Gambit: May 10, 2022

May 10-16 2022 Volume 43 Number 19

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MAY 10 — MAY 16, 2022 VOLUME 43 || NUMBER 19

CONTENTS

NEWS Opening Gambit ...............................7 PERUANO

VEGAN + VEGETARIAN OPTIONS!

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VEGAN,

VEGETARIAN + GLUTEN FREE MENUS!

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(504) 486-5900. 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 2022 Capital City Press, LLC. All rights reserved.

5

Radio Waves

Tank and the Bangas write next chapter on ‘Red Balloon’ WHEN YOU PUT ON “RED BALLOON,” YOU’RE TUNING INTO Tank and the

Bangas radio. TATB-FM, hosted

by Wayne Brady, Questlove and DJ Soul Sister: 50 minutes of uninterrupted, genre-blending, genre-bending truth.

Tank and the Bangas’ newest record — their third studio album and the second for a major label — flows like the listener finally found the right station, minus obnoxious commercial breaks. There were a few reasons for it, says lead singer Tarriona “Tank” Ball.

“Number one, as soon as I get in my car, I listen to the radio for maybe five seconds and then I hurry up plugging in my Bluetooth and listen to what I want to listen to. The radio has just changed so much — radio is just kind of on its very weird path,” she says. “Number two, we want to be what you listen to when you go in your car. We want to be your radio. And number three, we put out such cool music during quarantine that we want to bring you on a journey, from ‘Green Balloon’ to the ‘Friend Goals’ and now to ‘Red Balloon.’”

“And who better to introduce it than fucking Wayne Brady,” she adds with a laugh.

“Red Balloon” is out Friday, May 13, on Verve Forecast.

Tank and the Bangas have always been a busy band, ever since Ball, drummer Joshua Johnson and keyboardist Norman Spence formed the group out of an open-mic at Algiers’ Liberation Lounge. Saxophonist and flutist Albert Allenback joined the band soon after.

They played constantly in New Orleans venues and around the region before releasing “Think Tank” in 2013 and a live album a year later.

But after their 2017 NPR Tiny Desk Contest win, the band has been seemingly everywhere all at once.

“It’s everything we used to do, only on 100,” Ball told Gambit in 2018.

The band signed to Verve Forecast, and their acclaimed second album, “Green Balloon” followed in 2019 — earning the band a Grammy nomination for best new artist. And they played “The Tonight Show,” the “Today Show,” “Austin City Limits” and festivals all over the world.

All of that to say: “Red Balloon” is the result of Tank and the Bangas being forced to take a break. The pandemic took the band off the road in early 2020 and gave the

|

by Jake Clapp

members a chance to catch their breath (Although they did release the guestladen EP “Friend Goals” in late 2020.)

“I think it made us more comfortable in the studio,” Ball says. At the height of the shutdowns, when the band members couldn’t be in the same room, they would have to send over keyboards and basslines. But once they could regroup — recording in New Orleans and at Revival Studios in Los Angeles — they felt more confident and trusting in each other.

They were able to “conduct things naturally, organically,” Ball says.

“We surprised our own selves at the sounds that came out.”

“Red Balloon” is a 16-track representation of who Tank and the Bangas are at this moment. The album blurs pop, soul, gospel, spoken word, hip-hop, bounce and more in a natural blend of inspirations. In her remarkable, elastic voice, Ball sings and raps and observes a range of emotional topics — social justice, love, heartbreak, anxiety, pleasure.

There are robust celebrations of Black life. And there are reminders of the world’s precariousness, from forces like climate change and human greed.

The album is a mature follow-up to “Green Balloon.”

“When we came out with ‘Green Balloon,’ there was always going to be a ‘Red Balloon,’” Ball says.

The band had envisioned a corresponding “double-disc” with time between the two releases.

The green side would be the fun, bouncing, cool “kid side” and the follow-up would showcase the more passionate, intense, musically-driven aspects of the band, the “growing up” aspect of life.

“We thought, wouldn’t it be awesome to wait a couple of years and then come out with ‘Red Balloon’ and then see how we’ve grown musically, spiritually, emotionally,” Ball says.

“And that’s exactly what happened.”

Along with Brady, Questlove and DJ Soul Sister chiming in for TATB-FM, “Red Balloon” features

Sylvan Esso

SINGER AMELIA MEATH AND PRODUCER AND MULTI-INSTRUMENTALIST Nick

Sanborn make music filled with contradictions as the electropop duo Sylvan Esso. The structure is simple — vocals and beats — but the sound is complex and expansive. The songs might be upbeat, but things get heavy the closer you pay attention. There’s both fragility and strength. “At the heart of Sylvan Esso is this really fun argument,” Meath has said. “Nick wants things to sound unsettling, but I want you take your shirt off and dance.” The duo’s latest album is the Grammynominated “Free Love.” Sylvan Esso plays at 8 p.m. Thursday, May 12, at The Fillmore. Tickets start at $29.50 at livenation.com.

PROVIDED PHOTO BY J E R E M Y TA U R I A C

guests including Trombone Shorty, Big Freedia, Jacob Collier, Alex Isley, Lalah Hathaway, Jamison Ross and Masego.

In early April, Tank and the Bangas headlined French Quarter Fest — their first headlining gig at a major hometown festival — and played a Saturday set at Jazz Fest.

Each set opened with two members of Team Slam New Orleans evangelizing about life in New Orleans, both its beauty and its hazards.

This summer, Tank and the Bangas will take “Red Balloon” on the road on tour with Trombone Shorty and Big Freedia.

Ball hopes listeners see “Red Balloon” as an “album you can listen through without any skips, and that the radio needs to think differently about what they’re putting out there, not only to the world of listeners, but to people of color, people that need much more than what the radio has been bringing to truly start off the day with a positive motion in mind,” she says.

“We want to be part of the wave of making music that feels good,” Ball adds. “That you could go to on a Sunday at Jazz Fest, when you can’t wait to see Maze and Frankie Beverly because they made music that touched a soul and brought back memories and made you want to wear your white. I want to be part of the legacy of great albums, musicians and good music.”

Find more at tankandthebangas.com.

PROVIDED PHOTO BY SHERVIN L AINEZ

‘Don Quixote’

AMERICAN BALLET THEATRE PERFORMS THE CLASSIC BALLET adapta-

tion of the story of Don Quixote and his sidekick Sancho Panza with choreography based on the Russian versions of Marius Petipa and Alexander Gorsky. The Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra performs the score. Presented by the New Orleans Ballet Association at the Mahalia Jackson Theater for the Performing Arts at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, May 14, and 2 p.m.

Sunday, May 15. Find tickets via nobadance.com.

Toro y Moi

CHAZ BEAR, WHO RECORDS AND PERFORMS AS TORO Y MOI, released his

latest studio album, “Mahal,” in late April. It’s another collection of his soft vocals over electropop, with a dose of ’60s and ’70s psychedelic PAGE 25

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NEW ORLEANS NEWS + VIEWS

Women’s Rights Are Human Rights

#

T H U M B S U P/ THUMBS DOWN

THE COUNT

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The Louisiana House Education Committee voted down a bill

banning public school teachers from discussing sexual orientation or gender identity in the classroom. The measure, HB 837, has been called Louisiana’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill and was brought by state Rep. Dodie Horton, R-Haughton. Four Republican committee members voted for the bill while four Democrats and three Republicans voted no.

PHOTO BY JOSE LUIS MAGANA / THE AP

Demonstrators protest outside of the Supreme Court May 3, 2022.

What to know about the state of abortion in Louisiana following that Supreme Court leak AFTERMONDAY NIGHT’SNEWS THATTHE SUPREMECOURTIS POISED TO overturn

The Louisiana House voted

without debate to remove Robert E. Lee Day and Confederate Memorial Day from the state’s official list of holidays.

The long-overdue measure, HB 248 by Rep. Matt Willard, D-New Orleans, passed 62-20 and now goes to the state Senate. The bill also removed Huey P. Long’s birthday from the holiday list.

Students from NET Charter, Frederick A. Douglass and Ben Franklin high schools will travel

to the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado this summer to present their solutions to some of New Orleans’ biggest problems. The three teams, along with groups from 15 other New Orleans public schools, recently competed in the local portion of the Aspen Challenge, which prompted teens to dream big in solving pressing problems from infrastructure to food security.

abortion rights that have existed for almost 50 years, people understandably have a lot of questions about the future of reproductive rights access, especially in the South. Here’s what we know so far.

What happened Monday?

Politico obtained a draft of the Supreme Court’s majority opinion on its pending case surrounding Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban.

The opinion by Justice Samuel Alito overturns Roe v. Wade outright — calling the decision “egregiously wrong from the start.”

At the time of the draft, conservative justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett had signed onto the opinion. In the draft, Alito repeatedly refers to physicians who provide abortions as “abortionists,” a term commonly used by anti-abortion activists to delegitimize them. The term calls back to a time pre-Roe when there were unsafe, backroom abortions, despite the fact that legal abortion is safe now.

Overturning Roe doesn’t outlaw abortion. It takes away the legal right to abortion and lets states decide whether or not to allow it. But until the court actually releases its decision, Roe still stands, and abortion is still legal

in Louisiana up to 22 weeks after a person’s last period.

What this means for Louisiana

Louisiana has one of the most anti-abortion climates in the nation.

Republicans and a significant number of Democrats in the legislature are against abortion, allowing abortion restrictions to fly through the legislature and be signed by governors over the years.

If the Supreme Court keeps its opinion as is and completely overturns Roe v. Wade, abortion will be illegal in Louisiana as soon as the court officially issues its ruling.

There will be no exceptions for pregnancies that are a result of rape or incest. The only exception will be to save the life of a pregnant person.

The state’s three remaining abortion clinics — in New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Shreveport — would immediately close. Neighboring states would also ban abortion outright, meaning a Louisiana resident could have to travel as far as Illinois to access abortion care legally.

That’s not going to be an option for so many people in the state. Current restrictions are too expensive for many people to access an abortion in state.

There’s the cost of the abortion, which becomes more expensive the further along a person PAGE 8

THE NUMBER OF STATES, AT MINIMUM, NEW ORLEANIANS WOULD HAVE TO DRIVE THROUGH IN ORDER TO ACCESS ABORTION CARE IN A STATE WHERE IT IS PROTECTED BY LAW IF THE SUPREME COURT KEEPS ITS RECENTLY LEAKED OPINION TO OVERTURN ROE V. WADE. Louisiana is one of the most anti-abortion states in the country, with a trigger law that would immediately ban abortion in the state if the 1973 ruling is overturned.

The state would shut down its three clinics, forcing pregnant people to travel as far as Illinois to access care. Additionally, 23 other states, many of them in the South, would also institute abortion bans.

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is in their pregnancy. Next, the state makes a person come to an abortion clinic for an initial visit, and then wait 72 hours before getting an abortion. That means people have to find and afford transportation to visit the abortion clinic twice, and those who live far enough away may end up needing to get a hotel room.

Poor people and people of color feel the brunt of this impact now, and overturning Roe will further exacerbate that disparity.

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People ending a pregnancy within ten weeks will likely have a medication abortion. It requires no surgery or procedure, but rather two pills taken 24-48 hours apart.

