Gambit April 5, 2022

April 5-11 2022 Volume 43 Number 14

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APRIL 5 - APRIL 11, 2022 VOLUME 43 || NUMBER 14

CONTENTS

NEWS Opening Gambit ...............................7 Commentary.....................................9 Clancy DuBos..................................10

Diam D mond

Blake Pontchartrain......................11

DETAILS PULLOUT...............................................

PE N D DA N T

FEATURES Arts & Entertainment ....................5 Eat + Drink.......................................19

DIAMOND: THE APRIL BIRTHSTONE!

Music Listings................................ 23 PHOTO PROVIDED BY AMANDA SCHROEDER / COMMUNITIES IN SCHOOLS

TUES-FRI 10AM-5PM | SAT 10AM-3PM | Curbside Pickup Available 5101 W. ESPLANADE AVENUE | (504) 885-4956

www.fishersonsjewelers.com

13

Running Out of Time

Music ................................................ 24 Stage................................................. 26 Puzzles............................................. 27

Mental health resources in schools have lagged behind the need for decades. Now, teachers and activists are scrambling to help

S TA F F

COVER PHOTO BY IS TOCK / GE T T Y IMAGE S PLUS COVER DESIGN BY DOR A SISON

Publisher | JEANNE EXNICIOS FOSTER

EDITORIAL

BUSINESS & OPERATIONS

(504) 483-3105// response@ gambitweekly.com

Billing Inquiries 1 (225) 388-0185

Editor | JOHN STANTON

Advertising Inquiries (504) 483-3150 Advertising Director |

Political Editor | CLANCY DUBOS Arts & Entertainment Editor | WILL COVIELLO

Staff Writers | JAKE CLAPP, KAYLEE POCHE, SARAH RAVITS

Contributing Writers | IAN MCNULTY Intern | KHAYLA GASTON

CREATIVE Creative Director | DORA SISON

Traffic Manager |

ADVERTISING

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Gambit (ISSN 1089-3520) is published weekly by Capital City Press, LLC, 840 St. Charles Ave., New Orleans, LA 70130.

(504) 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

A new life

The Graduates, a group of formerly incarcerated women, perform at CAC IVY MATHIS WAS SERVING A LIFE SENTENCE AT THE LOUISIANA CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTE FOR WOMEN when she met Ausettua

AmorAmenkum in the prison’s drama club. AmorAmenkum and ArtSpot Productions founder Kathy Randels have been going to LCIW for more than 20 years, engaging women in the drama club to tell their stories through monologues, dance, movement and more.

“After so many years of dancing and performing with the drama club, Ausettua told me, ‘You’re gonna dance your way clean up out of prison,’ ” Mathis says.

“For me, those were words that I believed, but it was hard to believe that when you are in a hopeless situation — because in Louisiana, life means life, and that means until you die.”

It wasn’t easy or quick. Mathis went to prison at the age of 17 for second degree murder for a shooting in 1992 in Monroe, Louisiana.

She served more than 26 years before she was released following a 2017 Supreme Court decision about the unconstitutionality of life sentences for juvenile offenders.

For the past two years, she’s been an organizer in the Baton Rouge chapter of Voice of the Experienced (VOTE), a nonprofit group that works to restore civil rights to formerly incarcerated people.

In prison, Mathis earned a GED, joined Toastmasters International, a public speaking group, worked with the drama group and took other leadership roles. When she was released, she joined The Graduates, a group of formerly incarcerated women who continued the work of the drama club. Using the devices of theater, they tell their personal stories and call attention to women still in prison, their treatment and what it’s like to re-enter what they call the free world.

The Graduates participated in a residency at the Contemporary Arts Center last year, and they have two presentations this week. “Life” is built around a quilt with panels sewn by Mardi Gras Indians that featured the names of 107 women serving life sentences when it was made in 2017. It’s at 7:30 p.m.

Friday, April 8. “Sacred Journey” features members of The Graduates and other formerly incarcerated women telling their stories. It’s at 3 p.m. Saturday, April 9.

Mathis’ name was on the quilt, along with several women who were later released. She was the youngest woman serving a life sentence in Louisiana when she entered jail. She says she grew up in prison, and she credits many of the women who reached out to help her. One of them was Gloria Williams, better known as Mama Glo, who was released in January 2022 following 52 years of a life sentence. Williams now lives in Houston with family.

Terms of her parole required her to leave Louisiana, but she will participate in the “Life” program on Friday via Zoom.

In prison, Williams mentored many women and helped them recognize and address unresolved trauma. She and other women who had served long terms helped guide Mathis.

“They told me how to protect myself, about what to get involved in, what not to get involved in, people to stay away from.” Mathis says. “They became like mother figures to me.”

The drama group was one of the outlets Mathis pursued.

“We danced and did productions inside the prison,” says AmorAmenkum, who is a Mardi Gras Indian queen and the leader of Kumbuka African Dance & Drum Collective. “But the work was so much bigger than that. It’s a perfect example of how art can be used for education, revelation, revolution, evolution and healing. Most of those pieces were based on their personal experiences — this is sacred.”

The Graduates drew interest in work that developed around “The Life Quilt” project. They performed in New York at the Ford Foundation and elsewhere just before the pandemic shutdowns. It’s also been presented at Tulane University. Other Graduates members performing in “Life” include Taece Defillo, Carry Emerson and Fox Rich.

“That performance in New York was me dancing and telling my story,” Mathis says. “Sometimes I tell

|

by Will Coviello

Zydeco & Seafood Extravaganza

FAUBOURG BREWERY HOSTS TWO DAYS OF LIVE MUSIC AND FOOD on

the great lawn of its home in New Orleans East. The music lineup features Chubby Carrier and the Bayou Swamp Band, Sunpie and the Louisiana Sunspots, Cameron Dupuy and the Cajun Troubadours, Curley Taylor, RJ & Kreole Smoove and more. Food vendors include NOLA Crawfish King, Peewee’s Crabcakes, Buggin’ Out Boils and more. There also are games and outdoor beer stands around the grounds. Music is from noon to 7 p.m. Saturday, April 9, and Sunday, April 10. Visit faubourgbrewery.com for details.

PHOTO PROVIDED BY T H E G R A D U AT E S

a story through song. I always start with when I went to prison, how long I served, when I came home — what those experiences were and how I ended up walking into my purpose and where I am today.”

When Mathis was released, she could not go live with her mother, because her mother lived in public housing, which prohibits residence by some felons. She was fortunate to get help finding a job and her first apartment. Now, she is a homeowner, and she brought her mother to live with her. Mathis recently was appointed by Gov. John Bel Edwards to the state Council on the Children of Incarcerated Parents and Caregivers.

But as the “Sacred Journey” program will address, returning to the free world isn’t easy.

“A lot of times, when we come home, there are no outlets for us to heal,” Mathis says. “Or even cope with the challenges of the strange norms of society — and wanting to not feel so alienated. But being among a group of women who understood each other, learned about each other, their experiences, supporting each other, being able to vent and grow together — it was one of the most beautiful experiences I have had since I came home. Wherever they are at in their life, they’re going to talk about it. I am an open book.”

For information on The Graduates shows, visit cacno.org. For information on The Graduates, visit graduatesrising.org.

The Mavericks

FOR THREE DECADES, THE MAVERICKS WRANGLED THEIR OWN BRAND of coun-

try and rock by way of Miami, led by Cuban-American crooner Raul Malo.

The band released its first album in Spanish just after the pandemic began. The Mavericks are back in the saddle again, performing at Civic Theatre at 8 p.m. Friday, April 8. Find tickets via civicnola.com.

P H O T O B Y D AV I D M C C L I S T E R

Super Sunday Downtown MARDI GRAS INDIANS GATHER TO SHOW OFF THIS YEAR’S SUITS on

Bayou St. John for Super Sunday Downtown on Sunday, April 10. The Indians will march down Orleans Avenue to North Broad Street and St. Bernard Avenue. The event starts at 1 p.m.

Bon Iver

IN EARLY 2020, BON IVER HAD PLANNED A SMALL TOUR of a collabo-

rative performance with TU Dance, including a stop in New Orleans.

But after sexual harassment allegations against TU Dance’s co-founder came to light, Bon Iver frontman Justin Vernon quickly PAGE 25

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NEW ORLEANS NEWS + VIEWS

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T H U M B S U P/ THUMBS DOWN

Jamm Around a new social platform built to connect musicians, producers and audio engineers to make collaboration easier, won the $400,000 top prize at New Orleans Entrepreneur Week. Jamm Around is based in New Orleans, and its creators Brent Craige, Donovan Williams and Marlon Butler took part in the “Shark Tank”style business pitch competition. Jamm Around’s founders plan to use the winnings to hire more local engineers and expand the app, which is available through the Apple app store and on Android phones.

420,000

program focused on mental health assistance, will use $9.2 million it recently received from FEMA to expand care for Louisianans still recovering from Hurricane Ida. The funds will be distributed to five local governing entities, including New Orleans’ Metropolitan Human Services District and Jefferson Parish Human Services Authority, to provide short-term crisis counseling services and connecting clients to other resources and recovery programs.

Entergy New Orleans needed

31 hours and a 1,000-step process to fully restore power to 10,000 downtown residents and workers after a bird got into a substation and was allegedly electrocuted. Entergy officials testified before a City Council committee last week when they revealed the complex process of restoring power after the absurd disruption.

THE DOLLAR AMOUNT OF CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS ATTORNEY GENERAL JEFF LANDRY HAS USED TO PAY THE STAFFING COMPANY HE OWNS OVER THE LAST 15 YEARS.

P H O T O B Y T R AV I S S P R A D L I N G / T H E A D V O C AT E

Senators ahead of the veto override session.

Legislature overrides governor’s veto of congressional map, despite pleas from Black colleagues THREAT OF SEVERE WEATHER DIDN’T STOP THE LEGISLATURE from com-

The Louisiana Spirit Crisis Counseling Program, a state-run

THE COUNT

ing to the Capitol Wednesday to override Gov. John Bel Edwards’ veto on a map that keeps Black voters underrepresented in Congress — despite impassioned speeches from their Black colleagues asking them not to.

