of systemic corruption and police brutality head on, explicitly naming it as such and openly acknowledging
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season has also seen critical examinations of qualified immunity laws that provide police with broad protections from prosecution and the racial impacts of the cash bail system. Importantly, the show doesn’t end up “both-sidesing” these issues, but instead makes clear fundamental reform is needed. New Orleans “is a microcosm in a lot of ways,” Silber says. “It’s something that Jan said when we were talking about some of these issues that if our show took place in New York or D.C., Dwayne Pride couldn’t come in and help a group of people address cash bail.” “In a city that’s smaller, though it looms large, it becomes accessible,” Silber says. “A microcosm for the world, for bigger cities in the country. That’s what made New Orleans a prime place for us to be able to do something like this.” And the city has in a lot of ways become a starring character of the show — like the time the show decided to blow up the R Bar.
FROM THE START OF THE SHOW, R Bar and the Royal
Street Inn have played the Tru Tone, the fictional bar that Pride owns in the show. So when the story called for the Tru Tone to go up in flames, the crew built a fake
façade a few inches out from the building and lit the fuse. “It was crazy. It looked believable in person, not just once it was treated for film,” says Bailey Smith, R Bar managing partner. “It was funny because images must have leaked pretty quickly on the Internet, people were hitting me up the next two days, like ‘Did your bar blow up?’ ” There was a moment, too, Smith says, that he thought it would be the end of the relationship: “NCIS: New Orleans” had killed the “character.” But the Tru Tone was rebuilt and the show continued working with R Bar. “It’s been a really great relationship,” Smith says. “I know a lot of people who worked on the set and they love it. It’s been a great job for them.” Smith says the production has been respectful of the property and neighborhood and even made some fixes and additions while they worked. A couple of times, the show would have to close off the block, and so it would buy bar tabs from R Bar and distribute drink tokens to neighbors. Smith also saw the added benefit of tourists coming in to take pictures at R Bar or stay a night at Royal Street Inn. “If they were really impacting people, they’d make
sure that every person that was impacted, that was our neighbor, got something out of it,” he says. Smith isn’t alone. It’s hard to find anyone in town who’s had a bad experience with the show over the years. It’s common to hear stories about the production re-painting living rooms after a shoot, of putting residents up in nice hotels for days at a time and even re-doing landscaping — all in addition to paying compensation. There’s the time the show wanted to rent the former Zeitgeist space on Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard during a shoot. The show had offered founder Rene Broussard $1,500 for a fivehour shoot. When Broussard asked if they could bump it up to $1,870 to help buy a new commercial, universal Blu-ray player for the theater, the show quickly agreed. “The cast, crew and I were eating a really great seafood boil when FedEx delivered the [player],” Broussard said in a Facebook post following the announcement that the show had been canceled. “That’s my story. There are thousands more throughout the city. They will be greatly missed.” You can tell when it’s a crew of mostly locals, Broussard told Gambit. “They came in and they had their
‘NCIS: NEW ORLEANS’ WRITER-PRODUCER TALICIA RAGGS P H OTO P R OV I D E D B Y TA L I C I A R AG G S
‘NCIS: NEW ORLEANS’ CASTMEMBERS WITH DR. JOHN P H OTO P R OV I D E D B Y S K I P B O L E N / C B S
shit together and they left my space like 10 times cleaner than when they arrived,” Broussard says.
CBS ON FEB. 17 MADE the
announcement that “NCIS: New Orleans” would be ending after its seventh season. When its series finale airs on Sunday, May 16, the show will have produced 155 episodes. The show has had solid ratings for the majority of its run, averaging around 7 million viewers in its first six seasons. But so far, season seven has averaged only 4.8 million viewers, and is ninth among CBS’ 12 dramas on TV. “Sad to end our love affair with this phenomenal city but so grateful for all the friends we made along the way,” Bakula said in a statement when the news broke. “I will miss the music. Big thank you to CBS for seven years.” Nash and Silber said they had no expectation this was going to be the last season in New Orleans, “in fact we were hopeful it wouldn’t be. The stories we broke for season seven were intended to be the best, most compelling episodes of television we could present to our audience.” For all the goofy accents and preposterous time travel that got characters from Belle Chasse to the Lower 9th Ward in minutes, the show will be missed, both for its decision to treat the issues facing residents of the city with some modicum of respect and honesty, and how they treated New Orleans in real life. “After Katrina, when we were ‘Hollywood South,’ there would be crews in from L.A. with way too much attitude,” says d.b.a. owner Tom Thayer. The Frenchmen Street music venue showed up in the series’ very first episode, and over the years, the production has rented the space to house equipment when shooting in the area. “I’ve got nothing but good things to say about them,” Thayer says.