Even though the Food and Drug Administration decided in December to permanently allow people to receive abortion pills through the mail and take them at home, state law only lets licensed Louisiana physicians prescribe them.

The pregnant person has to take the first pill at one of the state’s three abortion clinics, but the second one can be taken at home the next day.

It’s currently a misdemeanor to order prescription drugs without a Louisiana prescription, which applies to drugs needed for an abortion, too. But reproductive rights attorney Ellie Schilling said her “understanding is that people are rarely, if ever, charged in this context or any other.”

A bill by Sen. Sharon Hewitt, a Slidell Republican, takes current law a step further and makes it a felony for a medical professional to prescribe medication abortion remotely and send the pills through the mail.

Under the bill, “delivering, dispensing, distributing, or providing a pregnant woman with an abortion-inducing drug when the person administering the drug is not a physician licensed by the state” would be a crime that could result in a prison sentence ranging from one to five years, a fine between $5,000 and $50,000 dollars or both.

Since she first brought the bill forth, she added language to it stating there wouldn’t be criminal penalties for the pregnant person receiving or taking the medication.

“Hewitt’s bill is intended to, and will be, the nail in the coffin,” Schilling said.

Local abortion funds at work Abortion rights advocates want to make sure people know that abortion is currently legal and that they can still schedule appointments.

Local abortion funds, like the New

Orleans Abortion Fund and the Goldstein Fund in North Louisiana, are still helping people access abortion care in the meantime.

“Thank you all SO much for your donations, love, and kindness,” the New Orleans Abortion Fund tweeted Tuesday morning. “We are still funding abortions and will do so until further notice.”

“We are still going to keep fighting no matter what happens,” said Jessica Frankel, coalition coordinator for the Louisiana Coalition for Reproductive Freedom.

— KAYLEE POCHE

New Orleans voters approve early childhood education tax

A NEW PROPERTY TAX THAT’S EXPECTED TO PULL IN $21 MILLION annually for

early childhood education in New Orleans passed by a wide margin in the April 30 election.

The tax proposition was the only item on the New Orleans ballot in Saturday’s election, leading to a low turnout in the city: 24,611 of the New Orleans’ 267,266 registered voters , with 347 out of 351 precincts — or about 99 percent of the city — tallied.

The revenue generated by the tax will fund an additional 1,000 early childhood education seats for New Orleans students. A state matching grant could double that, expanding the program to 2,000 seats. Either way, it will vastly expand the city’s current program which is funded at $3 million per year, creating 200 seats.

The New Orleans city government began directly funding early childhood education in 2018 with a $750,000 pilot program. The city doubled that investment to $1.5 million in 2019, and doubled it again in 2020 to reach $3 million.

Those funds are used to pay the tuition costs for private early childhood education programs for kids who can’t afford them.

The measure was championed by Mayor LaToya Cantrell. In the fall, New Orleans City Councilmember Helena Moreno backed it, introducing the ballot measure voters approved on Saturday.

“For years, this Council has fought for funding for Early Childhood Education because we know that this essential building block is out of reach for too many of our City’s children,” Moreno said in a released statement. “Studies conclusively show that Early Childhood education sets children on the path to greater academic and social success ... this millage is a strong step in that direction.” — MARTA JEWSON / THE LENS

Roe’s demise is just the beginning. It’s time for all to fight for freedom.

flounce + flirty linen dress

THE U.S. SUPREME COURT APPEARS POISED TO STRIKE DOWN ROE V. WADE, the land-

mark 1973 decision legalizing abortion in the United States, according to a leaked draft of a forthcoming court opinion by Justice Samuel Alito. If a majority of the court supports Alito’s draft opinion (or a similar version of it), the high court will likely do far more than overturn landmark abortion rights cases. For these and other reasons, the Alito opinion is an abhorrent attack on basic human rights — and a cudgel against guiding principles we as a nation have so imperfectly struggled to live up to.

The court’s official decision, which is expected within weeks, will mark the culmination of a decades-long effort by Republicans and the Religious Right to target hard-won (but far from complete) civil and human rights gains made by women, Black Americans, other people of color, migrants, the LGTBQ community and people with disabilities.

The fact that the movement to reverse those gains succeeded after Donald Trump appointed three conservative Supreme Court justices does not reflect a sudden nationwide tilt to the right: In fact, polling consistently shows Roe is popular with most Americans. Rather, it underscores the fragility of even the most fundamental American rights — and the persistence of right-wing ideologues who are hellbent on suppressing those rights.

Evidence abounds of the broad backlash against modern notions of justice, equality and decency.

Here in Louisiana, conservatives long ago prepared for this moment by adopting a “trigger” statute banning abortions immediately upon Roe’s demise with only a narrow exception to save the life of the pregnant person. Similarly, efforts to whitewash America’s history of racism and slavery have taken root as lawmakers consider measures to restrict educators’ ability to teach the horrors of slavery and the ways that racism continues to shape our society.

9

$98

lavender grey lime black

PHOTO BY ALEX BR ANDON / THE AP

A crowd of people gather outside the U.S. Supreme Court in the early hours of Tuesday, May 3.

Republican lawmakers in Baton Rouge are once again pushing legislation to legalize discrimination against transgender and non-binary children in our state.

Gov. John Bel Edwards vetoed a similar bill last year, and the GOPdominated Legislature came within a few votes of overriding him. But, as the Supreme Court’s imminent decision to overturn Roe shows, the enemies of equality never give up — and no win for a more just, equitable society is ever truly safe.

Given the current makeup of the U.S. Supreme Court and gerrymandered statehouses across the country, we will likely see more moments like this in the coming months and years. There are already movements in some states to erode voting rights in ways that will further disenfranchise Black voters. Marriage equality, workers’ rights and protections for people with disabilities are all threatened.

The fight for civil and human rights in America never ends, but we are at a breaking point. It is critical that all true believers in equality stand and be counted. In particular white, straight men — for whom these fights may seem less personal — must stand with women, people of color, migrants and the LGTBQ community to provide whatever support they need.

This struggle will be long and hard, but it is time for all Americans to do more than merely claim our nation’s guiding principles as their own.

They need to fight for them.

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Juvenile center scandal falls squarely in Cantrell’s lap A GROWING SCANDAL AT THE NEW ORLEANS JUVENILE JUSTICE INTERVENTION CENTER (JJIC)

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could become a political millstone around the neck of Mayor LaToya Cantrell, and it couldn’t happen at a worse time for her.

The JJIC functions as the city’s juvenile detention facility, the successor to the Youth Study Center. Last week, WWL-TV investigator Mike Perlstein exposed serious mismanagement — and worse — by former JJIC director Kyshun Webster.

Webster resigned hours before Perlstein’s first story aired on May 2, after taking about six weeks leave of absence. Now the City Council and the city’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) are asking questions about Webster’s tenure at JJIC. According to Perlstein’s multiple reports, Webster actually made a bad situation much worse at JJIC. Current and former staffers described his management style as “intimidating,” morale as “horrible,” and working for Webster akin to “walking on eggshells.”

While those could be dismissed as subjective comments, city Civil Service records back up that assessment. Webster took over the facility in October 2018. Since January 2019, 50 JJIC employees were fired and another 79 left voluntarily. After four JJIC detainees escaped on Jan. 12, Webster admitted that the facility had only 47 of its budgeted 103 employees.

Webster also had a record of absenteeism. He owns an insurance business and spent a lot of city time there, according to Perlstein — some of it with Cantrell’s permission. Word has it the OIG is about to document significant absenteeism by Webster.

Given all that, one has to wonder if there were any warning signs before Cantrell hired Webster.

Actually, there were.

Ten years ago, Webster ran a successful educational nonprofit into the ground while paying

PHOTOS BY CHRIS GR ANGER AND MA X BECHERER / THE T I M E S - P I C AY U N E

Mayor LaToya Cantrell and Kyshun Webster himself $130,000 a year as CEO. A federal audit uncovered extravagant personal spending by Webster and more than $1 million in grant money unaccounted for.

At a time when juvenile crime is a hot-button issue in all corners of the city, this scandal puts Cantrell at the epicenter of New Orleans’ juvenile crime problem.

She can’t pass the buck when the person she put in charge of the long-dysfunctional juvenile lockup made the place even more dysfunctional — and spent time away from the job with her blessing. This one falls squarely in Cantrell’s lap.

Webster’s previous scandal also undercuts the mayor’s opposition to a proposed City Charter change that would give the City Council authority to vet — and potentially reject — key mayoral appointees. If Webster were the only problematic Cantrell appointee, the mayor would likely get a pass. He’s not.

Cantrell put a former short-term rental exec in change of regulating STRs just before the number of illegal STRs exploded all over town. She also put a guy in charge of her “smart city” program who co-founded (with another Cantrell staffer) a Delaware smart-city consulting firm that provided “pro bono” advice to tech giant Qualcomm, which coincidentally landed a piece of New Orleans’ smart city portfolio.

Turns out Heronner is providing a better argument for council oversight of mayoral appointments than proponents of the idea.

11

@GambitBlake | askblake@gambitweekly.com

Hey Blake,

Carved into the exterior of The Broad Theater are the names Sciambra and Masino. Who were they and what can you tell me about the building?

Dear reader,

ANTHONY J. SCIAMBRA AND PAUL MASINO JR. opened their

first plumbing business in 1917, working out of Sciambra’s home on St. Ann Street. As their business grew into a plumbing, heating and air conditioning company, they moved to St. Peter Street and then to 915 North Broad.

They later built a larger headquarters at 636-642 North Broad.

Designed by Emile Weil and built

by James A. Petty, the Spanish Mission-style structure boasted 8,000 feet of space, with a showroom, equipment room, offices and even a “ladies’ resting lounge.” The building opened in 1924.

“Two industrious, thrifty, plucky young plumbers, who were fellow workmen in 1917… in another man’s shop, are welcoming the public in a shop of their own,” reported The Times-Picayune in August 1924.

The newspaper called it “one of the prettiest buildings and most complete plants devoted to their industry in this city.”

PHOTO BY MA X BECHERER / T H E T I M E S - P I C AY U N E

The Broad Theater now occupies a building built by Anthony J. Sciambra and Paul Masino Jr. to house their plumbing business and showroom.

Sciambra and Masino were involved in construction projects for Touro, Ochsner and Charity hospitals, the Jung Hotel, Criminal Court, several schools and public housing developments. They stayed in business through the 1950s. Sciambra died in 1959 and Masino in 1961.

Once the company closed, the building was home to other businesses and even a boxing club and bingo hall. Over the past decade, Brian Knighten spent more than $1 million renovating the property into The Broad Theater, which opened in 2016. The Broadside, Knighten’s outdoor venue across the street from the theater, opened in 2020.

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BL AKEVIE W THIS WEEK MARKS THE 125TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTH of New Orleans native Sidney Bechet, known around the world as a jazz clarinet and soprano saxophone virtuoso. A profile by the New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park called him one of the four most influential jazz musicians during the art form’s first 50 years (along with Buddy Bolden, Louis Armstrong and Jelly Roll Morton).