The House voted 72-31 to override the veto, followed by a 27-11 vote in the Senate.

“I don’t feel human today,” Sen. Karen Carter Peterson, a Black New Orleans Democrat, told her colleagues following the House vote. “I don’t feel seen. I don’t feel equal at all.”

The congressional map passed by the Legislature earlier this year keeps the state with only one majority-Black district out of six, even though Black people make up a third of the state’s population.

Earlier this month civil rights groups, including The American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, filed a lawsuit challenging the map, arguing it violates the Voting Rights Act (VRA) by diluting the strength of Black voters.

On the House side, Rep. John Stefanski, a white Crowley Republican, responded to these

claims by saying, “The Voting Rights Act is federal law. It is not the Louisiana constitution.

That’s why we’re here today,” despite the fact that federal law trumps state law.

Sen. Sharon Hewitt, a white Slidell Republican who presented the bill on the Senate side, insisted, as she has repeatedly throughout the redistricting process that the population of Black people in the state doesn’t mean there should be two majority-Black districts.

Peterson replied, “The last quote from Chairman Hewitt was that we don’t have to do proportional representation, so we don’t even have to pay attention to you. Again, being ignored, just like my ancestors 100 years later.

When is it that we will be seen?”

Sen. Regina Barrow, a Black Baton Rouge Democrat, said Peterson’s comments about not feeling seen resonated with her.

“I don’t want my grandchildren, who in 10 years one will be 17 and the other will be 26, to not be seen,” she said.

It’s not the first time the Republican-dominated legislature has tried to override the PAGE 8

According to The Advocate, the arrangement avoids rules designed to let the public know who exactly Landry is paying to work on his campaign. No other statewide official uses such a system, and it is unclear whether Landry, who has a long history of opposing transparency, has personally made money from the arrangement.

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governor’s veto, but it is the first time they’ve succeeded. The Legislature called a veto override session last summer for several bills, including an anti-trans sports bill, but failed to get the twothirds vote needed in the House.

Edwards didn’t sign nor veto the state House and Senate redistricting maps, which also did not increase the number of majority-Black districts in the state, instead allowing them to become law without his signature. Civil rights groups are also suing over these maps.

“My solace comes in that there is another step in this process, and it will be in the courts,” said Sen. Gerald Boudreaux, a Black Lafayette Democrat.

After their testimony, Hewitt teared up, telling her Black colleagues, “I can never pretend to understand what it’s like to walk in your shoes.” She then continued asking the Senate to vote for the map maintaining just one majority-Black district.

— KAYLEE POCHE

These are the 10 lowestperforming road work projects in New Orleans, according to the city

DRIVING AROUND NEW ORLEANS SOMETIMES FEELS LIKE navigating

a giant construction site, thanks to a massive road and water line repair project bankrolled by $2 billion in FEMA funds.

Residents in many neighborhoods say that these projects are taking far too long to complete. In March 2022, the city

posted an online rating of active road work projects.

This map shows the 10 lowest-performing projects out of the 48 rated by the Department of Public Works. Nine active projects were not assigned ratings.

The lowest-rated projects in March 2022 were:

• Milneburg Group A • St. Roch South Group B • Lower 9th Ward South Group A • Little Woods Group A • Black Pearl Group B • Central City Group B • Lower 9th Ward Northeast Group B • St. Claude Group C • East Riverside, Garden District, Irish Channel, St Thomas Group A • Viavant — Lake Catherine Group C The overall ratings for each project are drawn from a combination of five factors, each of which contribute 20% to the overall rating. The factors are project management, public convenience, quality control, safety and timeliness. The ratings will be regularly updated, according to the city.

The city says it hopes to use these project evaluations while deciding future contracts. But construction industry representatives say that may be illegal. They have also raised questions about the accuracy of the ratings, which they say leave out mistakes and delays that can be attributed to the city. — MATT SLEDGE / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE

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C O M M E N TA R Y

he llo co lor

Responding quickly and selflessly in the face of tragedy THE GREATER NEW ORLEANS AREA HAS BEEN HIT

by destructive tornados twice in as many weeks.

Although last week’s tornado on the Northshore caused relatively minor damage, a powerful EF3 cut a devastating path across the West Bank, the Lower 9th Ward, Arabi and New Orleans East on March 22, killing one person. Hundreds more were left homeless or with badly damaged houses. The economic costs will be significant.

After more than two years of pandemic-related disruptions and two major hurricanes, weather-related catastrophes have become an unwelcome reminder of how tenuous life can be in south Louisiana. Unfortunately, “tornado season” may become as much a part of our lives and lexicon as hurricane season, thanks to climate change.

Meteorologists already warn that we could have another band of severe storms moving across the area early this week.

Thankfully, what also has become commonplace is how we respond to such disasters. Like the early lockdowns of the pandemic or the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, once again people across the metro area instinctively rose to the challenge of helping those in need. The outpouring of support for victims of the tornado did not surprise, but it is worth highlighting and praising.

Pirogue’s Whiskey Bayou transformed from a barroom and outdoor drinking space into a hub for relief efforts in Arabi. By early the next day and well before they saw power restored, the bar’s owners Lisa McCracken, Kelly Sheeran and Muriel Altikriti got to work. Initially, they used the food in their kitchen to provide more than 200 free meals for residents and responders. In the ensuing days, food producers like Piece of Meat and Once Around the Kitchen set up a free kitchen on the bar’s property.

Mutual aid groups from the region, many of them created

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

Kelly Sheeran (left) and Muriel Altikriti work without electricity at their Arabi bar Pirogue’s Whiskey Bayou, which became a hub for tornado relief aid.

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shop @gaetanasnola during the early days of the pandemic or immediately after Ida, leapt into action. These groups — as well as individual New Orleanians — quickly began gathering and distributing relief supplies at the bar as well as at churches, other bars and various sites in St. Bernard Parish and New Orleans East.

The Krewe of Red Beans turned its Beanlandia den into a donation depot, collecting cleaning supplies, linens and bedding, children’s goods, contractor bags and basic repair supplies, all of which affected homeowners specifically requested. The group even hired five culture bearers to drive loads of donations to Arabi.

On Monday, March 28, the senior class at Holy Cross High School spent the entirety of the school’s annual senior class retreat in Arabi, rather than in prayerful reflection, helping families clean up, remove debris, salvage valuables, and begin the long task of rebuilding. “It was considered an alternative form of prayer,” one school official noted, “and the guys were there all day helping out. We’re very proud of them.”

At a time when everything feels so uncertain and chaotic, it is a heartening display of community and empathy to see so many respond so quickly and selflessly in the face of tragedy.

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CL ANCY DUBOS @clancygambit

Details of mugshot bill divide criminal justice reform allies ACCESS TO PUBLIC RECORDS HAS BECOME AN ANNUAL TOPIC of legislative review

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and revision in Louisiana and elsewhere. This year is no exception.

Louisiana generally has a strong Public Records Act, but lawmakers continually try to erode it around the edges.

Advocates of transparency, particularly the news media, fight a constant battle to preserve the public’s right to see what their government is up to.

Sometimes that battle puts traditional allies on opposite sides. Such is the case with House Bill 729 by Rep. Royce Duplessis, D-New Orleans. Duplessis’ measure would make almost all mugshots, long a staple of media reports about major crimes, exempt from the Public Records Law — unless and until an arrested subject is convicted.

Duplessis is a staunch advocate of criminal justice reform, as were most of the major media in Louisiana. This time, they are not so aligned.

“Mugshots are prejudicial,” says Duplessis, an attorney.

“They undermine our constitutional guarantee of being presumed innocent. A large percentage of people who are arrested are not convicted, but 100% of the people who are arrested have mugshots taken.”

Mugshots would still be available immediately to law enforcement under Duplessis’ bill, as would photos of fugitives or suspects who pose “an imminent danger” to individuals or the public.

Media and public records advocates — and many in law enforcement and elsewhere — worry that Duplessis’ bill goes too far.

“Domestic violence and sexual violence offenders are often not arrested or prosecuted,” says Scott Sternberg, general counsel for the Louisiana Press Association. “If a victim of sexual abuse sees his or her attacker’s mug shot in connection with another, similar crime, that victim could identify his or her attacker and notify law enforcement.” Sternberg also argues for an exception for public officials who are arrested.

PHOTO BY BILL FEIG / T H E T I M E S - P I C AY U N E

Rep. Royce Duplessis, D-New Orleans.

Duplessis says he’s not keen on making too many exceptions.

“I’m generally always open to making my bills better, but I want to be careful because being too open to changes could undermine the intent of the bill,” he says, adding, “What is the social value of a mugshot? What is the goal? What is the media’s need for it when you can still tell a story without publishing a mugshot?”

Sternberg hopes Duplessis will change his mind. “There’s a social utility in mugshots on rare occasions, but banning them from immediate publication altogether can make it more difficult to catch people who repeatedly commit certain crimes and escape prosecution, or even arrest,” he says.

Duplessis also notes that many communities have seen the rise of publications and websites that publish mugshots exclusively — and charge a premium to have them removed. His bill would cap at $50 the amount such publications and websites could charge people for removing their mugshots — and punish those who fail to remove photos quickly when paid to remove them.

Duplessis offered a similar bill several years ago, but it failed to gain traction. He hopes for a different result when the House votes on HB 729 this week.

@GambitBlake | askblake@gambitweekly.com

Hey Blake,

Near the gates surrounding the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden in City Park is a marker honoring Donald Bradburn.

It mentions his military service and says he was killed in 1918 in France. Who was he and what’s his connection to New Orleans?

Dear reader,

DONALD BRADBURN WAS BORN IN NEW ORLEANS IN 1892 , the son of

W.P. Bradburn. He attended Soule Business College and planned to follow his father into the pharmacy business but left for Colorado, where he worked in the lumber business.