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its real-world impacts on Black New Orleanians. The two-part story digs into how police protect themselves — from unions to intimidation and loopholes — and the ways a rotten system can spread and resist reform. While the show doesn’t go as far as spray-paint “ACAB” on the side of Orleans Parish Prison, it’s a principled primer that the unfamiliar can follow — and a remarkably progressive, if obvious, approach to police violence for a show aired on a network that has traditionally attracted older white people. “It’s a very complicated issue to unravel and fix,” says writer and producer Talicia Raggs. “We wanted to do it to give a little bit of a hint and a clue of some of the things that kind of go on behind the scenes in police departments.” Likewise, the show this season addressed the Black Lives Matter Movement with sensitivity, rightly portraying it as a civil and human rights movement, layered and full of different viewpoints. The show also has focused increasingly on the lives of Black women in America. In the season’s fourth episode, written and produced by Raggs, Wade is exhausted yet wants to do all she can to help while the pandemic rages. In a powerful scene, Wade and Mayor Zahra Taylor, portrayed by Amanda Warren, are sharing a bottle of wine in Wade’s backyard. Taylor notices the pace the bottle is emptying and asks the medical examiner about her reliance on alcohol. It opens a tense conversation between the two women about mental health care. “We’re looking at our frontline workers, who have to see [death due to Covid] every day,” Raggs says, “this is an amount of death they did not ask to be involved in yet they’re doing so heroically. And no one ever asked, ‘Are they OK?’ Our frontline worker, played so ingeniously by CCH Pounder, is a Black woman who is trying to keep it all together.” And it hasn’t just been broad, topline issues that the show has addressed. This
EATDRINK
FORK CENTER
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Chefs’ counter The Larder is a cafe and grab-and-go spot in Metairie BY B E T H D ’A D D O N O WHEN ALISON VEGA-KNOLL HAD HER FIRST BUSINESS called the Larder, she
was 12 years and two kids younger. She opened that Larder in a strip mall on the island of Antigua in 2008, where she’d been living with her husband Drew Knoll, who was executive chef at a fine dining restaurant on the island. The name for her casual breakfast and lunch cafe was inspired by the island’s British past — in the U.K., a cook’s pantry is called a larder. This time around, the busy mother of four opened the Larder at 3005 Veterans Memorial Blvd. in Metairie, just across the parking lot from Trader Joe’s. She’s working with her friend and partner chef Chris Wilson, a longtime employee of Emeril Lagasse’s operations who was running the Homebase company kitchen up until the pandemic. Vega-Knoll stepped away from her Bucktown seafood restaurant Station 6, which is now under her husband’s management. “I love restaurants, conceiving them, setting them up, but the dayto-day operation is hard, especially when you’re raising four kids,” VegaKnoll says. “This place allows us to do something different all the time.” They’d initially been looking for a small shop to showcase Cajun Caviar, the Louisiana caviar of local bowfin roe that Vega-Knoll purchased in 2016 along with Chris’ wife Amy Wilson and Alden Lagasse, Emeril Lagasse’s wife. When they found the much bigger space, they decided to go for it. The Larder is set up like a carefully curated gourmet market, with specialty single-batch olive oils, balsamic vinegars, wine and cheeses from small producers, as well as foodie gifts. There also is a busy counter for breakfast, lunch and dinner items available individually or packaged
for a family meal. A drive-through window — the place used to be a Burger King — makes it possible for customers to order in advance and pick-up dinner at a specified time. There’s a daily family meal special for four priced between $50 and $90, depending on whether there’s lobster or chicken on the plate. He’s fine-tuning a menu that includes “NOLA Mambo Monday,” featuring traditional New Orleans dishes, Tex-Mex food on Tuesdays, “Wild Card Wednesday” for a chef’s choice menu, and Vega-Knoll’s Mediterranean specials on Thursdays. Fridays bring seafood specials and there’s steakhouse dishes on Saturdays. Family-sized lasagna and chicken pot pie are big sellers. The partners and their families have been friends and cooked at home together for years. Drew Knoll and Chris Wilson worked together at Emeril’s in the mid ’90s. VegaKnoll and Wilson started talking about working together in June and opened the Larder in December. There’s a few scattered seats inside and ample outside seating in a lovely patio setting. Despite the pandemic, they’re seeing regulars coming in and staying for a while over coffee or a bottle of wine. “Honestly we didn’t plan on opening another restaurant,” Vega-Knoll says. “We thought this place would be mostly pick-up and go.” Inside, the Larder has a country French kitchen vibe. Glass jars hold biscotti on a painted shelf, and a large display case is home to an array of pastries and breads. A case of locally made Piccola Gelato draws an enthusiastic after-school crowd. From the counter, patrons get a view of the busy open kitchen. The menu includes salads such as grilled shrimp and street corn with feta and kale, and a steak house Caesar with little gem lettuce and heirloom
Email dining@gambitweekly.com
Business leads AS THE DAY PROGRESSED AT BUSINESS BAR , tables filled with
mason jars of iced coffee and breakfast sandwiches gave way to customers with eye-catching cocktails and taco plates. The constant throughout were laptops, notebooks and phone chargers. Business Bar is the newest addition to Freret Street, and it brings something different to this busy Uptown stretch. It was designed to serve the increasingly blended worlds of work time and downtime. It also reflects modern times, conceived and developed during the pandemic as many more professionals and students work remotely.
P H OTO B Y CH E R Y L G E R B E R
Chefs Alison Vega-Knoll and Chris Wilson opened the Larder.
tomatoes. Soups include Wilson’s version of New England clam chowder that speaks to his Connecticut roots. A prosciutto di Parma sandwich has arugula and creamy Italian fontal cheese on a baguette. The Larder Whoppa is a tonguein-cheek reference to the previous tenant, but this one is made with two Creekstone Farms beef patties topped with bacon-tomato jam, pickles and American cheese, and is served with fries. The Pilgrim puts everything good about Thanksgiving on a raft of chewy focaccia. Lunch is available from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and most dishes fall in the $6 to $15 range. For breakfast, there is killer avocado toast on a foundation of rustic bread slathered with creamy goat cheese, and a fried egg sandwich with bacon and American cheese on a toasted Kaiser roll. Prices are between $6 and $10, something Wilson felt strongly about. “This is not a get-rich-quick plan,” the chef says. “We want to provide a service to our customers and would rather see someone twice a week than twice a month.”
? WHAT
Larder Gourmet Market + Eatery
WHERE
3005 Veterans Memorial Blvd., Metairie, (504) 766-6763; lardergourmetmarket.com
WHEN
8 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Saturday
HOW
Dine-in, outdoor seating and drive-through pickup available
CHECK IT OUT
A chef-driven cafe and grab-and-go spot in Metairie
P H OTO B Y I A N M C N U LT Y/ T H E T I M E S - P I C AY U N E | T H E N E W O R L E A N S A DVO C AT E
Jade Newman (left) and Jessica Robinson opened Business Bar.