Born on May 14, 1897, Bechet grew up in the 7th Ward and took up music at an early age. He studied from and worked alongside jazz pioneers Joe “King” Oliver, Bunk Johnson, Freddie Keppard, Clarence Williams and Duke Ellington, who later referred to Bechet as “the epitome of jazz.”

In the 1920s, Bechet became wildly popular in Europe, but was deported from France for his role in a shooting incident. He returned to the United States, performing in New York and scoring a hit in 1938 with his version of “Summertime.”

After resolving his legal troubles, Bechet returned to France in the 1940s, where he was regarded as a music icon and elder statesman of jazz. In 1951, he settled near Paris and continued to perform regularly. Two recordings he made there included a version of the old Creole song “Les Oignons” and his composition “Petite Fleur,” which would become one of his signature tunes.

Bechet died in France of lung cancer on his 62nd birthday in 1959.

Shortly before his death, he gave a series of oral history interviews which formed the autobiography “Treat It Gentle.”

There is a bronze bust honoring Bechet in Juan-les-Pins, France, with a replica here in Congo Square. In 2018, the French artist MTO created a mural of Bechet on the side of a building at North Claiborne Avenue and St. Anthony Street.

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HOW LONG CAN YOU KEEP KICKING T HE DOWN THE ROAD WHEN THE ROAD’S FALLING APART?

CAN

BY K AY L E E POCHE P H O T O B Y M A X B E C H E R E R / T H E T I M E S - P I C AY U N E

A car drives around a pothole on the 7500 block of Lacombe Street in March.

OVER ON WEBSTER STREET, Ellis Arjmand can’t drive to his house without going the wrong way down the one-way road thanks to a giant hole in the middle of the intersection at Webster and Perrier.

He’s been watching the situation worsen over the last few years. At first, the road started sinking around the manhole cover in the street. Then one day, a chunk of the road just fell through. More asphalt collapsed around it, and pieces broke off.

“There was just like this almost sinkhole with some loose asphalt over the top,” Arjmand says.

After many complaints to the city, a Sewerage & Water Board crew came out, dumped a bunch of gravel onto the hole and paved over it. Arjmand thought that was the end of the

saga — until about six months ago, when the road started sinking again.

“We kind of went through the same sequence: I complained, they put some cones up, it got worse and worse,” he says.

More than a month ago, S&WB brought a backhoe and removed some of the pavement, revealing an old rusty water pipe that had been leaking. They left some cones and yellow tape up, but the pipe was still leaking water.

Arjmand says S&WB officials recently patched the leaking water pipe that had caused the sinkhole, so for now it’s not getting worse. But replacing the broken pipe — and repairing the hole — is going to be quite an undertaking that will involve excavating part of the street. It’s been over a month since officials discovered the leak, and they still haven’t provided Arjmand with a timeline of when

they’re going to address the issue.

“You have a road that has a huge hole in it ... and there’s no plan to fix it,” he says.

It’s an all-too-familiar approach the city has taken to its failing infrastructure over the last several decades. The problem is not that the city’s not doing any work, but too often the work is focused on halting the immediate emergency rather than solving the underlying issues.

City leaders for decades have treated the symptoms of New Orleans’ crumbling infrastructure, rather than the actual causes, patching broken pipes instead of replacing them and filling potholes instead of repaving the street.

There’s any number of reasons officials have taken this approach: tight budgets; a history of poor communication and inefficiencies

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The Sewerage & Water Board’s Carrollton plant. between city agencies, the mayor, the council and the public; simple disregard or concerns about what’s politically popular. Whatever the reasons, it’s become an engrained part of government, doing business and living in New Orleans. Changes to this overall mentality won’t come easily.

“This city is really defined by the fact that in government, everyone kicks significant problems down the road,” says City Council Vice President JP Morrell.

Arjmand and West Carrollton resident Ariane Livaudais, who has been dealing with a host of issues living next to S&WB’s damaged and archaic turbines, have witnessed firsthand the frustration of such an approach.

“It seems like patchwork fixes rather than just investing in infrastructure and changing things to where they work and not MacGyvering everything,” Livaudais says.

———

Because of government officials’ often reactive approach to infrastructure — especially as the city has experienced so many extreme weather events — New Orleans’ roads and drainage systems have become so old and damaged they’ve reached a critical point.

It’s not solely the city’s fault.

When Hurricane Katrina and the federal levee failures flooded the city, the saltwater damaged many of the streets, but the city was limited in how it could spend FEMA money to repair them, according to Norma Jean Mattei, a civil and environmental engineering professor at

the University of New Orleans.

“That settlement could only be used on the portions of the streets that FEMA said, ‘This was what was damaged,’” Mattei says. “But sometimes you really should be replacing the entire street because it’s an older street, it’s in bad repair or it’s got utility problems not associated with Katrina, or maybe it was slightly associated with Katrina but it wasn’t part of the FEMA agreement.”

Massive infrastructure projects and replacing equipment, of course, come with a hefty price tag. But the cost of inaction and bandages can end up costing more in the long run, in addition to creating never-ending maladies for residents to suffer through in the meantime.

“Mayors and previous councils, they have said, ‘Eh, that’s really unpopular. I don’t want to do that right now.’ And that kind of goes through every vein of all the infrastructure problems in the city,” Morrell says. “Because no one’s been willing to tackle those issues and say, ‘Nope, this is a problem that’s only going to get worse. We need to go deal with it on the front end,’ that’s how we’ve gotten to today.”

Take, for example, the S&WB turbines at the Carrollton power plant running on power systems so antiquated they require custom equipment to accept modern power. The turbines serve as the S&WB’s power source for half of the city’s water system, but they’ve been plagued with problems ever since S&WB ran them with contaminated water to drain the city faster after Hurricane Katrina, damaging them in the process.

One of the turbine stacks has been releasing motor oil into the

15

Although individual, temporary solutions can seem cost effective, making patchwork fixes the foundation of your repair and maintenance approach can add up quickly over the years — and ultimately end up costing more. Since Katrina, The Times-Picayune reported in 2020, the S&WB spent more on repairs to another turbine, Turbine 4, than it would have cost to replace it with new equipment.

Of course, whether or not the substation will actually happen remains to be seen. The city isn’t projecting to complete the project for at least another two hurricane seasons, missing its original 2023 deadline and leaving the city’s drainage system vulnerable in the meantime. In January, Entergy backed out of an agreement to pay for part of the substation, forcing the city to scramble for additional funds.

Although the city council and Mayor LaToya Cantrell have cut a deal to make the first payment this month, any delays in future payments could set the project back further — and ultimately cost taxpayers more money.

Morrell says we wouldn’t be in this predicament had the city addressed the problem decades ago.

“There were instances, I’m sure, throughout the history of the city where a problem of that magnitude could have been tackled earlier for cheaper,” Morrell says. “Honestly, had we tackled this issue in the ‘80s or the ‘70s, it would have still been a problem and it would have been an expensive solution, but it probably wouldn’t have been cost-prohibitive.”

———

City council members say the way the city has handled its infrastructure has been an issue for decades, and that the current council and mayor face logistical hurdles in changing the tide.

“The city of New Orleans has not really changed its approach to infrastructure problems probably in 30 or 40 years,” Morrell says.

Council Member Joe Giarrusso recalls starting his first term on the council and calling the secretary for the Board of Liquidation. He had a bunch of questions about S&WB’s funding capacity he wanted answered.

To his surprise, the secretary started laughing. He didn’t get what was so funny.

“He responded, ‘I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing at the fact your grandfather called me 30 years ago and asked me the exact same questions you are right now,’” Giarrusso

PHOTO BY ELLIS AR JMAND

The sinkhole at the intersection of Webster and Perrier streets. says. “This has been a perennial problem for a long period of time.”

Even when there is money to spend on projects, getting basic information about infrastructure projects and their status can be difficult — even as a council member.

Morrell, a former state legislator, says the city government lags behind the state government in this regard because there’s no city equivalent he’s aware of to the state’s capital outlay plan, which outlines how much money has already been spent on infrastructure projects and how much needs to be spent to finish them.

The council recently ran into this problem when they were looking for money to fund the new substation.

“If I were in the state legislature, what I would have done is I would have pulled House Bill 2 from the previous year to see which projects were shovel ready and moved the money,” Morrell says, “and it would have taken me probably 15 minutes.”

Instead, council members had to call individual departments for this information to determine where the money should go in “this really haphazard way that took a long time, almost several weeks,” according to Morrell. He says he’s working on legislation to require an annual “public and transparent capital plan for the city.”

Council members are also starting the budget process in May this year, rather than October, in hopes of being able to improve communication with departments about what funding needs they have.

Additionally, they’ve been tackling unifying the city’s drainage system.

Currently, S&WB and the Department of Public Works split responsibility for the city’s pipes, depending on the size of the pipes. Consolidating this responsibility is something people have proposed for a while. In a 2011 report on S&WB, the Bureau of Governmental Research, a local research nonprofit, recommended doing so.

“However, it would not solve a root cause of much of the street flooding in New Orleans: inadequate funding for maintenance,” the report noted.

———

More than a decade after that report, New Orleans finally has money to begin to put a dent in its infrastructure needs. There’s FEMA money, a $500 million bond issuance voters approved in 2019, American Rescue Plan dollars and potentially Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act dollars. Giarrusso says this will clock in at around $3 billion of the estimated $9 billion the city needs for its infrastructure.

Council members say it’s a nowor-never opportunity to make massive investments in the city’s infrastructure, especially on big long-term projects.

“We’ve been fortunate in a very black comedy kind of way that we’ve had so many disasters, both locally and nationally, that resources have been freed up and are available to tackle some of this backlog of problems,” Morrell says.

“If we don’t tackle these backlogs of problems with stuff like the American Rescue Act money, then these problems will continue to be too expensive to ever really tackle.”

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neighborhood, leaving residue on residents’ homes, lawns and vehicles that’s not easy to get off.

Neighbors have, of course, repeatedly complained. After weeks of not getting a response, S&WB officials finally acknowledged there was a problem, and they’d fix it — at some point.

“It may be another year before repairs progress enough to make a difference in the problem,” the Uptown Messenger reported in an article on the issue.

That Uptown Messenger story isn’t new. That was in 2013, and after nearly a decade, neighbors are still dealing with the oily residue.

While S&WB has provided some repairs to the turbines over the years, they’ve been temporary fixes at best and none of them have gotten to the root of the issue.

The agency spent a year repairing Turbine 5 after it failed in 2017 — only for it to explode in December 2019, injuring three workers and damaging nearby homes. Livaudais, who lives on Spruce Street, says the explosion shook her house, cracked all the drywall in her ceiling and broke her neighbors’ windows.

“If I knew what a bomb was like, that’s what I’d guess it was like,” she says.

The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality and S&WB conducted an inspection on March 4 in response to a complaint “regarding turbines malfunctioning and ‘flinging’ diesel on nearby neighborhood.” On April 18, DEQ cited S&WB for leaking oil into the neighborhood, WWL-TV reported.

S&WB spokesperson Grace Birch says the agency is currently conducting an internal investigation and is “committed to finding the cause of any potential discharge of oily fluids.” The agency has scheduled for General Electric to inspect Turbine 5 the week of May 23, Birch says.

City officials finally have a longterm plan to address the ongoing problems with Turbine 5. By building an S&WB substation — that runs on modern power from Entergy — they can use that as the primary source of power, instead of the turbines.