According to newspaper reports of his death, he enlisted in the Army when the U.S. entered World War I in 1917. He was assigned to the 341st Machine Gun Battalion, Company D of the 89th Division.

He fought through the Saint-Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne offensives in France and was killed while fighting in Bois de Bantheville, France.

He died on Oct. 21, 1918, just days before the war ended. He was buried with full military honors in Metairie Cemetery.

A month after his death, The Times-Picayune published one of his last letters home to his parents from the battlefront. “The last eight days have been the most eventful in

11

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PHO T O BY BL A K E P ON T C H A R T R A IN

A marker near the sculpture garden in City Park honors Donald Bradburn, a New Orleanian who fought and died during World War I. my life,” he wrote, adding “it would take three or four tablets to describe what I have seen and done.” He closed by writing, “Don’t worry about me, remember the cause.”

Bradburn’s letter mentions Corporal Thomas Gragard, another New Orleans native killed in action in France. The two were neighbors on Octavia Street. A memorial to Gragard is also found in City Park, not far from Bradburn’s.

On July 4, 1919, Bradburn and Gragard were two of 63 New Orleanians honored with the dedication of a memorial grove of live oak trees in Audubon Park.

“Its significance permeated the gathering,” reported The TimesPicayune, “and yet it seemed it was a sweet service, paying last fond tribute to those who sleep on the battlefields of France.”

BL AKEVIE W THIS MONTH MARKS THE 180TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDING of a beloved New Orleans department store from the past: D.H. Holmes.

Originally from Ohio, Daniel Henry Holmes moved to New Orleans and worked for a dry goods merchant. On April 2, 1842, he opened his own store at 22 Chartres St. By 1849, his business had outgrown that location and moved to the 800 block of Canal Street. “It is by far the most beautiful edifice ever erected in New Orleans for mercantile purposes,” remarked newspaper reporters of the new four-story building, which is regarded as one of the country’s first department stores.

After expanding throughout the 19th century, D.H. Holmes (or “Holmeses,” as many locals pronounced it) grew to include a restaurant as well as departments for men’s and women’s clothing, hosiery and household goods. By the turn of the 20th century, D.H. Holmes was the largest department store in the South. The clock outside became a local meeting point, immortalized in the opening scene of John Kennedy Toole’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “A Confederacy of Dunces.”

In 1955, Holmes opened its first suburban store, located in Baton Rouge.

The 1960s saw Holmes stores added to the Lakeside and Oakwood shopping malls. By 1989, when the store chain was purchased by Dillard’s, there were 18 stores across the South.

The Canal Street location was converted into a hotel, now known as the Hyatt Centric French Quarter. A statue out front depicts the iconic protagonist from “A Confederacy of Dunces,” Ignatius J. Reilly.

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RUNNING OUT OF

TIME

Mental health resources in schools have lagged behind the need for decades. Now, teachers and activists are scrambling to help students on the brink.

BY K AY LEE

P OCHE

P H O T O B Y T E D J A C K S O N / T H E T I M E S - P I C AY U N E

AMANDA SCHROEDER SAW A LOT DURING HER TIME AS A SCHOOL COUNSELOR IN NEW ORLEANS.

Schroeder, who now works as the president of the nonprofit Communities in Schools, recalls the time a decade ago when she worked in a public school in New Orleans East. A kindergartener at the school would abruptly bolt from his desk, running out of the classroom without warning. Sometimes, he’d run out of the school building altogether.

According to Schroeder, there wasn’t an obvious trigger like being bullied. In fact, the child wouldn’t cry or ask for help before bolting. He’d get up with no warning and, just, run.

“It was a very dangerous situation,” Schroeder says. “The child would be able to access a busy street in moments if adults couldn’t reach him fast enough.”

So she sat with the child in class to observe what was happening. She noticed he was more likely to run when experiencing a transition, such as a move from a carpet to a desk.

Once she identified the trigger, the teacher knew to support the child during these transitions and make him feel safe.

Schroeder also worked with the child to help him identify signs and feelings before they got to the fightor-flight state and felt the need to run. She taught him coping skills to help calm himself when his emotions became heightened.

“I was able to teach them techniques on how to calm down and deal with their anxiety instead of

actually just running,” Schroeder says. “That was the way that they had learned to escape something. It was really the fight-or-flight method had come into that child.”

“Within a few weeks, the child was able to feel safe in their classroom and never ran out again,” she adds.

It’s not as uncommon a response to trauma and stress as it may appear. Though Schroeder witnessed this behavior for the first time at this charter school, there were two other children who would run out of class, too. Teachers in other parts of the country have also reported similar situations, in which students’ fightor-flight instincts kick in, causing them to flee even in situations where no trigger is immediately obvious.

In a way, Schroeder’s story is a success story. School staff identified a behavior that needed addressing early on, and a mental health pro-

fessional worked to help the child cope with the emotion in a safe way.

At the same time, it’s a testament to the one-on-one time, resources and effort it takes to help children with individual needs, which are ongoing and don’t necessarily have tidy solutions.

Unfortunately, most schools in New Orleans and across Louisiana don’t have the number of mental health professionals they need, and teachers, counselors and advocates say that means many children end up slipping through the cracks. This is especially true for Black and Latino kids, who often come from poor and working-class families — because of systemic racism — and are more likely to attend under-funded schools and live in areas with less community resources.

“Many of the schools have limited to no resources to support the stu-

RUNNING OUT OF TIME

PHOTO PROVIDED BY AMANDA SCHROEDER / COMMUNITIES IN SCHOOLS

Tralana Eugene, a former site coordinator for Communities in Schools, works with a student.

One of the best ways to reach kids is through schools, and studies show children who are more involved in school are less likely to get caught up in the criminal legal system.

Researchers with the nonprofit Child Trends found that “a strong connection to school” was one of the main factors decreasing the likelihood a young person would end up committing a violent or nonviolent offense, regardless of whether they’d experienced hardships during childhood, according to a 2020 report by the group.

Similarly, University of Alabama researchers compiled data from 1998 to 2011 and concluded that “academic progress reduces the strength of the relationship between exposure to violence and juvenile court involvement.”

But New Orleans schools aren’t equipped to meet the mental health and social and emotional needs of the city’s children, many of whom have experienced loss, violence and other traumatic events.

The district does have an office for students who need additional services, such as “students experiencing acute mental or behavioral health challenges, ongoing discipline issues, or students involved in the juvenile criminal justice system,” a spokesperson for

NOLA Public Schools told Gambit.

And many schools have at least one counselor on site to identify students in need of help and to work with them, though it’s difficult to get precise data because New Orleans has a decentralized charter system.

Still, the sheer number of kids in need of help is clearly overwhelming. A projected 51,000 of Louisiana’s 694,000 K-12 students have clinical depression, according to a February report

by Hopeful Futures, a campaign by a team of nonprofits including National Alliance on Mental Illness and UNICEF. And of that number, only an estimated 19,000 receive treatment.

That’s because schools in the state have nowhere near the recommended amount of mental health professionals. The American School Counselor Association (ASCA) recommends one school psychologist per every 500 students, but Louisiana has one for every 3,365, the same report found. There also is one school social worker for every 1,979 students and one school counselor for every 441 students — a far cry from the recommended 1:250 ratio for both.

Jill Cook, ASCA executive director, says every student at a school should have at least one trusted staff member they could talk to

about any problems or needs they may have. Some schools do this through small groups with teachers and students that meet regularly. Others may write every student’s name on a note card to divvy them up and see who may be getting left out.

“It’s looking at ways that schools can be very intentional to ensure that students do have a connection,” Cook said.

Without proper supports and resources in place, schools can become retraumatizing spaces for students rather than supportive spaces where students can safely heal, learn and grow, Francois says. Without the staff to sit down with students and get to the bottom of why they may be acting a certain way, some students just end up getting disciplined.

“School settings can serve as a safe environment, a supportive environment in all of the contexts that youth are navigating,” Francois says. “We have a reality in [New Orleans] where schools are not only not safe environments for these youth, they are environments that are creating conditions for them to have additional negative life experiences.”

Erin Sims, who helps run Communities in Schools of the Gulf South with Schroeder, says the traditional educational classroom model can be challenging for chil-

G A M B I T > B E S T O F N E WO R L E A N S . C O M > A P R I L 5 - 1 1 > 2 02 2

dents’ mental health and wellness and social/emotional health and wellness,” says Samantha Francois, executive director of Tulane’s Violence Prevention Institute.

“And those same resources are very limited in community-based settings as well in New Orleans.”

And students in New Orleans need those resources now more than ever. New Orleans kids and their families are facing enormous stressors, from growing up in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the federal levee failures to now living through two years of a pandemic, recent spikes in violent crime and increasingly frequent natural disasters. That’s especially true for children of color, who are more likely to experience trauma due to systemic racism.

“The white youth in this city, they live a different existence,” Francois says. “The white youth in this city have access to and can get access to all of those (resources) outside of school and even within a lot of the schools that they attend as well.”

Trauma can shrink the window of emotions a person can tolerate without going into either a fight-or-flight response or a freeze response. That can manifest as anxiety or anger on one end of the spectrum, or as zoning out or feelings of numbness on the other end. When a person enters those survival responses, they’re acting on instinct, rather than thinking through things logically.

Schroeder says when children who have experienced trauma don’t get the support they need — and aren’t taught the coping skills needed to widen that emotional window — it can manifest as violence toward themselves or toward others. It’s a problem that’s existed for decades in the city, and one that’s come to a head this particularly violent year.

“The short answer to crime is a reactive answer,” says Schroeder.

“But I think that the long-term answer needs to be something that is a real understanding of why crime is happening because we’re not going to be able to police our way out of this. We’re not going to be able to arrest our way out of this … If we don’t do something longer term, nothing’s going to change.”

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RUNNING OUT OF TIME dren dealing with grief or trauma.

They may find the classroom space overwhelming, loud and confusing. Perhaps they may be a child who needs a lot of adult reassurance, which is hard when there’s only one adult in the room.

Or they may not know how to respond appropriately when their peers approach them in a way that’s unnatural to them.