It’s the latest venture by two young Black female entrepreneurs, Jade Newman and Jessica Robinson. They call the concept a “restaurant and workstation,” imbuing a casual cafe with amenities tailored to mobile working. “We’re always looking for what’s missing, what people need, where there’s a void that we can fill,” Newman says. Business Bar opened late in February at 4525 Freret St., which had been home to Bar Frances, a bistro that closed early in the pandemic. Business Bar has high-performing wi-fi, copious outlets and a mix of bar top and counter perches for solo outings and conference tables for small meetings, which are available to reserve. The restaurant soon will offer printing services. Business Bar also will begin hosting happy hours featuring guest speakers with expertise in fields such as accounting or finance. The concept is built around business, though this venture got its start through a friendship. PAGE 17
EAT+DRINK
Boiling points THE CROWDS THAT NORMALLY PACK FRANKIE & JOHNNY’S RESTAURANT
for po-boys and beer between parades were missing this Carnival season. The winter holidays, usually a busy time at this Uptown joint, were subdued as well. But there’s still crawfish season, and that means Frankie & Johnny’s proprietor David McCelvey has hope.
“We can’t do normal business, but we can still do this,” McCelvey says. The pandemic arrived last year when that season was just beginning, and crawfish emerged as a rare bright spot. Restaurants reduced to takeout only in the early days found the local appetite for crawfish remained strong. Curbside crawfish and DIY drive-through operations proliferated. As this season begins, many are looking to crawfish again. The stakes are even higher for small businesses that have been battered by a year of changing restrictions and low tourism numbers. Carl Jackson has been doing all he can to get an early start on the season at J & J Seafood in Gretna, working with fishermen to maintain a steady supply. “It’s the most important part of the year for us,” says Jackson, who has run J & J with his three brothers for 30 years. “You got to make it when you can, because it doesn’t last long.” Prognosticators have been watching the industry for signs of how price and production will flow this year. The impact of the hard freeze on the crawfish heartland of southwest Louisiana has blurred earlier predictions. It’s just the latest twist in a time of compounding uncertainties. “It’s still a learning process, even a year later,” says Kent Bondi, owner of Castnet Seafood in Little Woods. “We just keep swinging and swinging, trying to get a hit. But I don’t think there’s any rule of thumb anymore.” This market and restaurant has been a standby out by the Lake Pontchartrain levee since the 1980s, but in the past year it has changed its approach constantly to meet coronavirus safety protocols. Bondi’s crew moved all the indoor seating outside. They set up an intercom system to announce ready orders to people waiting in their cars. They even installed separate entrances for takeout po-boys and hot plates and one for boiled seafood and fresh fish. Frankie & Johnny’s is adding curbside and local delivery service for crawfish, and McCelvey said he’ll soon start selling sacks of live crawfish for home boiling. In Harahan, Jason Seither moved much of the operation for his Seither’s Seafood outside. The space has tiki torches, thatch umbrellas and a small stage for live music. “I didn’t think people would want to eat in an oyster shell parking lot, but you bring the crawfish outside and add some music and it’s just a natural fit,” Seither says. — IAN McNULTY/ THE TIMES-PICAYUNE | THE NEW ORLEANS ADVOCATE
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BAR OPENS AT 4PM DAILY • DINNER SERVICE 5PM-10:30PM WEEKDAYS & UNTIL 11PM ON WEEKENDS 720 ORLEANS AVE. • 504.523.1930 • WWW.ORLEANSGRAPEVINE.COM
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Newman and Robinson are New Orleans natives who came together through their own businesses. Newman runs Southern Girl Property Management, with clients around the country. Robinson is founder of JusTini Cocktails, a cocktail catering service. They run a small events space together, Space Seven, in the 9th Ward. “We are full of life, we’re social but we’re real businesswomen and we don’t stop,” Newman says. Networking and sharing knowledge propelled their own careers, and with Business Bar they hope to create a space to facilitate that for others. Business Bar is Newman’s first foray into the restaurant business. For Robinson, it’s the fulfillment of a long-term goal by different means. “It’s been my dream to open a bar, but with the pandemic I thought at first maybe that was over,” Robinson says. “But it came down to rebranding, refocusing that dream.” Their chef at Business Bar is Lawrence Amour, whose menus for breakfast, lunch and dinner are concise and built around the business theme. Dishes are designed for people who may be multitasking at the table and don’t want anything too heavy or intricate. The dishes also have to be feasible for takeout. In the morning, there’s oatmeal, avocado toast and breakfast sandwiches with hot sausage, egg and cheese on brioche. The lunch and dinner menus have entree salads, fries, Brussels sprouts, flatbreads, tacos, grilled or fried chicken bites and a lamb chop platter. The bar mixes drinks that Robinson developed through JusTini, including a roster dubbed “rise and grind cocktails” made with espresso, a bottomless sparkling wine flight with different juices to mix in and bottled cocktails to go. A frozen cocktail called the CEO is a potent mix of gin, watermelon and rose. Across the restaurant there’s a mix of gleaming marble and bare wood. A large bar anchors the dining room and the covered patio facing Freret Street feels like a front porch on the bustling street. Business Bar is open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekends. — IAN McNULTY/THE TIMES-PICAYUNE | THE NEW ORLEANS ADVOCATE
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EAT+DRINK
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3-COURSE INTERVIEW
Sheryl Boudy Cookbook author SHERYL BOUDY LEARNED TO COOK by helping her father while
HAND GRENADE
®
NEW ORLEANS MOST POWERFUL DRINK®
DRINK LOCAL Little Tropical Isle 435 BOURBON Tropical Isle Original 600 BOURBON Tropical Isle’s Bayou Club 610 BOURBON Tropical Isle 721 BOURBON Bourbon Street Honky Tonk 727 BOURBON Orleans Grapevine 720 BOURBON
ADVERTISE WITH US Call Sandy Stein (504) 483-3150 or sstein@gambitweekly.com
growing up in their home in Uptown New Orleans. She recently retired from a 33-year career as a social worker. Before she retired, she started a website and Facebook group about cooking. In December, she published her cookbook, “Recipes My Daddy Never Wrote Down.”