Though it’s a massive $74 million project, the plan presents longterm solutions to the problems that West Carrollton residents have been living with for the last decade.

Both the old and new turbines would then be the backup power source, potentially phasing out the emergency diesel generators that have created noise pollution so loud it’s kept neighbors from sleeping at night.

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Morrell says this will involve a lot of oversight from the council on how the city’s spending this money — taking into account the potential for receiving more funds down the line.

“The council needs to be bullish on being good stewards of this one-time money to attack the very challenging financial obstacles that face a lot of these one-time legacy projects that have not been tackled directly,” he says.

Morrell says the council sees this first portion of money from the American Rescue Plan — the $1.9 trillion economic stimulus bill the federal government passed last year — as a “test” to see how local governments spend these dollars. Municipalities will have to try to get the second half of those funds through a competitive grant process.

The way he sees it, New Orleans needs to invest in projects that address infrastructure challenges and take climate change into consideration to get that money.

“If we permit this money to be spent solely on things like random pet projects, and shoring up the existing

TAKEOUT and DELIVERY

budget shortfall, I think that it’s going to significantly hurt and ruin our ability to get access to that second half of money,” Morrell says.

Giarrusso says he hopes that using this wave of federal money to complete major projects will help the city not only play catch-up on its infrastructure woes, but eventually pave the way for a new approach to infrastructure in the city.

“If there is a substation that is reliable, that isn’t ancient and that works correctly, then that gives people a sense of comfort about planning for the future and being proactive,” he says. “I think sometimes that psychological effect can then turn into, ‘Alright, how do we spend our money on proactive maintenance or proactively fixing what’s happening?’”

———

As Ellis Arjmand waits for a resolution for the sinkhole at Webster and Perrier, he’s noticing on his runs through the neighborhood that his intersection is not the only place with a pipe leaking below the road.

“At this corner of Eleonore and Perrier, there’s a broken pipe … You can see this water rushing under the road, and all they did was put gravel over and put a cone on top,” he says.

“It’s exactly the same thing they did at Webster. They put a bunch of gravel in there and paved over it and didn’t fix the leak.”

A block up from his intersection, at Prytania and Webster, the roadway is sinking, too. Arjmand suspects there’s another leak there.

“I’m like, guys, we’re just watching this evolve and not doing anything about it,” he says. “We’re just waiting for something bad to happen.”

Norma Jean Mattei and Joe Giarrusso agree that this uncertainty surrounding the city’s infrastructure takes a toll on residents, whether it’s around ongoing projects or simply whether the aging equipment will be able to withstand the next storm.

“When you’ve got a pothole that’s got this Band-Aid on it, and you have no idea if there are even plans to repave or resurface the street and actually fix the water line, that’s when it’s a problem,” Mattei says.

“For New Orleanians for the last several years, we wring our hands when the rain comes [wondering] will the pumps be powered correctly? Are the turbines going to run? How do we know that everything’s gonna work the right way?” Giarrusso says.

Morrell says experiencing so many extreme weather events in recent years and watching the city’s infrastructure fail to protect them from devastation has made some residents leave the city altogether, often for neighboring parishes.

“It’s really made people question whether they want to live in New Orleans,” he says. “Because at the end of the day, if the city can’t assure people on a daily basis that it can keep them safe, whether it’s crime or whether it’s flooding — especially when you have neighboring cities that have been in parishes that have very different outcomes but are geographically almost in the same spot — it really makes you question whether you should continue to invest, whether it be emotionally or financially, in the city.”

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A little Italy

FORK + CENTER

Italy inspires gourmet pizzas and drinks in the 7th Ward AT MARGOT’S, THE NEW PIZZA AND COCKTAIL SPOT ON FRENCHMEN STREET

above St. Claude Avenue, there are a few things you can’t eat.

There are no french fries, fried oyster po-boys or red beans and rice. These dishes aren’t on the menu because the kitchen doesn’t have a fryer or even a stove. And that’s not going to change.

But what chef Adrian Chelette is happy to make for diners is eight flavors of wood-fired pizza. Pies are cooked in just under two minutes at 850 degrees, yielding a blistered sourdough crust that has just the right amount of chew. There also are two salads — a house salad with a buttermilk ranch dressing and a Caesar with house-made croutons and a charred pepper dressing.

“When we were ready to set the menu up, we just wanted to do what we could do well and not overextend the staff,” says Chelette, who previously manned the kitchen and was co-owner of Ancora, a pizzeria on Freret Street.

“The kitchen is pretty straightforward. What you see is what you get. No burners, no fryer. Just the oven and a place to make salad.”

Margot’s has been in the works longer than the 2-year-old for which the restaurant is named.

New Orleans cocktail veteran Brad Goocher bought the building and spent the last five years on the renovation. He and his wife Amanda and their daughter Margot live upstairs, with the compact eatery on the ground floor. The restaurant space is well designed, with a row of booths flanking one wall across from Goocher’s bar. The kitchen, with its sliding glass doors and commanding pizza oven, is in back.

Since opening in early April, the restaurant has been busy and staffing remains a challenge. “I even asked a friend from Texas to stay with me and work during Jazz Fest,” Chelette says.

He is making an average of 100 pizzas a night, including takeout, he says. Online ordering for pickup is available through the website, and once Jazz Fest is in the rearview

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by Beth D’Addono

mirror, the restaurant will use Door Dash for delivery. When the restaurant is fully booked, the noise level is considerable, making quiet conversation difficult.

“Keeping everybody happy here is No. 1 right now,” he says. “There’s plenty of time to expand the menu and hours as we go.”

For now, Margot’s is open from Thursday to Monday. Diners can build their own pizza off of a $13 Margherita, with its base of tomato sauce fresh mozzarella, basil and olive oil. Additional toppings such as shaved garlic, pork sausage and mozzarella are $1-$3 each. The list of eight house pies includes the Supremo, with ricotta, strips of pepperoni, sausage, pepperoncini peppers, shaved red onion and Pecorino-Romano. The Inverno is a vegetarian option with roasted sweet potato, mascarpone cheese, honey, chili flakes and black olives.

Chelette says he was surprised to find that the Cavoletti pizza is outselling them all. The pie has garlic confit, ricotta cream, buffalo mozzarella, lemon zest and finely shaved Brussels sprouts leaves. It’s a winner, bright with citrus notes and the crunch of fresh greens.

“I didn’t think people would be so crazy about a pizza with Brussels sprouts on top, but they are,” he says.

Goocher previously worked at Cane and Table. At Margot’s, his menu includes five variations on a Negroni. “The idea was like, hey, what if somebody made a Negroni and didn’t do it in Florence?”

Goocher says.

Each version uses a base spirit, a bitter spirit and a fortified wine, but the flavor profile is different in each one. The San Juan is pina colada-inspired, with pineapple rum, Cappelletti, coconut-infused

Email dining@gambitweekly.com

Family continues praline tradition

THE ROUNDCOPPERKETTLESINTHE KITCHENATLORETTA’SAUTHENTIC PRALINES sit on gas rings with decora-

tive feet, like old clawfoot tubs. It’s a vignette of tradition that also is vitally efficient, distributing heat quickly and consistently on the way to creating pralines, the classic Creole candy.

Latasha Tillman and her cousin Robert Harrison started another batch one recent morning, mixing brick-sized blocks of butter with sugar, condensed milk and pecans to make pralines, just as always.

“None of us ever times a batch,” says Harrison, who learned the craft from his mother, business founder Loretta Harrison. “You just know when it’s ready. It’s in our blood.”

Tradition and consistency mean everything at Loretta‘s right now.

PHOTO BY CHERYL GERBER

Brad Goocher (left), his daughter Margot, and chef Adrian Chelette at Margot’s. vermouth and lime bitters. The Warsaw uses beet-infused vodka, Bitter Bianco, dill vermouth and absinthe. All the infused spirits are made in house, and while the variations are tasty, the classic Negroni is still his favorite.

Goocher’s cocktail menu is longer than the food menu, with a line of spritzes (topped with prosecco) and cocktails running from a rhubarb Old Fashioned to an espresso martini mixed with cold brew.

D.J. Piazza is handling the wine selection. The house red and white wines come from a small producer in Italy’s Piedmont region, and there isn’t a set wine list. Piazza will have a seasonally changing array of wines from small wineries.

The food and drinks menus are compact, but they deliver a concentrated taste of Italy.

?

WHAT

Margot’s

WHERE

1243 Frenchmen St., (504) 224-2892; margotsnola.com

WHEN

4 p.m.-9 p.m.

Thu.-Mon.

HOW

Dine-in, with delivery coming soon

CHECK IT OUT

A short list of sourdough crust pizzas

P H O T O 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

Latasha Tillman and Robert Harrison prepare pralines at Loretta’s Authentic Pralines.

The family business returned to Jazz Fest, where Harrison got her start more than 40 years ago.

But this year everything is different. This year, the family is carrying on the business created by Loretta Harrison. Known to many as “the praline queen,” Harrison died in February at age 66 after a long fight against cancer.

Her family is now tasked with living up to the standard she set in the kitchen and preserving the legacy she created.

“We’re keeping things rolling as she wanted us to,” says Tillman, Loretta Harrison’s niece. “She said if her business dies, that would be like her dying twice.”

Harrison kept her hand at the helm of the business practically until the PAGE 20

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end, greeting regular customers over the holidays when they came for gift baskets and sweet potato pies. She kept coming up with new flavors for her stuffed beignets, a creation that’s become a runaway success for the business.

But Harrison also took steps to assure that Loretta’s Authentic Pralines could continue without her. Tillman and Robert Harrison now run the business, alongside the shop’s longtime staff.

Keeping the doors open, and being able to resume festivals, has required a great deal from the family. They’re juggling their own careers and family responsibilities.

Tillman works in health care at Ochsner Medical Center. Robert Harrison teaches culinary arts at Helen Cox High School in Harvey.

They are committed to keeping the business open year-round with a shop in the Marigny and a counter at the French Market.

The main shop was closed for retail business as the family worked through festival season, with an anticipated reopening later in May after some time to reorganize. The French Market stand has remained open throughout.

Jazz Fest was the focus for the family, as it was for Harrison.

“She told us, ‘Make a connection with your customers’ and we watched her do it so many times,” her son says. “My mom had a connection with her Jazz Fest people.

Some were people we’d see just once a year, but there was a connection. She knew them. It went beyond the business for her.”

One of the things that sets the food apart at Jazz Fest is the continuity of the vendors. It forms the basis for personal traditions out at the Fair Grounds around food, and for relationships with the people who provide it.

That is the reason why Jazz Fest meant so much to Loretta Harrison. She especially loved hosting cooking demos.

“She’d get the kettle going and that smell would just draw people in, and she’d have a full house,” Robert Harrison says. “She just loved showing people what this was all about, what it meant.”

For Loretta Harrison, pralines meant a new life, one that would bring in her entire family and introduce her to countless people through the decades.

She grew up in St. Bernard Parish, one of 12 children. Her mother made pralines after church, which always attracted neighbors for a taste.

Loretta Harrison made pralines throughout her life. After

graduating from Southern University at New Orleans she went to work at the LSU Medical Library, where she sold pralines to students on the side.