“They might have not learned the skills that they would need to handle that conflict or handle a peer that is acting in a way they don’t like or that is confusing to them in a way that maybe doesn’t involve hitting them or yelling or running away,” Sims says.

But, she says, when kids are acting out in school, it’s not helpful for schools to suspend or expel them.

“That’s the time when we should be investing more,” she says.

“It shouldn’t be a timeout from people and a time away from this environment that’s supposed to be helping you and empowering you to be yourself and reach your full potential.”

Instead, according to Sims, it’s a time for school mental health providers to work one-on-one with kids to teach them coping skills that will keep them in the classroom. These interventions should also go beyond school and involve parents and the broader community, as well as investments in community resources, health care, affordable housing and employment opportunities, she says.

“All the policy things that we talk about on a big issue, they’re all showing up in a school with children,” she says. “You need a community at this point in time …

We all have to work together to think creatively and think critically about what is going on with the students and find out exactly what they need, and then work together to achieve that.”

PHOTO PROVIDED BY AMANDA SCHROEDER / COMMUNITIES IN SCHOOLS

Erin Sims teaching students yoga as a healthy coping mechanism.

Some schools in the city are working to become what is known in the education and psychology worlds as “trauma-informed schools,” part of a broader national movement to better address students’ mental health needs.

In practice, that looks like a school without cops and one that works to understand why students are behaving in a certain way rather than punishing them.

Then, the school helps the student get the support they need — for example, stable housing — either through its own resources or through partnerships with community organizations.

“In essence, it’s not treating the student like they’re just a bad person, but they are a person with some really bad circumstances that the school then would work

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with that student to try to resolve and negotiate,” Francois says.

There are groups in the city using this approach both in schools and in school-type settings to try to fill part of the gap in youth services in the city.

Communities in Schools is one of them, and the nonprofit provides 25 mental health professionals in 20 schools across the Greater New Orleans area. In those schools, they work with at least 60 students each and provide preventative services to most of the schools’ populations. Nearly all the kids they work with are on free or reduced lunch, a tenth of them are homeless and just over half report experiencing trauma.

“In the majority of our schools, we are the only mental health professionals in the building,” Schroeder says.

Based on the needs of the school, Communities in Schools will supply health resources, such as mobile dental and vision services, or sexual health and relationship health programs with the Insititute for Women and Ethnic Studies. They also go into schools after a tragedy, such as the death of a teacher or student, to implement a whole-school trauma response for both students and staff.

About two-thirds of the funding for these services comes directly from the schools, and then the organization fundraises the rest.

Schroeder and Sims are looking to receive funding from the city and the state — which they say is typical for their program in other parts of the country — to expand their reach.

Then, there’s the Center for Resilience, Louisiana’s only day treatment center for children with diagnosed emotional and behavioral health needs beyond what their schools can provide. These children may experience emotional instability, be verbally or physically aggressive or have had behavioral outbursts in school that resulted in property damage. They’re meant to attend the center temporarily, with kids staying an average of around 11 months.

According to Wendy Robinson-Miller, the center’s clinical director, the children at the center have had an average of five or more adverse childhood experiences, which include trauma, abuse, neglect and loss. This can include domestic violence, parental abandonment, having a parent incarcerated or growing up in a household with an adult who has an addiction. Most people don’t have more than one of these experiences during their childhood.

At the center, which the kids go to in lieu of traditional school, staff

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Liz Marcell Williams is the executive director of the Center for Resilience.

get to the root of their behaviors and address trauma and grief.

Additionally, the center has a medical director, Vininder Khunkhun, who is a psychiatrist and can manage the children’s medications on site. Unlike in a traditional health care setting, the kids interact with Khunkhun on a regular basis, which helps build trust and gives him a sense of how the children are responding to the medications.

“A typical model for a child who receives medication and psychiatric services would be that they see that psychiatrist for an appointment for maybe 15 minutes once a month,” Williams says. “[Here] he plays sports with the kids, he is participating in group activities, etc. He’s not only building relationships, but he’s able to see how the

various medications are working or not working for children in the program and to make adjustments accordingly.”

That kind of specialized care for the highest needs students is expensive. According to Williams, the services can cost up to $100,000 a year for each student. That’s around $20,000 more per student than other day treatment centers in the cost, in part because they offer medication management and transportation. Most of the money comes from the schools the children originally attended and the school district.

The bulk of the cost goes toward paying staff. The center, which also serves students with autism, has 50 staff members for its 45 students. Williams says they’d planned to increase the ratio of children to adults in time, but they haven’t found a way to do so safely.

“Because we exist in a city where there are so many gaps in that continuum of care … we’ve not been able to do that and maintain a really safe environment,” she says. “The acuity of need of the children we work with is such that we really do need to have, in most cases, a higher than one-to-one adult to child ratio.”

And although some schools in the city are beginning to take a more trauma-informed approach, New Orleans is a long way off from having a completely trauma-informed school system. Doing so would require a reimagining of our education system and overcoming financial, political and logistical hurdles, Francois says.

School staffing would have to look much different than it does now, with way more professionals able to provide mental and social emotional services full time. Finding those workers could be a challenge too, given nationwide school

staffing shortages in the education and mental health fields.

Francois cites low pay and the impending threat of natural disasters as reasons New Orleans schools may not attract the mental health professionals they so desperately need.

“We have quality education and social work and public health programs at Dillard University, Xavier University, Southern University New Orleans and Tulane ... But they don’t stay,” she says. “We lose them. They go elsewhere because the opportunities, the pay and the quality of life is better.”

Additionally, a trauma-informed curriculum would include not just core subjects like math and English, but lessons on emotional regulation, coping skills and managing difficult situations.

“I think there are political barriers to that where we have state legislators and citizens who don’t believe that that is the job of the schools, that schools shouldn’t have to take on the role of providing everything that the students that come through their doors need,” Francois says. “They believe that schools are just there to teach them the ABCs, and that’s it.”

While schools are a big component of reaching children, supports and programs outside of school that are accessible to Black and Latino children are also crucial pieces of the puzzle.

School counselors only provide short-term counseling, not therapy, and they also don’t diagnose children or give them medicine.

“Anything that’s beyond the scope of a school counselor’s role, that’s where you want to have those really collaborative relationships with community agencies and organizations that can provide

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start off the day by asking the kids to reflect on the day before. It might be as simple as asking them a question like “What’s your favorite kind of pizza?” but the idea is for staff and students to connect and learn each other’s likes and dislikes. Then, they get a few hours of math, science and English.

The children go to group therapy every day or every other day, depending on their needs. The therapy can range from social skills support, problem solving to trying new hobbies like art and music — even bringing in a DJ. At both the center and its partner schools, they’ve recently been using a therapy technique called PLAAY (Preventing Longterm Anger and Aggression in Youth) to use activities kids like, such as basketball, to work through conflict resolution and stress management.

Liz Marcell Williams, Center for Resilience CEO and wife of District Attorney Jason Williams, says the technique has been particularly effective for kids in the city in part because “it also explicitly addresses racial trauma, which is at so much of the heart of conflict in the city.”

“Our city because of the resource issues, because of a lot of the systemic stuff … we have not been able to find good interventions that we can pull off the shelf and implement here without tweaking them,” Williams says.

“The PLAAY intervention was … designed for the needs of African American youth that really spoke to our kids. It really worked for the children we work with, and we think it really can have implications across the city.”

They’ll end the day at the center with more reflection and the kids will get individual therapy several times a week as well, which can include working with the family to

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RUNNING OUT OF TIME more intensive supports to students and families,” Cook says.

In fact, Francois says, for the last 20 years, she’s been hearing the same sentiment from kids of color in the city: They need more activities to do outside of school.

“New Orleans is not a childrenand teen-friendly city,” she says.

“We are still a city that is largely poor and working class, so there are a lack of activities, events, places for our young people to go and fully realize their interests, be it art, sports, computers, drama, whatever it is.”

While some youth programs exist in the city, she says many either can’t afford them or they have limited capacity. Additionally, job training programs are often geared toward the service industry, which some kids aren’t interested in.

“I was hearing it from them in the early 2000s, and I’m still hearing the same thing from them now,” Francois says.

It’s not just a New Orleans problem. Francois can’t point to a city in the country that has accessible youth programming completely figured out. But she says Chicago and Boston are working to create

more schooling and skill training options outside of the standard college-prep curriculum, such as vocational schools for computing, technology and engineering.

To do this in New Orleans, policymakers and stakeholders in education, social service and health care would need to work together to create and fund activities and programming for kids.

“I don’t know, from my experience, that we have all of the sectors on the same page yet,” Francois says.

And in the meantime, as communities reel from horrific acts of violence, there’s a risk of lawmakers proposing the same types of “tough-on-crime” policies — that increase penalties and create new crimes — that have led to the overincarceration of Black and Latino people and failed to make communities safer.

Over the last several years, there has been some bipartisan effort in the Legislature to reform the state’s criminal legal system. But Rep. Royce Duplessis, a New Orleans Democrat, says he’s noticed a tide change amid recent acts of violence.

“I haven’t seen this many bills being filed that increase penalties or create new crimes since I’ve been here, and many of them will be advanced coming out of places like New Orleans,” Duplessis says.

“With this recent (crime) wave, that I don’t think we’re seeing just in Louisiana but across the country, I think we’re falling into the same reactionary responses that we saw in the ’90s.”

Francois says the response is natural because it’s what has happened throughout history.

“It’s the response we as a society know,” she says. “It’s the response that has been ingrained into us when someone commits an act that we have labeled a crime: They should receive this consequence, they should be arrested, they should go to trial, they should go to prison. That’s what we know, and that’s what a lot of society has accepted and believes is even morally right.”

Duplessis says lawmakers should resist the urge to increase penalties and create new crimes, which he doubts will deter people from committing crimes. Instead, he wants his colleagues to invest long-term in areas like health care,

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education and other social services.

He says his office is currently working on a bill to get a mental health curriculum into the state’s schools.