How has cooking been passed down in your family? SHERYL BOUDY: My whole life was being in the kitchen with my father, who was an excellent cook but had no formal training. As years passed by, I always knew that cooking was my passion. It was my getaway from the hustle and bustle of my job. Right before I retired, I knew I wanted to write this book, so I started a food group on Facebook to get an audience, and then I started an Instagram page. Then two years ago, I started collecting these recipes that I remembered from my childhood. My dad learned from his mother, who was a great cook. He was one of 11. When he was a little boy, he broke something and he was in a cast from the waist down, so he couldn’t go to school. He stayed home for three or four months. My grandma had him in the kitchen, helping her cook. That’s where he learned to cook. In my household, my daddy cooked; my mother didn’t. She was a school teacher and he was an insurance agent. He had a more flexible schedule, plus he was a much better cook. He cooked my whole life, and I was right there. And he wouldn’t talk much. He was a whistler. I’d be in the kitchen trying to watch. Over time, the recipes were engraved in my brain. So when I became a mother, I started replicating his recipes, because this is what I grew up on. Sometimes it was hit or miss, because nothing was written down. I asked him why he didn’t write anything down and he was like, “Oh, chere, just add a little bit of this or that. Look at the texture. You can smell it.” He took us to Schwegmann’s.
He showed us how to shop. What to get, how to check prices. The whole gamut.
How has your online presence helped? B: I did the website in 2015. I was on Facebook in 2009, but I didn’t start my Sheryl in the Kitchen group until 2015. The website is where I get the most traffic, where I put recipes for things like crawfish pies, which has like a million views. But with people on the Sheryl in the Kitchen (group), I have more interaction with them. I would post pictures of my food, videos. If I went to Westwego to get seafood, I would post things about shrimp, or shrimp season, or tips on how to buy shrimp, tips on how to cook certain things. I have 6,100 followers. I do slo-mos, I do Boomerangs, I do click-its. I have three sons. My youngest son, Alden, is into cooking. He started posting food on TikTok, maybe three weeks ago. He’s up to 77,000 followers. He came over because I needed a picture of my crawfish pies. He did a TikTok on my crawfish pies. It got 237,000 views. Overnight, I got orders for 55 books off that TikTok.
What did you include in the book? B: There are 25 recipes. I call them authentic New Orleans recipes. When I talk about these things, people who grew up in New Orleans recognize them, like, “Oh my God, my grandmother made that too.” There are things that are familiar, like crawfish pies. And I came up with a new one, although it’s not one of my dad’s. It’s crawfish rolls. He would want me to make that. It’s like an egg roll, but it’s rich. It’s crawfish and a cheesy sauce with seasonings. It’s deep fried twice, and you batter it twice, so it becomes crispy.
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I also cook marinated crabs, crawfish etouffee, crawfish bisque, smothered pork chops, chicken and red gravy, smothered cabbage — a lot of New Orleans kinds of foods. There are 15 recipes with seafood in the book. And of course, we have to come up with something sweet, so my brother, who is the baker, came up with five recipes. The bread pudding with rum sauce, praline Bundt cake, German chocolate cake and pecan tarts. Before each recipe, I tell a brief story of why I picked the recipe, so when people go to do my recipes, it’s like they know my dad, they know my family. The vision of Sheryl in the Kitchen is to inspire people to cook. I am trying to inspire people to get in the kitchen with their family and have these conversations with their families, so one day, when your grandmother and grandfather are gone, you’ll have those memories. That’s what’s so important to me. We do gather around food, but it’s not about the food. That’s what my mother and my dad said: “It’s not about the food. It’s about the memories.” — WILL COVIELLO For more information about Sheryl Boudy and the cookbook, visit sherylboudy.com.
OUT EAT Contact Will Coviello wcoviello@gambitweekly.com 504-483-3106 | FAX: 504-483-3159 C O M P L E T E L I S T I N G S AT W W W. B E S T O F N E WO R L E A N S . C O M Out 2 Eat is an index of Gambit contract advertisers. Unless noted, addresses are in New Orleans and all accept credit cards. Updates: email willc@gambitweekly.com or call (504) 483-3106.
Notice: Due to COVID-19, dining at restaurants is impacted, with limited indoor seating and other recommended restrictions. All information is subject to change. Contact the restaurant to confirm service options.