Her big break came in 1978 when she heard that Jazz Fest was seeking a new praline vendor.

In her first festival weekend, she doubled her monthly income from the library, she said in a 2007 interview. The success inspired her to leave her job and develop her business full time.

By 1983, she opened her first shop in Jax Brewery. Later, she moved to the French Market, and in the 1990s she opened a second, much larger shop and production kitchen in Faubourg Marigny.

Her son said this year, without Loretta Harrison there, and with the final day of Jazz Fest falling on Mother’s Day, the emotions between the family, their customers, supporters and friends are running high.

“But it’s the positive energy my mom always brought us,” he says.

“That’s what’s going to keep holding us.” — IAN McNULTY / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE

Live Oak Cafe to close

WHILE MUCH OF NEW ORLEANS LIFE SEEMS TO BE GETTING BACK TO NORMAL , the heavy burden of the

past two years for local hospitality businesses continues to ripple through the industry.

The latest example is the impending end of Live Oak Cafe, a neighborhood restaurant that has doubled as a small-stage venue for local musicians.

Chef and owner Clare Leavy says she made arrangements to shut down after Jazz Fest, with brunch on Sunday, May 8, being the last service.

She said the financial hit from the omicron surge over the winter proved to be “the last straw.”

“The uptick in business since Mardi Gras has not been enough, fast enough, to touch our losses,” she says. “Simply put, we are out of time and options.”

At the urging of staff, friends and the community of musicians who play a Live Oak, Leavy said she started an online fundraiser as a last-ditch effort to keep the restaurant open. That’s a GoFundMe campaign dubbed “Life Support for Live Oak.” “Never say never,” she says.

— IAN McNULTY / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE

Jarred I. Zeringue

OF THE

WEEK

Restaurateur, chef, author

by Will Coviello

JARRED I. ZERINGUE GREW UP IN THE RIVER PARISHES, where he learned

to cook at home. He went into the restaurant business following Hurricane Katrina when he opened Eat New Orleans in the French Quarter. He also was a partner in Vacherie Restaurant and Bar at the St. Marie Hotel. In 2016, he and a partner bought Wayne Jacob’s Smokehouse in LaPlace. Hurricane Ida severely damaged the restaurant, but the smokehouses were not harmed. He is working toward reopening the restaurant in coming weeks. This week, Pelican Publishing releases his cookbook “Southern and Smoked: Cajun Cooking through the Seasons.”

For information on Wayne Jacob’s Smokehouse, visit wjsmokehouse. com. For information about Zeringue and his cookbook, see @jarredzeringue on Instagram.

What happened to Wayne Jacob’s Smokehouse during the storm?

JARRED I. ZERINGUE: Ida took a third of the roof off the main building and blew out the front windows. It was completely drenched, so we had to gut down to the studs. The smokehouses were fine because they are low to the ground. We’ve been rebuilding for six or seven months, and now it’s almost hurricane season.

The kitchen is almost open. We are waiting for the final details of the hood system to be finished.

We have a porch in the back where we’ve been cooking plate lunches every day. We may open in a week.

It’ll be limited service for a little because we have limited staff. We are going to start with a limited menu to get people in and out in a timely manner — until we have more staff.

Wayne Jacob’s is known for andouille. How’s the smoked meat business?

Z: It’s a 72-year-old smokehouse.

We still use all the same recipes and traditions they started with in 1950. In our busy times, we can make 500 pounds of andouille a day, and we can sell it. As long as it’s cold, we sell a lot of andouille and smoked sausage. We sell 10 times as much andouille as

anything else in the store, because that’s what we’ve been known for since 1950. We can go through as much as we can make at that time. We have to cut off holiday shipping on Dec. 5 in order to be able to get it out before Christmas.

We also have to serve our locals first.

We do everything from chopping wood on my dad’s farm to making the fire and stuffing the PHOTO sausage. We smoke the links anywhere from eight to 12 hours over low, constant heat. We have four smokehouses. Each one is six-byeight feet, and we load them up.

We do it from start to finish with no preservatives. It’s all-natural smoke, all-natural wood, all-natural casings. We don’t use anything artificial. It’s a very simple recipe, it’s just the time and the art of doing it.

We also do cracklings. We do gumbo and jambalaya mix — dry mixes as a kit — and people can buy the meat and add that. We have a smoked spicy hog’s head cheese that we sell a lot of. We also do barbecue ribs and brisket. We make smoked ham and bacon. The three biggest things are andouille, smoked sausage and tasso; those are the three biggest things you use in Cajun cooking.

We have about 30 products: some game, seasonally; we do boudin-stuffed chickens; we sell ready-made gumbo and soups.

When the restaurant is open, we make our own dressings and spice mixes. With the cookbook, I refer to it as Circle Z seasoning mix. A lot of the recipes call for it. It’s like six ingredients, and it cuts those steps out of the recipes. We sell that as well.

What was the idea behind the cookbook?

Z: I have been putting the manuscript together over the years. At the restaurants, I always had to write everything down to have a consistent product. We also did recipe cards for customers, which we gave

PROVIDED BY JARRED I. ZERINGUE

them with their receipts. Then at the smokehouse, we started shipping all over the country, and people didn’t know what to do with the smoked meats they bought — many times impulsively. They’d see something on TV and they’d buy it. Then they’d text us, “What are we supposed to do with it?” So we made these recipe cards with stories about what to do with them.

So I had recipes from the restaurants and family recipes. With all those things combined, I had an idea to put together the cookbook.

I wanted to do it by season so people would know the traditions of why we eat what we eat and when we eat it. Having a restaurant in the French Quarter, I would have tourists come in and say, “I want crawfish,” in August. With user-generated reviews, you’d get these terrible reviews about how they couldn’t get crawfish — when it wasn’t crawfish season.

Over the years, I realized how far people are from their food sources and how they don’t realize everything has a season. If you eat something that’s not in season, it’s probably not going to taste as good as it should, and it’s going to be expensive. It’s not going to be the best experience.

I wanted to show why we eat crawfish at Easter. It’s cost effective and it’s fresh. And why we eat Creole tomatoes in the summer. All those things went into developing the seasonal cookbook. It also played into all the stories about the experiences with these ingredients and the traditions.

Vanderpump Rosé

Côtes de Provence France

A classic Provence rosé with elegant aromas of delicate red currant and sweet citrus. Palate has a touch of strawberry, tangerine and peaches.

Fresh, dry and bright with crisp acidity.

DISTRIBUTED BY

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WINE

3 COURSE INTERVIEW

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O U T T O E AT C O M P L E T E L I S T I N G S A T W W W. B E S T O F N E W O R L E A N S . C O M

Out 2 Eat is an index of Gambit contract advertisers. Unless noted, addresses are for New Orleans and all accept credit cards. Updates: Email willc@gambitweekly.com or call (504) 483-3106.

7th Ward

Nonno’s Cajun Cuisine and Pastries — 2025 N. Claiborne Ave., (504) 3541364; nonnoscajuncuisineandpastries. com — The menu includes home-style Cajun and Creole dishes with some vegan options. Shrimp is sauteed with onion and bell pepper, topped with cheese and served with two eggs and toast. Reservations accepted.

Delivery available. Breakfast and lunch daily. $$

CBD

Juan’s Flying Burrito — 515 Baronne St., (504) 529-5825; juansflyingburrito.com — See Uptown section for restaurant description. Outdoor dining available. No reservations. Lunch and dinner Thu.-Tue. $$

CARROLLTON

Mid City Pizza — 6307 S. Miro St., (504) 509-6224; midcitypizza.com — See Mid-City section for restaurant description. Takeout and delivery available. Lunch Thu.-Sun., dinner Thu.-Mon. $$ 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. Lunch Sun.-Fri., dinner daily. $$ Nice Guys Bar & Grill — 7910 Earhart Blvd., (504) 302-2404; niceguysbarandgrillnola.com — Char-grilled oysters are topped with cheese, and a lobster tail or fried catfish fillet are optional additions. The menu also includes wings, quesadillas, burgers, sandwiches, salads, seafood pasta and more. No reservations. Lunch daily, dinner Mon.-Sat. $$$

CITYWIDE

Breaux Mart — Citywide; breauxmart. com — The deli counter’s changing specials include dishes such as baked catfish and red beans and rice. Lunch and dinner daily. $

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.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner 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.

Delivery available. Lunch and dinner daily. $

$ — average dinner entrée under $10 $$ — $11-$20 $$$ — $20-up

Theo’s Neighborhood Pizza — 1212 S. Clearview Parkway, Elmwood, (504) 733-3803; theospizza.com — There is a wide variety of specialty pies and toppings to build your own pizza. The menu also includes salads and sandwiches. Takeout and delivery available.

Lunch and dinner Tue.-Sat. $

LAKEVIEW

The Blue Crab Restaurant and Oyster Bar — 7900 Lakeshore Drive, (504) 284-2898; thebluecrabnola. com — The menu includes sandwiches, fried seafood platters, boiled seafood and more. Basin barbecue shrimp and grits features eight jumbo shrimp over creamy cheese grits and a cheese biscuit. Outdoor seating available. Lunch and dinner Tue.-Sun. $$ 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 and delivery available. Breakfast and lunch daily. $

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. Delivery available. Lunch and dinner daily, brunch Sun. $$$ Chef Ron’s Gumbo Stop — 2309 N. Causeway Blvd., Metairie, (504) 8352022; gumbostop.com — The Seafood Platter comes with fried catfish, shrimp, oysters and crab balls and is accompanied by fries and choice of side. There are several types of gumbo on the menu. Delivery available. Lunch and dinner Tue.-Sat. $$ 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. Lunch Sun.-Thu., dinner Mon.-Thu. $ Martin Wine Cellar — 714 Elmeer Ave., Metairie, (504) 896-7350; martinwine. com — See Uptown section for restaurant description. No reservations.

Lunch daily. $$ Nephew’s Ristorante — 4445 W. Metairie Ave., Metairie, (504) 5339998; nephewsristorante.com — Chef Frank Catalanotto is the namesake “nephew” who ran the kitchen at his late uncle Tony Angello’s restaurant.

The Creole-Italian menu features dishes like veal, eggplant or chicken parmigiana, and Mama’s Eggplant with red gravy and Romano cheese.

Reservations required. Dinner Tue.-Sat. $$ Theo’s Neighborhood Pizza — 2125 Veterans Memorial Blvd., Metairie, (504) 510-4282; theospizza.com — See

Harahan/Jefferson section for restaurant description. $ Short Stop Po-Boys — 119 Transcontinental Drive, Metairie, (504) 885-4572; shortstoppoboysno. com — The menu includes more than 30 po-boys along with other Louisiana staples. Fried Louisiana oysters and Gulf shrimp are served on a Leidenheimer loaf with lettuce, tomato, onions and pickles. No reservations. Breakfast, lunch and dinner Mon.-Sat. $

MID-CITY/TREME 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.