And with more federal money coming into the state, on top of an existing budget surplus after major deficits just a few years prior, legislators have an opportunity to make the kind of investments advocates for children have been requesting for decades.

However, Francois says it will take organized public pressure to get legislators to invest that money into fully funding services for children inside and outside of schools.

“The citizenry has to say to [legislators], because they’re supposed to be representing us, ‘This is where we want those funds to go,’ and do that advocacy work to hopefully sway them to move those funds to those kinds of programs and services and institutions,” she says.

Otherwise, she says, “my fear is that the system will work as it always has worked.”

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19

Make a wish

FORK + CENTER

A new dim sum restaurant and bakery opens in Uptown WISHING TOWN BAKERY CAFE IN MARCH

opened the second location of its bakery and dim sum restaurant in Uptown, and a technology failure dealt the business an unwelcoming surprise on its first day.

“We designed all of our ordering and checking out to be online and on portable devices,” says Aisha Chen, a partner in the business originally founded by pastry chef Vivi Zheng and her husband, chef Kevin Zheng. When it came time to open the doors, there was a line down the block and dozens of online orders in the queue.

“We so appreciate our customers, but the kitchen couldn’t keep up,” Chen says. “Our internet capacity wasn’t strong enough to handle everything. We had to cancel orders and people waited.”

Chen posted a message on Instagram at the end of the day, explaining what happened and apologizing for the inconvenience.

Instead of rants from internet trolls, Wishing Town received an outpouring of love and support from new and longtime customers alike. “The comments were so touching,” Chen says. “One customer said, ‘Don’t worry, we have nothing but love and patience.’ It almost made me cry.”

Now it has boosted tech working well, and Wishing Town has stayed busy.

The menu’s dim sum section includes 13 types of dumplings, and there also are hot pots with beef or seafood, marinated chicken over noodles, cold glass noodle salads and more.

“People loved the dumplings,” Chen says.

Dumplings arrive freshly steamed in bamboo baskets, most with four to six dumplings to an order. So far, the best-selling items include the mini steamed buns, stuffed with seasoned ground Angus beef or ground pork mixed with Chinese cabbage, ginger and scallions.

Tender Dragon shrimp dumplings feature whole shrimp combined

|

Email dining@gambitweekly.com

by Beth D’Addono

with garlic, ginger and crab stick with bits of seaweed and sesame on top. One of Chen’s favorites is the cheeseburger pocket dumpling, shaped like an open purse and filled with ground beef, onion, ginger, scallion, mozzarella cheese and crumbled bacon. The same shape works well with a tofu skin to deliver nibs of char siu, or Cantonesespiced barbecued pork, combined with cabbage, ginger and scallion.

Most of the dishes are not highly spiced, except for the spicy dumpling soup, a chile-oil fueled broth bobbing with beef or pork dumplings.

For dessert, slices of Vivi Zheng’s beautiful but not overly sweet treats are featured in flavors like almond Chantilly, Oreo Chantilly and tiramisu.

Wishing Town took over a refurbished Victorian cottage that formerly housed the coffeeshop Cafe Luna, which closed during the pandemic. The Zhengs added an expansive deck for outdoor dining.

A large live oak tree and table umbrellas shade the space, and solar-powered light fixtures illuminate the patio at night. Currently, the restaurant opens daily at 11 a.m. and serves food until closing, but dim sum isn’t available from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.

The second location is a milestone for what started as a much smaller business. Vivi Zheng started making egg tarts in her home and sold them to a mostly Chinese clientele.

The Zhengs opened a bakery in a little strip shopping center on David Drive, and later moved to a more central location near Lakeside Shopping Center.

The name Wishing Town was inspired by the sound of the Chinese phrase “wei xin tang,” which translates to a “heart and

Bunny shop

THERE’S A NEW MARKET AND CAFE IN THE LOWER GARDENS DISTRICT that’s

out to be a focal point for the growing, ever-changing array of small artisan food and drink brands across the area, and also an anytime fixture for neighbors.

Called the Rabbit’s Foot, it’s a place to grab a pastry and a coffee, a sandwich, and a few items for home, a jar of special jam, a country loaf from an artisan baker or just a gallon of milk.

The Rabbit’s Foot founder Ryan Murphy describes his concept as a modern bodega.

“Every other idea I came up with, people already had a set idea of what that was, and I wanted this to be a bit different,” he says.

The Rabbit’s Foot opened last week at 2042 Prytania St., in a corner building that was once home to the Lower Garden District location P H OTO BY C H E RY L G E R B E R

Co-owner Aisha Chen serves dim sum at Wishing Town Bakery Cafe. mind dedication” that sums up the couple’s dedication to their business.

Chen moved to New Orleans nine years ago from California when her husband took a research job at Tulane University. She met the Zhengs, who were their neighbors in Kenner.

“They are my best friends,” Chen says. “I was helping them with paperwork and things in English when they opened their original business on David Drive in 2018.

One day they just said, ‘Why don’t you come into the business,’ so I did.” Although her background is in engineering, Chen has taken to hospitality, and fills in wherever she’s needed — which, because of staff shortages, is everywhere.

“We are very encouraged by our customers’ faith in us,” Chen says.

“We are proud to be part of this Uptown community.”

?

WHAT

Wishing Town Bakery Cafe

WHERE

802 Nashville Ave., (504) 885-8272; Instagram, @wishingtownbakerycafe

WHEN

Lunch and dinner daily

HOW

Dine-in, takeout and outdoor seating available

CHECK IT OUT

Dim sum and more in a new bakery and cafe in Uptown

P H OTO BY I A N M C N U LT Y / T H E T I M E S - P I C AY U N E

Ryan Murphy opened the Rabbit’s Foot. of Zara’s Supermarket. That neighborhood grocery closed in 2014, and the address has been idle since.

The Zara’s Lil’ Giant Supermarket remains open at 4838 Prytania St. The Rabbit’s Foot space is done in bright tropical colors and flows between a cafe area with tables and sofas, retail racks and an open kitchen, pastry counter and coffee bar.

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2530 Canal St

MON-FRI 8AM-12AM SAT & SUN 10AM-12AM

2733 Baronne St

OPEN DAILY 7AM-12AM

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5359 Tchoupitoulas St. MON-SAT 10AM-8PM SUN 12PM-8PM

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The kitchen’s opening menu has a breakfast sandwich modeled after the New York bodega staple of breakfast rolls (egg, bacon and cheese on a chewy roll), bagels heavily mounded with cream cheese and a few lunch sandwiches. The chicken salad sandwich is chunky and sluiced with vinaigrette for a little extra zing.

The menu will grow, as will the retail selection, Murphy says.

Soon he’ll fire up a rotisserie oven for whole chickens and other meats to add to the menu and to offer as packaged meals for home.

Today, the retail section is a mix of national brands and regional products, with a heavy emphasis on local producers and makers.

The ranks of these have been proliferating for years, and many found new impetus through the pandemic, as people spun hobbies into businesses and “someday” plans became urgent economic necessities.

They’re the specialty food products found at pop-ups, farmers markets and through direct shipping. Murphy’s wants the Rabbit’s Foot to be a place for people to find many of them anytime under one roof.

On opening day, there were pastry and breads from three bakeries and coffee from many different roasters, including local and national brands. He expects the number of local brands represented here to grow.

Coffee is a big part of the concept, and that comes from Murphy’s background. He has worked in hospitality all his career.

That includes a tenure in specialty coffee, opening locations for the Portland, Oregon-based brand Stumptown Coffee, and he’s consulted for others.

New Orleans has seen other small markets open in recent years with a similar focus on local producers, including Simone’s Market on Oak Street and Superette, also in the Lower Garden District. Both are now closed.

What gives Murphy confidence now is building different revenue streams under the same roof, between coffee, cafe and retail.

Murphy is working on adding retail wine, beer and spirits (all for off premise consumption, per a good neighbor agreement, he says).

Eventually, he envisions hosting private dinners after hours in the market and turning the kitchen over to pop-ups.

In drawing up plans for the Rabbit’s Foot, he rolled in lessons

about what works, and also ways to resolve problems he sees too often in the industry.

“I love the hospitality industry a ton,” he says. “But it hurts my heart that too many people have to work second jobs to make it, or how they’re treated sometimes.”

The Rabbit’s Foot staff have starting wages of $20 an hour, and Murphy is working on implementing health insurance options and a profit-sharing model.

“I’m a realist, but I tend toward stubborn optimism,” he said. “I don’t believe this business has to rely on tips and low wages.”

The Rabbit’s Foot is open from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday. For more information, visit rabbitsfootnola.com.

— IAN McNULTY

New CBD restaurants TAVA INDIAN STREET FOOD AND GINGER ROUX are among New

Orleans’ newest restaurants.

Tava Indian Street Food started as a food stall at the recently shuttered Auction House Market.

It left the market last year to open its own standalone restaurant, which recently opened at 611 O’Keefe Ave., in the South Market development.

The restaurant specializes in dosas, or fermented rice and lentil crepes served with items like masala potatoes and chutney.

The menu also includes sandwiches, chicken wings spiced with Kashmiri chilies, chana salad, and fried noodles with vegetables, peanuts and spicy imli sauce. It also has a bar with beer, wine and cocktails. Tava serves dinner Wednesday through Sunday. Find information at facebook.com/ tavaindianstreetfood.

Ginger Roux is the Asianthemed restaurant at the recently opened Canopy by Hilton New Orleans, a 14-floor hotel, 176-room property at 1100 Tulane Ave. At Ginger Roux, chef Jonathan Hostetler blends Creole flavors into a pan-Asian menu featuring crawfish boil fried rice, General Tso’s alligator and boudin lumpia, the Filipino version of fried spring rolls. Dumplings include crawfish etouffee shumai and “gumbo dumplings,” which are sausage dumplings in gumbo broth. The cocktail menu includes The Ampersand, which combines the Chinese spirit baijiu, Campari and blood orange soda. Ginger Roux is open for dinner from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. daily and will add lunch service soon. Visit Hilton.com/en/ canopy for information.