BYWATER Luna Libre — 3600 St. Claude Ave., (504) 237-1284 — Roasted chicken enchiladas verde are filled with cheese and served with house-made cheese dip. The menu combines Tex-Mex and dishes from Louisiana and Arkansas. Curbside pickup is available. B Sat-Sun, D Wed-Sun. $
CARROLLTON Mikimoto — 3301 S. Carrollton Ave., (504) 488-1881; mikimotosushi.com — The South Carrollton roll includes tuna tataki, avocado and snow crab. Takeout and delivery available. L Sun-Fri, D daily. $$ Pyramids Cafe — 3151 Calhoun St., (504) 861-9602 — Diners will find Mediterranean cuisine featuring such favorites as shawarma prepared on a rotisserie. Takeout and delivery available. L, D daily. $$
CITYWIDE Breaux Mart — Citywide; breauxmart.com — The deli counter’s changing specials include dishes such as baked catfish and red beans and rice. L, D daily. $
FAUBOURG MARIGNY Kebab — 2315 St. Claude Ave., (504) 3834328; kebabnola.com — The sandwich shop offers doner kebabs and Belgian fries. A falafel sandwich comes with pickled cucumbers, arugula, spinach, red onions, beets, hummus and Spanish garlic sauce. No reservations. Takeout and delivery available Thu-Mon. $
FRENCH QUARTER Desire Oyster Bar — Royal Sonesta New Orleans, 300 Bourbon St., (504) 586-0300; sonesta.com/desireoysterbar — The menu features Gulf seafood in traditional and contemporary Creole dishes, po-boys and more. Char-grilled oysters are topped with Parmesan, herbs and butter. Reservations recommended. Takeout available. B, L and D daily. $$
HARAHAN/JEFFERSON/ RIVER RIDGE The Rivershack Tavern — 3449 River Road, (504) 834-4938; therivershacktavern.com — This bar and music spot offers a menu of burgers, sandwiches and changing lunch specials. Curbside pickup and delivery available. L, D daily. $ Theo’s Neighborhood Pizza — 1212 S. Clearview Parkway, Elmwood, (504) 7333803; theospizza.com — There is a wide variety of specialty pies and toppings to build
B — breakfast L — lunch D — dinner late — late 24H — 24 hours
$ — average dinner entrée under $10 $$ — $11 to $20 $$$ — $21 or more
your own pizza. The menu also includes salads and sandwiches. Curbside pickup and delivery available. L, D Tue-Sat. $ P H OTO BY B R E T T D U K E / T H E T I M E S - P I C AY U N E | T H E N E W O R L E A N S A DVO C AT E
LAKEVIEW Lakeview Brew Coffee Cafe — 5606 Canal Blvd., (504) 483-7001; lakeviewbrew.com — This casual cafe offers coffee, pastries, desserts, sandwiches and salads. Tuna salad or chicken salad avocado melts are topped with Monterey Jack and Parmesan. Takeout, curbside pickup and delivery are available. B, L daily. $ Lotus Bistro — 203 W. Harrison Ave., (504) 533-9879; lotusbistronola.com — A Mineko Iwasaki roll includes spicy snow crab, tuna, avocado and cucumber topped with salmon, chef’s sauce, masago, green onion and tempura crunchy flakes. The menu also includes bento box lunches, teriyaki dishes, fried rice and more. Takeout and delivery are available. L and D Tue-Sun. $$
METAIRIE Andrea’s Restaurant — 3100 N. 19th St., Metairie, (504) 834-8583; andreasrestaurant.com — Chef Andrea Apuzzo’s speckled trout royale is topped with crabmeat and lemon-cream sauce. Capelli D’Andrea combines house-made angel hair pasta and smoked salmon in cream sauce. Curbside pickup and delivery available. L, D daily, brunch Sun. $$$ Kosher Cajun New York Deli & Grocery — 3519 Severn Ave., Metairie, (504) 888-2010; koshercajun.com — This New York-style deli specializes in sandwiches, including corned beef and pastrami that come from the Bronx. Takeout available. L Sun-Thu, D Mon-Thu. $ Mark Twain’s Pizza Landing — 2035 Metairie Road, Metairie, (504) 832-8032; marktwainpizza.com — Mark Twain’s serves salads, po-boys and pies like the Italian pizza with salami, tomato, artichoke, sausage and basil. Takeout and curbside pickup are available. L Tue-Sat, D Tue-Sun. $ Theo’s Neighborhood Pizza — 2125 Veterans Memorial Blvd., Metairie, (504) 510-4282; theospizza.com — See Harahan/Jefferson section for restaurant description. $
Mosca’s Restaurant (4137 Highway 90 West, Westwego, 504-436-8950; moscasrestaurant.com) serves platters of chicken cacciatore and chicken a la grande.
Doson Noodle House — 135 N. Carrollton Ave., (504) 309-7283; facebook.com/dosonnoodlehouse — Bun thit is Vietnamese-style grilled pork with cucumber, onions, lettuce, mint, cilantro and fish sauce served over rice or vermicelli. The menu includes pho, spring rolls and more. Takeout, curbside pickup and delivery are available. $$ Five Happiness — 3511 S. Carrollton Ave., (504) 482-3935; fivehappiness.com — The large menu of Chinese dishes includes wonton soup, sizzling seafood combinations served on a hot plate, sizzling Go-Ba and lo mein dishes. Takeout and delivery available. $$ Katie’s Restaurant — 3701 Iberville St., (504) 488-6582; katiesinmidcity.com — Favorites include the Cajun Cuban with roasted pork, grilled ham, cheese and pickles pressed on buttered bread. The Boudreaux pizza is topped with cochon de lait, spinach, red onions, roasted garlic and scallions. Takeout, curbside pickup and delivery available. L and D Tue-Sun. $$ Nonna Mia — 3125 Esplanade Ave., (504) 948-1717; nonnamianola.com — A Divine Portobello appetizer features chicken breast, spinach in red pepper sauce and crostini. The menu includes salads, sandwiches, pasta, pizza and more. Curbside pickup and delivery are available. Service daily. $$ Theo’s Neighborhood Pizza — 4024 Canal St., (504) 302-1133; theospizza.com — See Harahan/Jefferson section for restaurant description. $
NORTHSHORE Theo’s Neighborhood Pizza — 70488 Highway 21, Covington, (985) 234-9420; theospizza.com — See Harahan/Jefferson section for restaurant description. $
MID-CITY/TREME
UPTOWN
Angelo Brocato’s — 214 N. Carrollton Ave., (504) 486-1465; angelobrocatoicecream. com — This sweet shop serves its own gelato, spumoni, Italian ice, cannolis, fig cookies and other treats. Window and curbside pickup. L, D Tue-Sun. $ Brown Butter Southern Kitchen & Bar — 231 N. Carrollton Ave., Suite C, (504) 6093871; brownbutterrestaurant.com — Sample items include smoked brisket served with smoked apple barbecue sauce, smoked heirloom beans and vinegar slaw. A Brunch burger features a brisket and short rib patty topped with bacon, brie, a fried egg, onion jam and arugula on a brioche bun. Dine-in, takeout, curbside pickup and delivery available. L and D Wed-Sat, brunch Sat-Sun. $$