Lunch and dinner Tue.-Sun. $ Frey Smoked Meat Co. — 4141 Bienville St., Suite 110, (504) 488-7427; freysmokedmeat.com — The barbecue restaurant serves pulled pork, St. Louis ribs, brisket, sausages and more. Pork belly poppers are fried cubes of pork belly tossed in pepper jelly glaze. No reservations. Lunch and dinner daily. $$ Juan’s Flying Burrito — 4724 S. Carrollton Ave., (504) 486-9950; juansflyingburrito.com — See Uptown section for restaurant description.

Outdoor dining available. No reservations. Lunch and dinner Thu.-Tue. $$ Katie’s Restaurant — 3701 Iberville St., (504) 488-6582; katiesinmidcity. com — Favorites include the Cajun Cuban with roasted pork, grilled ham, cheese and pickles pressed on buttered bread. The Boudreaux pizza is topped with cochon de lait, spinach, red onions, roasted garlic and scallions. Takeout, curbside pickup and delivery available. Lunch and dinner Tue.-Sun. $$ Mid City Pizza — 4400 Banks St., (504) 483-8609; midcitypizza.com — The neighborhood pizza joint serves New York-style pies, plus calzones, sandwiches and salads. Signature shrimp remoulade pizza includes spinach, red onion, garlic, basil and green onion on an garlic-olive oil brushed curst. Takeout and delivery available. Lunch Thu.-Sun., dinner Thu.-Mon. $$ Neyow’s Creole Cafe — 3332 Bienville St., (504) 827-5474; neyows.com — The menu includes New Orleans favorites such as red beans with fried chicken or pork chops, as well as grilled or fried seafood plates, po-boys, raw or char-grilled oysters, pasta, salads and more. Lunch daily, dinner Mon.-Sat., brunch Sun. $$ Theo’s Neighborhood Pizza — 4024 Canal St., (504) 302-1133; theospizza. com — See Harahan/Jefferson section for restaurant description. $

NORTHSHORE The Blue Crab Restaurant and Oyster Bar — 118 Harbor View Court, Slidell, (985) 315-7001; thebluecrabnola.com — See Lakeview section for restaurant description. No reservations. Lunch Fri.-Sat., dinner Wed.-Sun. $$ Theo’s Neighborhood Pizza — 70488 Highway 21, Covington, (985) 2349420; theospizza.com — See Harahan/ Jefferson section for restaurant description. $

UPTOWN Joey K’s — 3001 Magazine St., (504) 891-0997; 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.

Delivery available. Lunch and dinner Mon.-Sat., brunch Sun. $$ Juan’s Flying Burrito — 2018 Magazine St., (504) 569-0000; 5538 Magazine St., (504) 897-4800; juansflyingburrito.com — The Flying Burrito includes grilled steak, shrimp, chicken, cheddar-jack cheese, black beans, yellow rice, salsa la fonda, guacamole and sour cream. The menu also has tacos, quesadillas, nachos and more. Outdoor seating available.

No reservations. Lunch and dinner Thu.-Tue. $$ Martin Wine Cellar — 3827 Baronne St., (504) 894-7444; martinwine.com — The deli at the wine and spirit shop serves sandwiches, salads and more.

The Sena salad includes pulled roasted chicken, golden raisins, blue cheese, pecans and field greens tossed with Tobasco pepperjelly vinaigrette. No reservations. Lunch daily. $$ Red Gravy — 4206 Magazine St., (504) 561-8844; redgravycafe.com — Thin cannoli pancakes are filled with cannoli cream and topped with chocolate. The menu includes brunch items, pasta dishes, sandwiches, baked goods and more. Takeout available. $$ 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. Lunch and dinner 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. Dinner Thu.Sun. $$$ The Mill — 1051 Annunciation St., (504) 582-9544; themillnola.com — Short ribs are braised with red wine and served with risotto. Reservations accepted. Dinner Thu.-Sat., brunch Sat.-Sun. $$

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. Dinner Wed.-Sat. Cash only. $$$

The whooping crane was brought back from the brink of extinction in the 1900s thanks to the efforts of Audubon Nature Institute and other conservation organizations.

By Amanda McElfresh amcelfresh@theadvocate.com This article is brought to you by Audubon Nature Institute

Aspartofitsongoingdedicationtowildlife, Audubon Nature Institute is doing its part to protect vulnerable, endangered, and critically endangered species right here in the New Orleans area.

More than 40,000 species across the globe, including some in Southeast Louisiana, may become extinct in our lifetimes if nothing is done to help them. For many of these animals, human-wildlife conflict, poaching, and habitat destruction are the main threats to their livelihoods.

Audubon provides a safe home for many of these animals while allowing visitors to learn more about them. Critically endangered orangutans and gorillas can be seen at Audubon Zoo, along with endangered Asian elephants. Critically endangered African penguins and green sea turtles are at Audubon Aquarium of the Americas—including the iconic giant green sea turtle King Mydas—as are endangered sea otters.

In addition, Audubon helped established AZA SAFE: Saving Animals From Extinction, a framework that brings together AZA-accredited zoos and aquariums to protect threatened animals, build on established recovery plans, prioritize collaboration among AZA member institutions, implement strategic conservation and stakeholder engagement activities, and measure and report conservation progress.

“Audubon continues to support AZA SAFE financially through a substantial, multi-year pledge,” officials said. “Audubon participates in SAFE programs

for African penguins, North American songbirds, jaguars, sea turtles, sharks, rays, and monarch butterflies, and we are friends of Atlantic Acropora Coral SAFE. This is an important initiative for Audubon because SAFE brings the collected efforts of all AZA zoos and aquariums together so the impact is more precise instead of each organization doing their own work.”

Another key component of AZA SAFE is to measure the impact that the organizations’ combined efforts are having.

That allows members to assess if their work is helping, then regroup and try a different strategy if needed.

With its commitment to education, Audubon also has become a reliable resource for the public to learn more about the Endangered Species Act. The main goal of the Act is to make species’ populations healthy and vital so they can be removed, or delisted, from the Act. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service work together to oversee the listing of animals under the Act and to bring endangered and threatened species back from the brink of extinction.

“Losing even a single species can have disastrous impacts on the rest of the ecosystem because the effects will be felt throughout the food chain,” Audubon officials noted. “From providing cures to deadly diseases to maintaining natural ecosystems and improving overall quality of life, the benefits of preserving threatened and endangered species are invaluable.”

There are several ways the public can help Audubon protect vulnerable, endangered, and critically endangered species, starting with the May 20 Party for the Planet presented by Entergy:

Audubon Zoo’s growing family of Sumatran orangutans are all critically endangered in the wild.

Endangered Species Day event at Audubon Zoo. On that day, guests can participate in activities and educator chats to learn about ways to help protect species across the globe. Event participants will receive a Party for the Planet Passport and will be encouraged to earn stamps at each Party for the Planet event to celebrate their commitment to Planet Earth.

Audubon Aquarium is doing its part to help build a safety net population of critically endangered African penguins in human care, hatching 56 penguin chicks since 1990.

“This event is included in the Zoo admission price and free for Audubon Members,” officials said. “Many AZA-accredited zoos and aquariums across North America are throwing a Party for the Planet, making it the largest combined Earth Day, Endangered Species Day, and World Oceans Day celebration.”

BothbeforeandafterPartyforthePlanet, people can take several steps at home to help protect species. Those include:

• Purchase only sustainably-grown palm oil products, which can help animals like orangutans. Orangutan numbers are decreasing mainly because of human-wildlife conflict due to the spread of palm oil plantations in their forest habitats.

• Recycle electronic devices and purchase certified refurbished or used small electronics, such as cell phones. Coltan is a mineral found in the batteries of electronic devices, and 80% of it is mined in central Africa, which is wild gorilla habitat. The hope is that as more electronic devices are recycled, there will be less demand for new coltan to be mined, thus protecting more gorilla habitats.

• Avoid purchasing or using products made with ivory. This can help fight the leading cause of elephant poaching.

• Reduce, reuse, recycle, and refuse single-use plastics. When these measures are combined, it can support all marine life including African penguins, sea otters, sea turtles, and more by keeping harmful plastics out of the water. Find ways to buy and use fewer new items, and replace disposable products with reusable and sustainable alternatives.

• Purchase sustainably sourced seafood to ensure there is enough fish for humans, penguins and other marine life.

• Donate, become a member, or volunteer with an AZA-accredited zoo or aquarium, or a wildlife conservation organization.

For more information about Audubon Nature Institute, its wildlife preservation work, and public events, visit www.audubonnatureinstitute.org.

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Audubon Nature Institute invites the public to join in wildlife preservation work

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MUSIC

F O R C O M P L E T E M U S I C L I S T I N G S A N D M O R E E V E N T S TA K I N G P L AC E I N T H E N E W O R L E A N S A R E A , V I S I T C A L E N D A R . G A M B I T W E E K LY. C O M To learn more about adding your event to the music calendar, please email listingsedit@gambitweekly.com

TUESDAY 10 BAYOU BAR AT THE PONTCHARTRAIN HOTEL — Peter Harris Quartet, 7 pm DOS JEFES — Tom Hook, Wendell Brunious, 8:30 pm FRITZEL'S EUROPEAN JAZZ CLUB — Richard "Piano" Scott, 12:30 pm; Fritzel's All Star Band, 8 pm KITCHEN TABLE CAFÉ — Kitchen Table Cafe Trio, 7 pm REPUBLIC NOLA — Toro y Moi, 7 pm ZONY MASH BEER PROJECT — Rebirth Brass Band , 8 pm

WEDNESDAY 11 BAYOU BAR AT THE PONTCHARTRAIN HOTEL — Peter Harris Trio, 7 pm CAFE NEGRIL — Colin Davis and Night People, 10:30 pm DOS JEFES — Kris Tokarski, 8:30 pm FRITZEL'S EUROPEAN JAZZ CLUB — Richard "Piano" Scott, 12:30 pm; Bourbon Street All Star Trio, 7 pm; Fritzel's All Star Band, 9 pm GASA GASA — Doja Cat Dance Party, 9 pm HOTEL MONTELEONE — James Martin Band, 8 pm LAFAYETTE SQUARE PARK — Andrew Duhon and Alexis and the Samurai, 5 pm MADAME VIC'S — Matt Andrews and the Sheepshead Serenaders, 8 pm SANTOS — Cancerslug, The Unnaturals, 9 pm THE JAZZ PLAYHOUSE — Funkin' It Up with Big Sam, 7:30 pm THE SANDBAR — Graduate Student Showcase, 7 pm THREE KEYS (ACE HOTEL) — Seven Forty Five with Jevon Tate, 5 pm

THURSDAY 12 BAYOU BAR AT THE PONTCHARTRAIN HOTEL — Peter Harris Quartet, 8 pm BLUE NILE — Where Y'at Brass Band, 9 pm BOURBON SQUARE JAZZ BAR — Alicia Renee "Blue Eyes," 7:30 pm BUFFA'S — Tom McDermott and Meschiya Lake, 7 & 9 pm CAFE NEGRIL — Sierra Green and the Soul Machine, 10 pm CARNAVAL LOUNGE — Sarah Burke & Miriam Elhajli, 6 pm CHICKIE WAH WAH — Robert Eustis album release, 7 pm DOS JEFES — Anna Quinn, 8:30 pm FRITZEL'S EUROPEAN JAZZ CLUB — Richard “Piano” Scott, 12:30 pm; Doyle Cooper Trio, 2:30 pm; John Saavadra Trio, 6 pm; Fritzel's All Star Band, 9 pm GASA GASA — My Neptune with Dennis Caravello, Bipolaroid, Esqueleto, 9 pm