— WILL COVIELLO

Jose Laboy Chef

by Will Coviello JOSE LABOY GREW UP IN NEW YORK ,

and got interested in cooking at home. He moved to New Orleans several years ago and recently opened his Tropical Cabana food stall at St. Roch Market. It focuses on Puerto Rican dishes and the cuisine of the Spanish Caribbean. For more information, visit strochmarket.com or @tropicalcabananola on Instagram.

How did you learn to cook?

JOSE LABOY: I got into cooking because my mom loved to cook, and all the women in my family cooked together. That’s basically how I learned, standing in the kitchen watching. As I grew older, my mom actually taught me. There was always a party or a dinner at my house, so that’s how I learned.

I am very passionate about food.

I never went to school for cooking, but I have been cooking since I was 12. I don’t do any high-end techniques or methods. I do traditional home cooking from the Spanish Caribbean — Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Cuba. I am Puerto Rican. I grew up in New York. I am from the Bronx, but at 13, my family moved to Long Island.

When we went to Long Island, my family from the city would come over every weekend. The kitchen was always open. My mom never knew how to cook in small portions. There were always friends and neighbors coming over to eat.

(My mom) passed away, but eight years later, people still talk about her cooking.

One of the first things I learned from my mom was rice and beans, like a nice Creole yellow rice and red beans. This is the thing where I have a few connections to New Orleans. The food from New Orleans is very similar to the Spanish Caribbean food. Here you have beans and rice separately.

We make it separately, and we also make it together. We don’t have jambalaya, we have Caribbeanstyle paella. You have meat pies, we have empanadas. You have cracklings, we have chicharrons.

What did you have in mind for opening a food business?

LABOY: In New York, we have cuchifritos, which are like these restaurants where you get homestyle cooking and a lot of snacks.

In New York we have the bodegas and the cuchifritos. They started out as Puerto Rican restaurants where you can grab something on the go. Then they evolved in other nationalities — Dominican and Cuban.

When you didn’t want to cook, you’d go grab something from the cuchifritos.

You’d find rice and beans, stews and a lot of fried stuff.

Spanish Caribbean culture is a fusion of Spanish food from Spain and African food. We do a lot of fritters, codfish and saltfish fritters, balls like shepherd’s pie but in a ball. Roast pork, roast chicken and stuff like that.

It was in every neighborhood — in Spanish Harlem, in the Bronx, in Brooklyn. I wanted to bring that with me here.

I have been thinking about (opening a restaurant) for a while.

Once I moved to New Orleans, I thought this was my mission.

I had a home-based business here and a little in New York. I make pasteles, which are Caribbean-style tamales. Cooking was a ritual at home. My whole family — me, my mother, my uncle, my aunt, my cousin, my sister, we’d sit at the table and it’s a process to make them. We’d sit together and one person would do the base, another person will do the filling, another person will do the packaging. I’d sell them from home. Word would get around the neighborhood and eventually there was a Facebook page.

What’s on your menu?

LABOY: I want to focus on traditional food. I take traditional Caribbean dishes and instead of rice, make them into sandwiches.

Ropa vieja is shredded beef usually eaten with white rice and black beans. Instead of that, we have a ropa vieja po-boy. I have the Cuban (sandwich). I have the jibarito, which is a unique Puerto Rican sandwich.

It’s a steak sandwich with steak and onions. Instead of bread, it’s with fried green plantains.

OF THE

WEEK

Austin Hope Paso Robles

I have a milanesa sandwich, which is breaded chicken. It’s like Italian. In the Bronx and in the Caribbean, we make that. I also make empanadas, potato balls and croquets, which are Cuban. I make bacalaitos, which are like johnny cakes. They’re big flat cakes that we fry, and they have pieces of codfish in it. That is traditional in Puerto Rico, especially if you are by the beach.

Canoas are whole sweet plantains which are filled with ground beef and topped with mozzarella cheese. I also have yellow rice with red beans. I have yuca, which people know as cassava. I have green plantains known as tostones, which are popular in the Caribbean and some South American countries.

I plan on doing mofongo Mondays, because people are asking for it. They’re like, “Where’s your mofongo?” Mofongo is a dish you can have alone with gravy, or you can have it with shrimp Creole or stew. Shrimp Creole is a Caribbean plate. It’s very similar to New Orleans, but we use more garlic and we don’t put celery in it. The seasonings are a little different.

The whole point of me being here is exposing the culture, a different palate, a cuisine. I don’t want to be known as a sandwich place, because our food is so much more than that.

Cabernet Sauvignon

The Austin Hope Cabernet displays a beautiful ruby hue. Enticing aromas of fresh black cherry, burnt sugar and a slight smokiness fill your glass. On the palate, flavors evolve with vanilla foam, ripe dark fruit, roasted coffee & nuances of spice. This full-bodied wine is rounded out with smooth supple tannins that are brightened with a touch of acidity to balance this crowd pleasing Cabernet Sauvignon.

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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. $$ Nephew’s Ristorante — 4445 W. Metairie Ave., Metairie, (504) 533-9998; nephewsristorante.com — Chef Frank Catalanotto is the namesake “nephew” who ran the kitchen at his late uncle Tony Angello’s restaurant. The CreoleItalian menu features dishes like veal, eggplant or chicken parmigiana, and Mama’s Eggplant with red gravy and Romano cheese. Reservations required. Dinner Tue.-Sat. $$ 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) 8854572; 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 chargrilled 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. $$$

23

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 5 BAYOU BAR AT THE PONTCHARTRAIN HOTEL — Peter Harris Quartet, 7 pm CARNAVAL LOUNGE — Wojtek Industries, 9 pm FRITZEL'S EUROPEAN JAZZ CLUB — Richard “Piano” Scott, 12:30 pm; Fritzel's All Star Band, 8 pm ZONY MASH BEER PROJECT — Rebirth Brass Band, 7 pm

WEDNESDAY 6 BAYOU BAR AT THE PONTCHARTRAIN HOTEL — Peter Harris Trio, 7 pm BLUE NILE — New Breed Brass Band, 9 pm CAFE NEGRIL — Colin Davis and Night People, 10:30 pm CHICKIE WAH WAH — Cast Iron Cactus, 7 pm D.B.A. NEW ORLEANS — Tin Men, 6 pm; Walter “Wolfman” Washington & the Roadmasters, 9 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 — Ghost Funk Orchestra with Jack Moves, Skeptic Moon, 9 pm HENRY HOWARD HOTEL — Wendell Brunious and Caroline Brunious, 8 pm HOTEL MONTELEONE — James Martin Band, 8 pm LAFAYETTE SQUARE PARK — Lost Bayou Ramblers and Daria & the Hipdrops, 5 pm LONGUE VUE HOUSE AND GARDENS — Da Lovebirds, 5 pm NEW ORLEANS JAZZ MUSEUM — Wanda Brazile, 2 pm PALM COURT JAZZ CAFE — Palm Court Jazz Band with Lars Edegran, 7:30 pm SANTOS — Russell Welch Swamp Moves Trio , 8 pm SIDNEY'S SALOON — Radical Operations w/Amish Noise and The Diplocrats, 9 pm SOUTHPORT HALL LIVE MUSIC & PARTY HALL — PowerGlove, 7 pm ST. MARY'S ASSUMPTION CHURCH — Don Vappie, 7 pm THE BROADSIDE — Extended + Brad Walker, 7 pm THE SANDBAR — Jasen Weaver, 7 pm THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW ORLEANS PERFORMING ARTS CENTER RECITAL HALL — andPlay!, 7:30 pm

THURSDAY 7 BAYOU BAR AT THE PONTCHARTRAIN HOTEL — Peter Harris Quartet, 8 pm BLUE NILE — Where Y'at Brass Band, 7 pm BUFFA'S — Tom McDermott and Aurora Nealand, 7 & 9 pm CAFE NEGRIL — Sierra Green and the Soul Machine, 10 pm CARNAVAL LOUNGE — John Krupa Band, Black Laurel, Lonesome Radio, 7 pm D.B.A. NEW ORLEANS — John Boutté,

7 pm; Funk Monkey, 10 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 — Danielle Nicole, 9 pm ORPHEUM THEATER — From the New World, 7:30 pm PALM COURT JAZZ CAFE — Duke Heitger and Tim Laughlin with the Crescent City Joymakers, 7:30 pm POUR HOUSE SALOON — Ron & Tina's Acoustic Jam, 5 & 7 pm ST. ANNA'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH — Jackson Square Allstars, 7 pm THE GOAT — Souls Extolled, Studentdriver, Swarm Comp, Kairos, 8 pm UNO LAKEFRONT ARENA — KEM & Kenny "Babyface" Edmonds, 7:30 pm

FRIDAY 8 BAYOU BAR AT THE PONTCHARTRAIN HOTEL — Peter Harris Trio, 8 pm BLUE NILE — The Caesar Brothers, 7 pm; Kermit Ruffins and the Barbecue Swingers, 11 pm BLUE NILE BALCONY ROOM — Brass Flavor, 10 pm BUFFA'S — Vanessa Carr, 7 & 9 pm CARNAVAL LOUNGE — Katie Cat & Cain and the Hip Tones, 6 pm; Strange Roux/Prey for Neighbors/Ainsley Matic and the Broken Blues, 9 pm CHAMPIONS SQUARE — Bon Iver with Dijon, 6:30 pm D.B.A. NEW ORLEANS — Smoking Time Jazz Club, 5 pm; Cha Wa, 10 pm DERBES MANSION — T Marie and Bayou Juju Dance Party + Dance Lesson , 7 pm FRITZEL'S EUROPEAN JAZZ CLUB — Richard “Piano” Scott, 12:30 pm; Sam Friend Trio, 2:30 pm; Lee Floyd and Thunderbolt Trio, 6 pm; Fritzel's All Star Band, 9 pm GASA GASA — Dusty Santamaria with Golden Ours, Justin Ready, 9 pm KRAZY KORNER — DayWalkers feat.