Joey K’s — 3001 Magazine St., (504) 8910997; joeyksrestaurant.com — The menu includes fried seafood platters, salads, sandwiches and red beans and rice. Sauteed trout Tchoupitoulas is topped with shrimp and crabmeat and served with vegetables and potatoes. Takeout and delivery available. $$ Red Gravy — 4206 Magazine St., (504) 561-8844; redgravycafe.com — Thin cannoli pancakes are filled with cannoli cream and topped with chocolate. The menu includes brunch items, pasta dishes, sandwiches, baked goods and more. Takeout available. $$ Theo’s Neighborhood Pizza — 4218 Magazine St., (504) 894-8554; theospizza. com — See Harahan/Jefferson section for restaurant description. $
Tito’s Ceviche & Pisco — 5015 Magazine St., (504) 267-7612; titoscevichepisco.com — The Peruvian menu includes a version of the traditional dish lomo saltado, featuring beef tenderloin tips sauteed with onions, tomatoes, cilantro, soy sauce and pisco, and served with fried potatoes and rice. Dine-in, outdoor seating and delivery available. L and D Mon-Sat., brunch Sun. $$$
WAREHOUSE DISTRICT Annunciation — 1016 Annunciation St., (504) 568-0245; annunciationrestaurant.com — The menu highlights Gulf seafood in Creole, Cajun and Southern dishes. Fried oysters and skewered bacon are served with meuniere sauce and toasted French bread. Reservations required. D Thu-Sun. $$$ Carmo — 527 Julia St., (504) 875-4132; cafecarmo.com — Carmo salad includes smoked ham, avocado, pineapple, almonds, cashews, raisins, cucumber, green pepper, rice, lettuce, cilantro and citrus mango vinaigrette. The menu includes dishes inspired by tropical cuisines. Takeout and delivery are available. Mon-Sat. $$ NOLA Caye — 898 Baronne St., (504) 302-1302; nolacaye.com — The menu features Caribbean-inspired dishes and Gulf seafood. Seared ahi tuna is served with mango, avocado, mixed greens, citrus vinaigrette and sesame seeds. Takeout, delivery and outdoor seating available. D daily, brunch Sat-Sun. $$$ Provisions Grab-n-Go Marketplace — Higgins Hotel, 500 Andrew Higgins Blvd., (504) 528-1941; higgingshotelnola.com — The coffeeshop serves salads, sandwiches, pastries and more. Takeout available. Service daily. $
WEST BANK Mosca’s — 4137 Highway 90 West, Westwego, (504) 436-8950; moscasrestaurant.com — This family-style eatery serves shrimp Mosca, chicken a la grande and baked oysters Mosca, made with breadcrumbs and Italian seasonings. Curbside pickup available. D Wed-Sat. Cash only. $$$ Specialty Italian Bistro — 2330 Belle Chasse Hwy., Gretna, (504) 391-1090; specialtyitalianbistro.com — The menu combines Old World Italian favorites and pizza. Paneed chicken piccata is topped with lemon-caper piccata sauce served with angel hair pasta, salad and garlic cheese bread. Takeout and delivery available. Service daily. $$
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FILM
WIN A
BY WILL COVIELLO
ONCE IN A BLUE MOON
STAYCATION IN “KEEP AN EYE OUT,” BURON IS A POLICE OFFICER interrogating
Fugain about a homicide that he has reported. It’s late at night in a nearly empty police station, and Buron, played by Belgian actor Benoit Poelvoorde, pecks with two fingers on a typewriter. He’s determined to work through the night on his investigation, but also finds many reasons to interrupt the process. Fugain, played by French comedian and actor Gregoire Ludig, doesn’t seem particularly concerned, although Buron is questioning whether he is a murderer. Fugain says he’s hungry and would rather they resume the investigation in the morning. When Buron needs to leave the office, he asks another policeman to “keep an eye” on his suspect. Though he’s the only other person in the room, Philippe (Marc Fraize) doesn’t want to be bothered — or keep one eye on Fugain. When Buron insists, Philippe turns to embrace the task, revealing that he has only one eye. It seems like a bad joke in the making. This mix of obvious and dark humor is French director Quentin Dupieux’s signature. Dupieux, who also is an electronic musician who performs as Mr. Oizo, has carved out a niche for his offbeat films. He made his mark with “Rubber,” a sort of conceptual slasher film about a killer tire that rolls through the tumbleweed towns in the American southwest. The tire hides out in cheap hotels and menaces the highways with the police in pursuit. More recently, Dupieux released “Deerskin,” about a man who believes a deerskin jacket will imbue him with a little more personality. He becomes obsessive about the jacket and starts making a film about himself in the jacket, which escalates in an absurd and violent direction.
P H OTO P R OV I D E D B Y D E K A N A LO G
“Keep an Eye Out” is similarly quirky, but also is borderline surreal. One character smokes out of a hole in his chest. Buron brainstorms possible alibis for Fugain, as if his only duty is to record any good story on his crime report. Fugain claims that he doesn’t know how he came to find a dead body outside his apartment. But he goes out of his way to cover up things for which he is not responsible. Dupieux also seems to bend time. There are scenes with Fugain and Philippe’s wife, Fiona (Anais Demoustier), in which they talk about events that have not yet happened and are the reason that they would meet each other. It’s not clear whether Fugain is imagining the encounters, or if Dupieux is toying with magical realism as he advances his story. The film is visually stylized in a way that gives it character, as in many Coen brothers movies. The police offices and wardrobe are mostly in beige and brown, with a retro 1970s style. Characters appearances are quirky, like Fugain with his bushy mustache, or comically unflattering. While there are some abrupt happenings and dead bodies, the movie is more absurd. The pace is slow, and the movie is short for a feature. The banter between Buron and Fugain seems like it’s meant to do a lot to carry the film’s humor. The movie is in French, and the English subtitles don’t do any favors for that tension. As with previous films, Dupieux sticks to his concept, though the deadpan humor here doesn’t revolve around something as obvious as a fetishized killer tire or obnoxious jacket. “Keep an Eye Out” opens March 5 at Zeitgeist Theatre & Lounge.