KITCHEN TABLE CAFÉ — Dr. Mark St. Cyr Traditional Jazz Band, 7 pm NEUTRAL GROUND COFFEE HOUSE — Elise Borg with Ceci Bourg, 9 pm PEACOCK ROOM, HOTEL FONTENOT — Da Lovebirds with Robin Barnes and Pat Casey, 8 pm POUR HOUSE SALOON — Ron & Tina's Acoustic Jam, 7 pm ROCK 'N' BOWL — Chubby Carrier & Bayou Swamp Band, 8 pm SNUG HARBOR JAZZ BISTRO — Extended Trio record release "Without Notice," 8 & 10 pm THE JAZZ PLAYHOUSE — Brass-AHolics, 7:30 pm

FRIDAY 13 BAYOU BAR AT THE PONTCHARTRAIN HOTEL — Peter Harris Trio, 8 pm BLUE NILE BALCONY ROOM — Brass Flavor, 9 pm BUFFA'S — Jamey St. Pierre Trio, 7 & 9 pm CARNAVAL LOUNGE — Katie Cat & Cain with the Hip Tones, 6 pm DOS JEFES — Vivaz!, 9 pm FRITZEL'S EUROPEAN JAZZ CLUB — Richard “Piano” Scott, 12:30 pm; Colin Myers Trio, 2:30 pm; Lee Floyd and Thunderbolt Trio, 6 pm; Fritzel's All Star Band, 9 pm GASA GASA — Jive Talk with Sansho and The Salmon of Capistrano, 9 pm KERRY IRISH PUB — Patrick Cooper, 9 pm MADAME VIC'S — Jackie Blaire and the Hot Biscuits, 8 pm MANDEVILLE TRAILHEAD — Amanda Shaw, 6:30 pm NEUTRAL GROUND COFFEE HOUSE — Jay P. Dufour with guests, 7:30 pm POUR HOUSE SALOON — The Unnaturals, Norco Lapalco, Tongue Action, 8:30 pm ROCK 'N' BOWL — Contraflow, 8:30 pm SANTOS — The Quadroholics, 9 pm SIDNEY'S SALOON — Executioner's Mask with Expander, 9 pm SNUG HARBOR JAZZ BISTRO — Jason Marsalis, 8 & 10 pm THREE KEYS (ACE HOTEL) — Them People, 9 pm

SATURDAY 14 BOURREE — Valerie Sassyfras, 3 pm BUFFA'S — Freddie Blue & the Friendship Circle Band, 7 & 9 pm CARNAVAL LOUNGE — Kelly Duplex, The Self-Help Tapes, Grace Gardner, 9 pm D.B.A. NEW ORLEANS — Soul Brass Band, 10 pm DOS JEFES — Betty Shirley, 9 pm FAUBOURG BREWING CO. — The Cosmic Fishheads, Noah Young Trio, Tom Leggett Band, Andre Bohren & Dave Pomerleau, 11 am

PROVIDED PHOTO BY CHRIS MAGGIO

FRITZEL'S EUROPEAN JAZZ CLUB — Richard “Piano” Scott, 12:30 pm; Joe Kennedy Trio, 2:30 pm; Lee Floyd and Thunderbolt Trio, 6 pm; Fritzel’s All Star Band, 9 pm GASA GASA — Prince Daddy & The Hyena with Macseal, Insignificant Other, California Cousins, 9 pm KITCHEN TABLE CAFÉ — Bad Penny Pleasuremakers, 7 pm NEUTRAL GROUND COFFEE HOUSE — Bitsyras, 7:30 pm; Brint Anderson, 9 pm POUR HOUSE SALOON — Backreal, Fly Molo, She Might Be A Beast, 8:30 pm REPUBLIC NOLA — Key Glock, 7 pm ROCK 'N' BOWL — Neutral Snap, 8:30 pm SANTOS — Acid Witch with Restless Spirit, 8 pm SNUG HARBOR JAZZ BISTRO — Alexey Marti, 8 & 10 pm THE BOMBAY CLUB — Anais St. John, 8 pm THE HIDEAWAY DEN & ARCADE — Acala EP Release Show with 4Mag Nitrous & Dead Savage, 8 pm

SUNDAY 15 BUFFA'S — Some Like It Hot, 11 am & 1 pm; Eva Lovullo, 7 & 9 pm CHRIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH — Dr. Ben Redwin and the Redwine Jazz Band, 5 pm

Toro y Moi performs at Republic on Tuesday, May 10.

DOS JEFES — Joplin Parnell, 8 pm FRITZEL'S EUROPEAN JAZZ CLUB — Hunter Burgamy Trio, 12:30 pm; Joe Kennedy Trio, 2:30 pm; Marla Dixon Trio, 6 pm; Fritzel's All Star Band, 8 pm MADAME VIC'S — T Marie and Bayou Juju, 8 pm POUR HOUSE SALOON — Brad Fielder, 4 pm SNUG HARBOR JAZZ BISTRO — Brent Rose Quintet, 8 & 10 pm THE FILLMORE — Black Label Society, 7 pm THE JAZZ PLAYHOUSE — Shannon Powel, 7:30 pm

MONDAY 16 BUFFA'S — Doyle Cooper Trio, 7 pm; Tom McDermott and Aurora Nealand, 7 pm DOS JEFES — John Fohl, 8:30 pm FRITZEL'S EUROPEAN JAZZ CLUB — Twisty River Band, 8 pm MADAME VIC'S — Dr. Redwine's Grape Stompers, 8 pm ONE EYED JACKS — Franc Moody, 8 pm

PAGE 5

rock. Bear also stars with Eric Andre in a companion short film, “Goes By So Fast: a Mahal Film.” Uffie opens for Toro y Moi at 8 p.m. Tuesday, May 10, at Republic. Tickets $30-$45 via eventbrite.com.

‘A Night with Janis Joplin’

IN A CONCERT NEAR THE END OF HER LIFE , Janis Joplin reflects on

her favorite singers, including Bessie Smith, Aretha Franklin, Odetta and others, as she sings her own hits, including “Piece of My Heart” and “Me and Bobby McGee.” Leslie McDonel stars as Joplin in Randy Johnson’s musical drama at Le Petit Theatre. On its opening weekend, it runs at 7:30 p.m. from Thursday, May 12, through Saturday, May 14, with 3 p.m. matinees on Saturday and Sunday, May 15. The show runs through May 29. Find tickets at lepetittheatre.com.

‘the dance floor, the hospital room, and the kitchen table’

THE PERFORMANCE PIECE LINKS THE HISTORY AND LESSONS OF THE

HIV/AIDS epidemic and COVID19, drawing on interviews with activists and caretakers in a work about care and queerness. The Show runs at 7:30 p.m. Friday, May 13, 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, May 14, and 2 p.m. Sunday, May 15, at the Contemporary Arts Center.

There’s information about the performance at cacno.org.

Laura Jane Grace, Tim Kasher and Anthony Green

LAURA JANE GRACE, TIM KASHER AND ANTHONY GREEN — ALL PUNK ROCK VETERANS AND BANDLEADERS — are doing something a

little different on their “Carousel Tour” which runs through May. Each musician has their own set times, but they’re all playing together, blurring bands and trying out new things at each tour stop. Florida emo band Home is Where join Grace, Kasher and Green for their New Orleans stop at 8 p.m. Saturday, May 14, at The Hanger on South Rendon Street. Tickets are $27 at seetickets.us.

Dehd

CHICAGO LO-FI INDIE ROCK TRIO DEHD IS OUT ON TOUR ahead of the

release of the group’s new album “Blue Skies.” The record will be their fourth album and their first

on Oxford, Mississippi, label Fat Possum. Dehd plays with 81355 at 7:30 p.m. Monday, May 16, at the Toulouse Theatre. Tickets are $17 at toulousetheatre.com.

Chelsea Handler

STANDUP COMIC CHELSEA HANDLER BUILT HER CAREER FAILING UPWARD, she says, after years

of jokes about drinking, a book titled “Are You There Vodka?

It’s Me, Chelsea” and chewing over news and celebrity gossip on her E! show “Chelsea Lately.” Her last book, “Chelsea Handler: Life Will be the Death of Me … and You Too!” touched on her time in therapy and reconciling her life. Now she’s on her “Vaccinated and Horny Tour,” and recently announced she’ll record a comedy special in July. She performs stand-up at 8 p.m. Thursday, May 12, at Orpheum Theater. Find tickets via orpheumnola.com.

‘This Will Not Pass’

NEW YORK TIMES REPORTERS JONATHAN MARTIN AND ALEXANDER BURNS recently published “This

Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden and the Battle for America’s Future,” a comprehensive account of the 2020 election, including Trump’s coup attempt to overturn the election results and the Jan. 6 insurrection. Martin and Burns will speak about their new book with Walter Isaacson at the Garden District Book Shop at 5 p.m. Saturday, May 14. Tickets are $36 and include a copy of the book at gardendistrictbookshop.com.

Ray LaMontagne

SINGER-SONGWRITER RAY LAMONTAGNE TOOK A STRIPPEDDOWN APPROACH to recording his

2020 album “Monovision,” and its tracks mostly feature acoustic guitar and his breathy, earnest vocals. Sierra Ferrell opens at 7:30 p.m. Monday, May 16, at Orpheum Theater. Find tickets via livenation.com.

Charm Taylor

CHARM TAYLOR, FORMERLY THE FOUNDER AND SINGER OF THE HONORABLE SOUTH, celebrates

the release of her solo album “She is the Future.” She performs with Fuller Effect, Vic Jcome and Flagboy Giz. At 7 p.m.

Friday, May 13, at the Broadside.

Tickets $25 in advance via a link on Taylor’s Instagram, @charmtayloristhefuture, or $30 at the door.

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A R T S & E N T E R TA I N M E N T

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S TA G E

Pirate Treasure

by Will Coviello

PIRATES NEVER GO OUT OF FASHION . Six installments

of Disney’s “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise attest to that. So does HBO’s current series, “Our Flag Means Death,” says James Bartelle, co-author of the NOLA Project’s version of “Treasure Island.” “(Pirates) celebrate the worst, most uninhibited parts of ourselves,” Bartelle says. “They drink and swear and get in fights all of the time. They get bogged down by the rules of living on the land. There’s a certain freedom and cavalier quality about them. There’s also something about the language of the sea — land lovers and walking the plank. There’s a reason why there’s a National Talk Like a Pirate Day.” Sept. 19 is Talk Like a Pirate Day. But locals don’t have to wait to get in on the salty language and adventures at seas. The NOLA Project presents its family-friendly adaptation of “Treasure Island” at the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden from May 11 to 27.

Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1883 classic “Treasure Island” is the great-grandaddy of pirate tales. It features the peg-legged Long John Silver and a host of back-stabbing pirates hunting for treasure. Young Jim Hawkins acquires a treasure map in Britain and sets sail to try to find the hidden bounty.

The NOLA Project’s version is loosely based on the classic, but it’s been updated. Jim Hawkins finds the map, but his mother disguises herself as a pirate and goes with him on the schooner Hispaniola.