Waylon Thibodeaux, 1 pm MANDEVILLE TRAILHEAD — Witness, 6:30 pm MUSIC BOX VILLAGE — Grupo Yurumeina, Jeremy Thal, 7 pm NEUTRAL GROUND COFFEE HOUSE — J.P. Dufour and guests, 9 pm ONE EYED JACKS — FUZZ, 9 pm PALM COURT JAZZ CAFE — Kevin Louis & Topsy Chapman with Palm Court Jazz Band, 7:30 pm POUR HOUSE SALOON — The 45s, 8 pm THREE KEYS (ACE HOTEL) — Water Seed's Wild Nights, 9 pm

SATURDAY 9 BAYOU BAR AT THE PONTCHARTRAIN HOTEL — Jordan Anderson, 8 pm BLUE NILE — Big Sam's Funky Nation, 10:30 pm BLUE NILE BALCONY ROOM — The Marigny Street Brass Band, 10 pm

P H O T O B Y D AV I D G R U N F E L D / T H E T I M E S - P I C AY U N E

BUFFA'S — Freddie Blue & the Friendship Circle Band, 7 & 9pm D.B.A. NEW ORLEANS — Aurora Nealand’s Wood Floor Trio, 3 pm; Tuba Skinny, 6 pm; New Orleans Nightcrawlers Brass Band, 10 pm 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 — $leazy Ez and BLÜ, 9 pm KRAZY KORNER — DayWalkers feat.

Waylon Thibodeaux, 1 pm MUSIC BOX VILLAGE — Grupo Yurumeina, Jeremy Thal, 7 pm NEUTRAL GROUND COFFEE HOUSE — Loyola Musicians' Night, 7:30 pm ONE EYED JACKS — Golden Dawn Arkestra, 9 pm PALM COURT JAZZ CAFE — Will Smith with Palm Court Jazz Band, 7:30 pm PIROGUE’S WHISKEY BAYOU — Greg Schatz & the Friggin' Geniuses, 8 pm POUR HOUSE SALOON — Amanda Rose Band, 9 pm REPUBLIC NOLA — Au5 + Chime: The Other Side Tour, 10 pm SANTOS — Timmy Cappello, 9 pm SIDNEY'S SALOON — Bay Street, Worthy of the Crown, Among You, Project Ascension, 8 pm SMOOTHIE KING CENTER — Eric Church, 8 pm SNUG HARBOR JAZZ BISTRO — Lynne Arriale with Matt Booth, Brad Webb, 8 & 10 pm THE BOMBAY CLUB — Anais St. John, 8 pm

SUNDAY 10 BLUE NILE — The Baked Potatoes, 7 pm; Street Legends Brass Band, 10 pm BUFFA'S — Some Like It Hot, 11 am & 1 pm; Beth Patterson, 7 & 9 pm

Kermit Ruffins and the Barbecue Swingers play at Blue Nile April 8.

D.B.A. NEW ORLEANS — Palmetto Bug Stompers, 5 pm; Treme Brass Band, 9 pm FRITZEL'S EUROPEAN JAZZ CLUB — Sam Friend Trio, 12:30 pm; Joe Kennedy Trio, 2:30 pm; Marla Dixon Trio, 6 pm; Fritzel’s All Star Band, 8 pm GASA GASA — Willis with Parrotfish, 9 pm MARIGNY OPERA HOUSE — Josephine Alphonso, 5 pm PALM COURT JAZZ CAFE — Mark Braud and Sunday Night Swingsters, 7:30 pm POUR HOUSE SALOON — Slow Coyote, 5 pm; Jamey St Pierre with a open Blues Jam , 7 pm ROYAL FRENCHMEN HOTEL & BAR — Grayson Brockamp and the New Orleans Wildlife Band, 7 pm SIDNEY'S SALOON — DarkLounge Ministries, 6 pm; Brantwood, Superkick, Sympathy Wizard, 9 pm THE BROADSIDE — John Mooney & Bluesiana with Reggie Scanlan, 3 pm THE MAX — Bobby Cure and the Poppa Stoppas, 5 pm

MONDAY 11 BUFFA'S — Leslie Cooper & Harry Mayronne with Doyle Cooper, 7 pm CARROLLTON STATION — Elliott Levin, Ashlin Parker & Will Thompson, 9 pm D.B.A. NEW ORLEANS — The Iguanas, 6 pm; Lynn Drury, 9 pm FRITZEL'S EUROPEAN JAZZ CLUB — Twisty River Band, 8 pm ONE EYED JACKS — Palm Palm feat. J. Roddy Walston, Killer Whale, 9 pm

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Dust the bones

by Jake Clapp

WHEN TINY DINOSAUR STARTED RECORDING ITS DEBUT FULLLENGTH ALBUM in early 2020,

the New Orleans folk band had high hopes. The plan was to record the album, get everything ready and then hit the road for a tour in May and June, new calling card in hand.

Of course, the pandemic and the lockdowns of spring 2020 threw those plans out the window — and that, the band says, might have been for the best.

“It pretty much stopped everything dead, which was definitely a tough pill to swallow,” says Josey Krafczynski, who sings and plays acoustic guitar. “It was a weird thing, but I think it ended up being for the better. This was my first time recording a full album and releasing it and figuring out how much goes into that.”

Looking back, they wouldn’t have had time to do half the things they planned — like preparing a vinyl release — before setting out on tour, Krafczynski says. Plus, the music benefitted. The band could approach recording with more patience and try new things.

“We have how we play these songs when we play them live, and I thought it was going to be a relatively straightforward process — we just go in, we track the things we play, we mix it and that’s it,” Krafczynski says. “Something that I wasn’t really anticipating but ended up being a cool aspect was, ‘Oh, what if we added this little texture here that we don’t typically add? Or this weird Hammond sound in the background?’ Just experimenting with adding different layers, I think that was one of the big things we would have lost if we tried to rush out the album.”

Now, after more than two years of recording at UNO Studios, Tiny Dinosaur’s debut album is ready.

The band will release “Songs for the Mass Extinction Event” on Friday, April 8, with a show at 7 p.m. at the Broadside. Bon Bon Vivant and Sam Doores also will perform.

Along with Krafczynski, Tiny Dinosaur includes banjo and melodica player Dusky Waters, violist Trilly Nelson, Conner McCready on electric guitar, percussionist Layla Sutton and bassist Dylan James. Waters and Nelson also sing, and the three-part harmonies with Krafczynski are a beautiful force on “Songs for the Mass Extinction Event.”

PROVIDED PHOTO BY MICHAEL FURMAN

Tiny Dinosaur is, clockwise from front, Josey Krafczynski, Layla Sutton, Dylan James, Conner McCready, Trilly Nelson and Dusky Waters.

Krafczynski, who moved from Pittsburgh to New Orleans in 2016, first performed solo as Tiny Dinosaur & The Gravity Wells in 2017. Krafczynski soon after started playing music with Waters — they met in a dodgeball league — and met more musicians through friends who then became part of the band.

While a couple of Tiny Dinosaur EPs were recorded in the past, “Songs for the Mass Extinction Event” is the first release to feature the full, current lineup.

While folk is an easy descriptor for the new album, it’s also deceptive. Tiny Dinosaur mixes in a number of influences, from New Orleans rhythm and blues to country and punk, with lush effect.

Lyrically, Tiny Dinosaur employs classic folk storytelling — but those stories are about ancient rituals, asking witches for help, and goblins who sneak in during the night to rearrange the vinyl records on the shelf.

The album opens with “Carnation,” a song about striving for more that plays out as a conversation between a group of weeds jealous of carnations growing across the pond.

“I’m definitely the folk guy that grew up listening to like James Taylor and that kind of stuff. But the fantasy aspect of it came from always loving fables and mythology, particularly anything that has to do with weird creatures or spirits,” Krafczynski says. “I don’t want to write a song about just a straight breakup, but what if I told it through this kind of fantastical, almost allegory-type thing?”

Tiny Dinosaur performs at 7 p.m.

Friday, April 8, at the Broadside.

Tickets are $20 at broadsidenola. com. Find the band’s new album at tinydinosaurnola.com.

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pulled the plug on the tour. Soon after, the pandemic canceled Bon Iver’s 2020 tour for its fourth studio album “I,I.” The indie folk and experimental band now is making up those tour dates and celebrating the 10th anniversary of their self-titled sophomore album. Bon Iver plays New Orleans at 6:30 p.m. Friday, April 8, at Champions Square. Singer-producer Dijon opens. Tickets start at $29.50 at champions-square.com.

Dreaming of Yurumein

GRUPO YURUMEIN IS A COLLECTIVE OF MEMBERS OF THE GARIFUNA COMMUNITY, historically displaced

from the Caribbean. A group of Garifuna people now living in New Orleans collaborated with Jeremy Thal of Found Sound Nation and Neutral Milk Hotel to create a multimedia show featuring Garifuna music, dance, costumes, masks, storytelling and oral history. Shows are at 8 p.m. Friday, April, 8, and Saturday, April 9, at the Music Box Village. Tickets $20-$45 at musicboxvillage.com.

Ponchatoula Strawberry Festival

PONCHATOULA HOSTS THE STRAWBERRY FESTIVAL with food, music and

more. There are two music stages and the lineup includes Amanda Shaw, Nashville South, Waylon Thibodeaux, The Phunky Monkeys, Tyler Kinchen and more. The festival also has a parade, amusement rides, an egg toss contest, a strawberry eating contest and more from Friday, April 8, through Sunday, April 10. Find details at lastrawberryfestival.com.

Whitney Cummings

WHITNEY CUMMINGS WENT FROM STAND-UP TO STARRING as a fic-

tionalized version of herself in the namesake sitcom “Whitney,” and was the creator of “2 Broke Girls.”

She followed up her “I’m Your Girlfriend” special with the Netflix special “Can I Touch It,” featuring a sex doll robotic version she had custom made to look like her. She brings her “Touch Me” standup tour to the Orpheum Theater.

Doors open at 7 p.m. Saturday, April 9. Find tickets via orpheumnola.com.