Submit a photo of YOUR favorite Blue Moon moments to enter to win a night at select hotels, a gift card to Kayak-iti-Yat AND a $1,000 gift card to use at your favorite New Orleans bars and restaurants.
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Eyewitness
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MUSIC
WORDS
Always move forward
Baldwin & Co. opens in Marigny
BY JAKE CLAPP PROGRESS NEVER STOPS. Musician Dominic Minix wanted to reflect that in the new music compilation “Works on Progress.” It’s in the title: Progress is constantly being worked for — by citizens, activists, musicians, artists — in racial equity, policing, education and countless other areas of American life. “There’s no finality in this,” says Minix, who curated the album, which features music by Black, Indigenous and people of color in the New Orleans community. “I believe that artists have a role in progress, in how we think and how we construct our world.” “Works on Progress” was released on Feb. 26, and every dollar from the sale of the album will go directly to the featured BIPOC artists. The title takes on added meanings in relation to the new compilation: Progress is in the works in addressing equity for musicians of color and in breaking out of any genre stereotypes. Minix curated the album for Community Records, which teamed up with Strange Daisy Records, Defend New Orleans and New Orleans Record Press to issue it on vinyl. All production costs were covered by the labels. Community Records announced the project late last fall in response to the national uprisings against white supremacy and police brutality. “I think the idea of ‘Works on Progress’ became necessary because the music industry, and especially New Orleans, has a tradition of exploiting Black artists,” Minix says. “So, (we’re) trying to build a new model for how artists can work with record labels in the future.” “Works on Progress,” which is labeled “Vol. 1,” features tracks by AF THE NAYSAYER, Frewuhn, Minix, Xavier Molina and more. The album cover was created by artist Langston Allston. The songs on the 12-track album smash apart styles and genre labels. “I think all of these artists maintain a certain artistic integrity,” Minix says. “It’s people who’ve stuck with this work — whatever this idea of ‘works on progress’ represents, the idea of doing things differently.” These artists and tracks, Minix says, question the restrictive “idea of genre,” and demonstrate that Black American music is complex, far-ranging — and crucial to American culture. Minix points to trumpeter Nicholas Payton’s writings about rejecting the genre term “jazz”
BY IAN MCNULTY ON A RECENT SATURDAY, D.J. JOHNSON walked
P R OV I D E D P H OTO B Y C A M I L L E L E N A I N
New Orleans singer-songwriter Dominic Minix curated the new compilation ‘Works on Progress.’
and promoting Black American Music: “When Black American Music became ‘jazz,’ it separated itself from the American popular music idiom,” Payton wrote in 2011. “I’m just trying to take it back to its roots.” “Black American music is a very expansive idea, expansive term, and I think this record is evidence of that,” Minix says. Musician Gabrielle Washington appears twice on “Works on Progress”: On the new, shimmering Sexy Dex and the Fresh song “Endless Bummer” and as her solo project Delores Galore with “CONTINUE?” The name for her Delores Galore song came from the video game “Tekken,” Washington says. It’s the option shown when the player loses the fight. “You can continue the challenge, or you can give up and end the game and just let it go,” she says. “When it comes to any challenges I’ve had in relationships with work, it definitely just has to do with that — feeling challenged and not really knowing how to handle it. Asking yourself, ‘is it worth it?’ ” A new music video for “CONTINUE?” also was released last week. And Washington and Sexy Dex guitarist-vocalist Dexter Gilmore host a weekly music show, “The Chamber,” on YouTube and Twitch. “I felt really passionate about ‘Works on Progress’ after hearing about the goals and the mission,” Washington says, “because that’s what I stand for: bringing community together and bringing attention to Black artists and to artists that aren’t seen enough.” Washington says including “CONTINUE?” on the compilation also allowed her to showcase her vocals and put her work into new ears. “I’m just creating,” she says, “because I deserve to do that.”