“There is some awkwardness about a teenager and his mom going on an adventure together,” Bartelle says. “But it (gives the story) a lot of heart underneath all of the slapstick silliness.”

In the NOLA Project version, there’s a second ship run by a crew of women pirates. Their leader, Pew, also is out to capture the hidden treasure.

Co-writers Bartelle, A.J. Allegra and Alex Martinez Wallace added more women characters to the story, and they’re also taking advantage of the number of local actresses with stage combat training.

“There are lots of great swordfighter women in town,” Bartelle says.

P H O T O B Y E D WA R D C A R T E R S I M O N

Swashbuckling isn’t new to the NOLA Project’s spring sculpture garden shows. While the company started the outdoor series 12 years ago with Shakespearian classics, it’s become a platform for adaptations of classic adventure stories. Alex Martinez Wallace choreographed the fighting in the group’s version of “The Three Musketeers,” which featured a woman Musketeer. The company also presented a comical version of “Don Quixote” with jousting and a version of Robin Hood.

The pirate tale is well suited to the amphitheater in the expansion of the garden opened in 2019. The wooden boardwalk looks like the deck of a ship, and the lagoon is the backdrop.

The NOLA Project version works in everything audiences could want in a pirate story. There are eye patches, a plank, a parrot, the skull and bones and a few pirate wenches. There’s even cannon fire from battling ships.

For those who identify with sailors instead of pirates, there are original sea shanties. Jack Craft of the roots rock band Sweet Crude wrote original lyrics for sea shanties that will be sung in the show.

The NOLA Project produces its sculpture garden shows in conjunction with the New Orleans Museum of Art. There will be food trucks and a bar on site before and during shows.

The NOLA Project recently announced its upcoming season. It will present “Craigslisted” in September and return to the sculpture garden in October for “The Seagull, or How to Eat It,” company member Gab Reisman’s take on Chekhov’s drama. In 2023, it will do Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ “Everybody” and Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in the garden.

Tickets $20-$55 via nolaproject. com or noma.org.

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HAVING A ROLE TO FILL

By Frank A. Longo

39 Seating tier 40 Officer led by Capt. Kirk 41 Equilibrium 45 Urge on 49 Novelist — Stanley Gardner 51 More of the riddle 57 Pipe bend 58 Prefix with byte 59 Mardi — (Big Easy bash) 60 Hi-tech special FX 61 — -rock (music genre) 62 “— Blu Dipinto di Blu” (1958 hit song) 63 Q-tips, e.g.

65 Jockeys’ garb

67 Like Mass officiants 69 More of the riddle 73 Really hungry 76 Really high 77 Twangy, as a voice 81 Yes, to Sartre 82 U.S. immigrants’ course 83 “Gross!”

84 Cookbook qtys.

87 Subdue with a stun gun 88 And the rest: Abbr.

89 More of the riddle 93 Departs 95 “Ad — per aspera” 96 Wash and iron 97 Attempt to convey

LIS

101 104 105 110 113 114 115 116 117 118 120 125 126 127 128 129 130

Stephen of “Ondine” Hypothetical cases End of the riddle Cloaked Inferior mag Tiki bar necklace Ending for pay or plug Response to “Are you?”

Roseanne of “Roseanne” “— Gold” (1997 Peter Fonda film) Riddle’s answer Pasta variety — Alex (2005 Belmont Stakes winner) Pupil-dilating alkaloid Comic Johnson and Angels owner Moreno Puts it forth as fact Tailor

DOWN 1 Office fixtures 2 Aquafina rival 3 — Domingo 4 Nero’s “Lo!” 5 Regret 6 Jumbo tub 7 Early anesthetic 8 Pete of folk music 9 St. Pete loc.

10 Ranch rope 11 River romper 12 With — to (in hopes of) 13 It may contain coffee 14 Most wise 15 Running time 16 Ending with form 17 Undertow 18 Alongside each other 19 “Tell It to My Heart” singer Taylor 24 Chanel of perfumery 30 Wildebeest 33 Fender flaw 34 Disguised, for short 35 Small branch 36 German for “everyone” 37 Be litigious

GARDEN DISTRICT OFFICE 2016, 2017 & 2020

38 Ghastly 41 Tiny pieces 42 Some 43 “The Practice” co-star — Flynn Boyle 44 Blunder 46 Dirt-digging journalist 47 Hog haven 48 “— tu” (Verdi aria) 50 — May (one of TV’s Clampetts) 52 Ship poles 53 “Dream on!”

54 Deform 55 Et — (and others) 56 Unyielding 64 Muscle power 66 Like plunging necklines 67 Rival of Coke 68 Lipitor and Zocor, e.g.

70 “Jiminy!”

71 Luau dance 72 Jabba the — 73 Filmmaker Nicolas 74 Salesperson in a car lot 75 Deputy ruler 78 Anti-DUI gp.

79 Tennis great Arthur 80 Look of lust 83 Mensa stats

ABR, CRS, GRI, SFR, SRS

85 D.C. VIP 86 Slowpoke 90 Jacques of French film 91 Delhi dress 92 Beer on “The Simpsons” 94 Test, as tea 98 Triple-time dances, in Paris 99 Ending for Siam or Milan 100 Big Japanese dogs 102 Kuwaiti ruler 103 Yoga poses 105 Big-band drummer Gene 106 In a high-minded manner 107 Singers’ clubs 108 19th U.S president 109 Overplay it 110 Custom 111 “Fame” singer Cara 112 Hair salon fixture 117 Conks 119 Ethyl ender 121 Out — job 122 Western tribe 123 Song syllable 124 “Splash” co-star Hanks

ANSWERS FOR LAST ISSUE’S PUZZLE: P 2

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ACROSS 1 Is worthy of 9 Ice cream shop treats 15 Glaringly sensational 20 Clear out of 21 Riga’s land 22 “Nadja” title role player Löwensohn 23 Start of a riddle 25 Fuzz-covered 26 Royal Middleton 27 Inflated head 28 Glimpse 29 Urge (on) 31 It may contain coffee 32 — -cone (icy treat) 33 More of the riddle 38 Chess pieces, e.g.

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Lots 641-646: Six Pieces of Matte Glazed Newcomb Pottery

Lot 574: French Provincial Louis XV Style Carved Walnut Sideboard, 19th c., H.- 38 3/4 in.,W.- 93 in., D.- 24 in. Est. $1,500-$2,500

IMPORTANT SPRING ESTATES AUCTION

Lot 842: French Gilt Bronze and Crystal Eight Light Chandelier, late 19th c., H.- 29 in., Dia.- 29 in.

Est. $800-$1,200

Friday, May 13th at 10 am, Lots 1-400 Saturday, May 14th at 10 am, Lots 401-912

Lot 711: Royal Vienna Hand Painted Porcelain Charger, 19th c., in a gilt shadowbox frame, H.- 1 in., Dia.- 16 in. Est. $1,000-$2,000

Full color catalog available at:

www.crescentcityauctiongallery.com WATCH AND BID LIVE ONLINE

Lot 677: Large Carved Walnut Gothic Double Door Armoire, c. 1860, possibly New Orleans, H.- 91 1/2 in., W.- 64 in., D.- 24 in. Est. $800-$1,200

FROM THE COMFORT OF YOUR HOME!

Lot 578: English Carved Cherry Georgian Style Leather Top Desk, 20th c., H.- 29 1/2 in., W.- 62 in., D.- 35 1/2 in. Est. $1,000-$1,500

Lot 639: Harry Jackson (1924-2011, American), “Silent Pardners,” 1973, patinated bronze, signed and dated on the integral base, H.- 14 in., W.- 15 in., D.- 5 1/2 in. Est. $2,000-$4,000

Part of a Collection of Continental Bronzes

Lot 635: Four Piece Meissen Porcelain Garniture Set, 19th c., H.- 22 in., Dia.- 11 in. Est. $3,000-$5,000

Lot 471: Pair of Large German .800 Silver Covered Urns, late 19th c., H.- 17 1/2 in., W.- 13 in., D.- 8 1/4 in., Wt.- 120.45 Troy Oz. Est. $1,500-$2,500

Selection of Six Gold Coins

Lot 853: Richard Sefton, Large English Fine Bone China and Brass Figure of a Knight on Horseback, 1987, #4/15, in a plexiglass case on a custom carved mahogany stand, Figure- H.- 24 in., W.- 24 in., D.- 24 in.

Est. $1,200-$1,800

Lot 773: Noel Rockmore (1928-1995, New Orleans), “Rooftop Scene,” 1968, acrylic on masonite, signed and dated lower right, H.- 17 1/2 in., W.- 23 1/2 in. Est. $1,500-$2,500

Lot 596: French Gilt and Gesso Louis XVI Style Overmantel Cushion Mirror, 20th c., H.- 72 in., W.- 40 in., D.- 5 in.

Est. $800-$1,200

Lot 634: “Sevres” Gilt Bronze Mounted Porcelain Letter Box and Inkstand, late 19th c., H.- 9 7/8 in., W.- 13 7/8 in., D.- 8 3/4 in. Est. $1,000-$2,000

Lot 647: George Bauer Dunbar (1927-, Louisiana), “Abstract,” c. 2002, signed center right, H.- 23 7/8 in., W.- 42 in., Est. $10,000-$15,000.

Lot 557: Alan Wolton (English), “Aspen Row,” 1985, oil on canvas, signed and dated lower right, titled verso, H.-23 3/4 in., W.- 29 5/8 in. Est. $1,200-$1,800

Lot 668: American Neo-Renaissance Oak Thirteen Piece Dining Room Suite, late 19th century, in the manner of R. J. Horner. Est. $2,000-$4,000

Lot 871: One Hundred Forty-One Piece Set of Sterling Flatware, by International, in the “Continental” pattern, 1936, Wt.- 209.6 Troy Oz. Est. $4,000-$6,000

Lot 587: French Provincial Inlaid Carved Walnut Double Door Armoire, early 19th c., H.- 95 in., W.- 72 in., D.- 27 in.

Est. $800-$1,200

Lot 779: Will Ousley (1866-1953, Louisiana), “Moonlight Bayou,” early 20th c., oil on board, signed lower right, H.- 10 1/8 in., W.- 18 3/4 in. Est. $1,000-$2,000

Lot 680: Italian Gilt and Polychromed Console Table, 20th c., H.- 33 3/4 in., W.- 62 in., D.- 16 in. Est. $1,000-$2,000

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Lot 692: Andre Gisson (Pseudonym of Anders Gittelson), (1929-2003, American/French), “Notre Dame,” 20th c., oil on canvas, signed lower right, H.-17 1/2 in., W.- 23 5/8 in.

Est. $1,000-$2,000

Lot 695: Fernand Toussaint (18731956, French/Belgian), “Portrait of a Lady with Fan,” early 20th c., oil on canvas, signed lower right, H.- 23 in., W.- 19 1/4 in. Est. $3,000-$5,000

Lot 579: French Louis XV Style Inlaid Carved Cherry Ormolu Mounted Bombe Marble Top Commode, late 19th c., H.- 34 in., W.- 51 in., D.- 20 3/4 in. Est. $800-$1,200