out of his new bookstore and coffee shop Baldwin & Co., greeted friends and well wishers arrayed in front and cut a ceremonial ribbon to officially open the next phase of a development he is gradually building at the corner of Elysian Fields and Saint Claude avenues. Baldwin & Co., named after the writer and activist James Baldwin, has a mission built on community outreach, education and what Johnson calls the “growth mindset.” “This is a place for people to come and engage in interpersonal conversation,” Johnson says. “To pick up a book and choose education over entertainment, pick conversation over texts.” Housed in what was once Gene’s Curbside Daiquiris at 1030 Elysian Fields Ave., this new coffee house and bookstore was designed with different ways to pursue that goal. Baldwin & Co. will be a hub for literacy programs, book clubs and other outreach efforts. The space has a honeycomb pattern of black tile and bare floorboards. Counters with seats for two jut from the brick walls. James Baldwin’s face, painted on the spines of old books, looks out from the display shelves stocked with new ones, including literature, business, history and children’s books. The verses of the Langston Hughes poem “I, Too” line another wall. At the back of the shop, there’s an audio studio, encased in glass between wood beams, equipped with gear for recording podcasts. The coffee bar has the standards, lattes made with healthy spices and supplements, and a list of specialty drinks named for some of Baldwin’s works. Altogether, it represents the next phase of a local Black entrepreneur’s vision for the convergence of art, literature and civic interaction, balanced by a cup of coffee or, to work in the project’s first phase, a Sazerac. Johnson, 40, grew up nearby on Painters Street in the 8th Ward, the middle child in a family of seven kids. He went on to become an information technology professional in Atlanta. When he moved back to
P H OTO B Y S O P H I A G E R M E R / T H E T I M E S - P I C AY U N E | T H E N E W O R L E A N S A DVO C AT E
New Orleans, he wanted to reinvest in his hometown and create something new here. The vehicle he found for that goal was a cluster of buildings centered around the longtime home of Gene’s Po-boys. Known for round-the-clock hours, hot sausage po-boys and a bright pink color scheme, Gene’s was in business for more than 50 years before its family owners closed it in 2019 and put the property up for sale. Speculation swirled that the complex of buildings would become condos. Instead, Johnson emerged as the new owner, and he began a multi-part redevelopment process to create different spaces for people to convene. The first phase of the project was NOLA Art Bar, a combination art gallery and lounge in a portion of the property that was formerly Ilys Bistro. Baldwin & Co. started taking shape next, while plans for the old po-boy shop itself are still in the works. Johnson got a brief taste of the potential here after opening NOLA Art Bar early in 2020, but, within weeks, the pandemic shut it all down. Getting back to business meant adding food, which had not been part of the original plan. Today, NOLA Art Bar serves charcuterie boards, tacos and snacks next to a list of cocktails. Outside, a one-time parking lot has become a patio for NOLA Art Bar. This space has now been expanded as open-air seating for Baldwin & Co. too. Baldwin and Co. opens as coffee shops across the city have simultaneously seen severe business disruptions from the pandemic and renewed appreciation for the spaces they provide at the intersection of hospitality and community. “This is about giving back to the community, which has given so much for me,” Johnson says.
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IN
PREMIER CROSSWORD PUZZLE SCRAMBLING TO GET THINGS DONE By Frank A. Longo
38 RSVP encl. 39 Ideologies 40 Kylo — (Darth Vader’s grandson) 41 British peer 42 Prefix with angle 43 Liquidy lump 44 Keaton argues back in a debate? 49 Longhorn’s gridiron rival 51 Anticipated 53 Downy quilt 54 Locke adds decorations? 57 Carders’ demands 60 Nothing more than 61 Work for 62 “ER” roles
63 Up — (cornered) 65 Cobra variety 66 Romero competes in a relay? 70 Ford marks a word for omission? 72 “7 Faces of Dr. —” (Tony Randall film) 73 Matt of “Good Will Hunting” 74 Links org. 75 FBI guy, e.g. 76 Words clarifying a spelling 78 Osaka money 79 Heaney makes people smile? 84 Fiber for hose
86 Kept safe 88 Submit taxes paperlessly 89 Leroux does a ballroom dance? 92 Santa — (desert winds) 95 Zero 96 Engrave 97 Singer Janis 98 Baseball’s Felipe or Moises 99 Scottish Celt 100 Thompson works as an usher? 104 Deane goes on a cruise? 106 Bush press secretary Fleischer 107 Old British gun 108 Alternative to Yahoo 109 Russia’s — -Tass 110 One of Janet Jackson’s sisters 112 Wiig mends a sweater? 119 Precursor to web forums 120 Tartish brew 121 Peanut butter cup brand 122 Composed 123 Transition zone between plant communities 124 Will subject
GARDEN DISTRICT OFFICE 2016 & 2017
24 “Am not!” comeback 29 Funeral stand 31 These, in Mexico 32 Slowly, musically 33 Winner’s hand gesture 34 Tough dude’s self-assertion 35 Surpasses 36 Cost of cards 37 Picture book 40 Devastates 43 Actor Depardieu 44 Poet-singers 45 Tweaks text 46 Of the middle eye layer 47 Concise 48 Footfalls 50 Mental flash 52 Part of NOW 55 Matrix 56 Jim Croce’s “I Got —” 58 Wine barrel residue 59 Actress Blair 63 “There Is Nothin’ Like —” 64 “Daniel Boone” actor 66 Trolley sound 67 Cushy course 68 Stains 69 Winding-line dance 70 “Yipes!” 71 Adequate, to Li’l Abner
ABR, CRS, GRI, SFR, SRS
74 Argentina’s Juan or Eva 77 Lecture jottings 79 Long stories 80 Politico Mo 81 Exodus peak 82 Architect Saarinen 83 Peddles 85 “So far, no” 87 Army group 90 Univ. in Raleigh 91 Fare-well link 93 Condition in outer space 94 Morally strict 98 Actress Quinn 99 Precious red stone 100 Bone of the 103-Down 101 Scratch out 102 Located 103 Foot-leg joint 104 — voce (softly) 105 “— alive!” 108 At — time (prearranged) 111 Words before dare or diet 113 Rocker Ocasek 114 “I believe,” to a texter 115 Scot’s denial 116 “There — god!” 117 New Year in Vietnam 118 MI-to-SC dir.
DOWN 1 Ogre of myth 2 “Uh-uh” 3 Scratch (out) 4 Chicken with long, soft plumage 5 Curvy letters 6 Herb of the parsley family 7 Actor Linden 8 Ryan and Tatum of film 9 Fib tellers 10 Family rec facility 11 Infant cry 12 Lunched, e.g. 13 Lovers’ flowers, in Spain 14 Superb 15 Native 16 Wrath 17 Physicist Enrico 18 Case hearing 19 Goes it alone
ANSWERS FOR LAST ISSUE’S PUZZLE: P 2
PUZZLES
ACROSS 1 “Just a moment!” 7 Crusade 14 Changes gears 20 Debonair 21 Spiritedly, in music 22 Bull battler 23 Clinton drains material away by percolation? 25 Celebrity chef Lagasse 26 Deborah of “Separate Tables” 27 Coach Parseghian 28 Competent 30 “Red Book” chairman 31 Presley wears a disguise? 35 Rathbone jumps ship?
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