Funky Uncle Second Anniversary

GEORGE PORTER JR. AND RUNNIN’ PARDNERS, LEO NOCENTELLI, JASON NEVILLE, the Funky Uncle All-Stars

and more will perform the music of the Meters, Allen Toussaint, Professor Longhair, James Booker

and more at the Funky Uncle Second Anniversary show. During the pandemic, Funky Uncle livestreamed shows have raised funds to support local musicians and gig workers. This is the final livestream, and fans can attend the live show at 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 6, at The Howlin’ Wolf. Tickets $25 via ticketweb.com. For information about the Funky Uncle, visit funkyuncle.live.

Lost Bayou Ramblers

THE LOST BAYOU RAMBLERS PERFORM A FREE SHOW at Wednesday at the

Square. Daria & the Hip Drops open, and there is an art market and food and drink vendors.

From 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday, April 6, at Lafayette Square. Visit ylcwats.com for information on the spring concert series.

‘Tribes’

BILLY, WHO HAS BEEN DEAF FROM BIRTH, GREW UP IN A DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILY, but he starts to see

relationships differently when he meets a woman who grew up with deaf parents and is starting to lose her own hearing. Le Petit Theatre presents British playwright Nina Raine’s award-winning drama at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 7, through Saturday, April 9, and at 3 p.m. Sunday, April 10. The show also runs April 14-17 and 28-30.

Find tickets at lepetittheatre.com.

‘Nunsense II’

THE “SECOND COMING” IN THE NUNSENSE SERIES takes place weeks after the

surprise success of the musical fundraiser for the Little Sisters of Hoboken in the original show. Now there are rumors of talent scouts in the audience and more absurdity as the nuns get more serious about performing. At Rivertown Theaters for the Performing Arts. Shows are at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 7, through Saturday, April 9, and 2 p.m. Sunday, April 10, and the show continues April 22-24. Tickets $37$41 at rivertowntheaters.com.

Matt Braunger

COMEDIAN MATT BRAUNGER HAS SPENT THE PAST DECADE touring

extensively, appearing on TV shows and performing stand-up on late shows like “Conan.” But most recently, he has been hosting a weekly advice podcast, “This Might Help,” on which he and guest comedians take calls and try to dole out a little help.

He performs at 8 p.m. Saturday, April 9, at the AllWays Lounge & Cabaret. Tickets are $20 at theallwayslounge.net.

BLÜ and $leazy EZ

VOCALIST BLÜ AND RAPPER $LEAZY EZ HOST “Colorz of Wunderland,”

a party for queer New Orleanians “to be free with the people you love, in a place that is never too far away” on Saturday, April 9, at Gasa Gasa. BLÜ and $leazy EZ will perform. The event is 21 and older. Admission is $10. Find more information at sleazyez.com.

‘United States of Amnesia: Dare to Remember’

JOSE TORRES-TAMA IS A SHAMANISTIC TIME TRAVELER in his dramatic

spoken word show about the legacy of anti-immigrant laws and sentiment and the rise of white supremacy in the U.S. At 8 p.m.

Friday, April 8, and Saturday, April 9, at Ashe Power House Theater.

Tickets $10. Visit ashenola.org for details.

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‘Cinderella’

JEFFERSON PERFORMING ARTS SOCIETY PRESENTS THE RECENT BROADWAY UPDATE of the popular

musical, which still features tunes

by Rodgers and Hammerstein.

At Jefferson Performing Arts Center at 7:30 p.m. Friday, April, 8, and Saturday, April 9, and 2 p.m.

Sunday, April 10. The show also runs April 22-24. Find tickets at jpas.org.

LUNCH & DINNER SPECIALS $5 Drink Specials All Day Mon-Fri Sunday $18 DIY Mimosas

Evenings with Enrique

MARGIE PEREZ KICKS OFF THE APRIL CONCERT SERIES in the New Orleans

Botanical Gardens. Concerts run every Wednesday in April, and food is available. The series is presented by the Helis Foundation, and admission is free for Louisiana residents. Evenings with Enrique is from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Visit neworleanscitypark.com for information.

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Urban South Anniversary Party

NEW ORLEANS BREWERY URBAN SOUTH CELEBRATES ITS SIXTH ANNIVERSARY

with music, food, an arts market and nine new taproom-only beers. The Noah Young Band will perform, and Urban Smash, Gulf Coast Crawfish Co., Get Your Mom & Dim Sum and Southerns will be selling food. New beers were made in collaboration with Untitled Art, Pontoon Brewing, Perfect Plain Brewing Co. and others. The party runs 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday, April 9. Find more information at urbansouthbrewery.com.

ADVERTISE WITH US Call Sandy Stein (504) 483-3150 or sstein@gambitweekly.com

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Puppet state

by Will Coviello

IT’S BEEN THREE YEARS SINCE THE LAST INSTALLMENT of the New Orleans Giant Puppet Festival, but there was a preview of this year’s event during Carnival when giant puppets mingled with costumed crowds in Bywater and Marigny. London-based puppeteer Andrew Kim held a workshop, and on Mardi Gras morning, some of the participants paraded with their creations, such as a massive pink spoonbill, with its wings and head manipulated by different puppeteers. Local muralist and puppet-maker Henry Lipkis makes giant puppets, and he and his Krewe of Monsters also paraded during Carnival.

Some of those puppets will be part of a puppet parade during the Giant Puppet Festival. It gathers at the Mudlark Public Theatre and departs at 11 p.m.

Saturday, April 9, for the Art Space venue at 2120 Port St., where there will be performances and a puppet slam — puppetry’s version of an open mic.

The festival features local and visiting puppeteers in shows at venues including the Mudlark, Art Space, AllWays Lounge & Theatre and Happyland Theater from Thursday, April 7, through Monday, April 11. There also are workshops, a panel discussion and puppet slams. Some shows are child friendly, and some shows are for adults.

Rasputin’s Marionettes from Los Angeles presents one of the shows not for kids. “Sugarbitch

Goulash” has bits of noir and survive on her own. The show runs all five vaudeville in a fictional take days at Happyland Theater. on what led up to the Black Returning to the festival are Portland, Widow Murders. Helen Golay Oregon’s Night Shade, which will use and Olga Rutterschmidt met at shadow in a cinematic approach in a fitness center in Los Angeles a puppet variety show at Art Space. in the 1980s. They struck up a Asheville, North Carolina’s whimsical friendship and eventually the ToyBox Theatre presents two kidseemingly sweet older women friendly shows, “The Miraculously tried to execute a perfect crime.

Inventive Machine of Charlie Mean,” “Sugarbitch Goulash” runs at about dealing with bullies, and “Toybox, Happyland Theater all five days.

America’s Favorite Cartoon Witch.”

Puerto Rico’s Poncili Performers Enormous Face and Cookie Creacion features wild-colTongue are visiting from New York. ored, large-scale puppets in Local puppeteers include Harry PHO T O PROV IDED BY NE W OR LE A N S nonverbal shows. A couple of Mayronne and his marionettes and GI A N T P UPPE T FE S T I VA L its members are co-creators of Flutterbug and Scribbles. Poose the Rasputin’s Marionettes presents a puppet-like art car dubbed Puppet was created by Ben Martin, ‘Sugarbitch Goulash.’

“Reality Breaker” which roams who recently moved to New Orleans.

New Orleans’ streets. The He works with hand puppets and his Toyota minivan is painted in a bright color burst and shows are interactive, free-spirited and absurd. covered with giant eyes, a mouth, chicken puppets Now based in New Orleans, H. Gene Thompson’s and more. Poncili Creacion presents “The Life and work is based on wearable fabric sculptures.

Death of Everything,” which combines dance and Thompson presents “The Body is a Puppet Show” experimental music, at the Art Space Thursday at the Twilight Room at AllWays Lounge. through Monday.

The festival presents many traditional types of Festival founder Pandora Gastelum leads her puppetry and contemporary approaches to pupMudlark Puppeteers in a new show stemming from pet theater. There’s a panel discussion at 2:30 p.m. her interest in fables and folklore. “The Story of St. Sunday, April 10, titled “What isn’t a puppet?” and Dymphna, A Passion Play” is based on an Irish folktale it will explore the boundaries, or lack of boundarabout Dymphna. When her mother died, her father ies, to the artform. was devastated and eventually fell in love with his For information and tickets, visit neworleansgiant14-year-old daughter because of her resemblance to puppetfest.wordpress.com. his wife. Dymphna fled into the forest and learned to

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PREMIER CROSSWORD PUZZLE RULING PARTY

By Frank A. Longo 33 Turkish ruler’s pungent condiment?

38 Quaint office transcribers 41 Sleep study diagnosis 42 Regarding 43 Something a French-kissing Arab ruler has?

46 Small sailboats 51 Nuptial vow 52 Really smell 53 Kind of tide 56 China’s Zhou — 57 Actress Perez 59 Hindu ruler’s radio sign-off?

65 Secretive U.S. org.

67 Tehran’s land 68 Jug handle 69 Skye of film 70 Save the Russian ruler from tumbling to the ground?

75 Actors Mineo and Landi 77 Car club inits.

78 Coin-op hole 79 Thesaurus entry: Abbr.

80 Afghan ruler caught up in a tornado?

85 Stared in amazement 89 Agate playing marble, informally 90 Lingo suffix 91 Greek money 93 Brewed beverage

94 Exam taker 96 Very easy task for a Muslim ruler?

102 Many a war vet’s affliction 105 Behave badly 106 Yellowstone gusher 107 English ruler making mouse sounds?

111 Bomb part 112 Liquid- — (Drano rival) 113 Electees 114 Iowa college 116 Louver strip 120 Hula — 121 What’s revealed by taking an X-ray of a Persian ruler?

127 Shower affection (on) 128 Butt forcefully 129 Waters north of Australia 130 Went swiftly 131 Visits during a trip 132 Car mileage recorder DOWN 1 Son of Willy Loman 2 Tibet locale 3 Bat very gently 4 Emerging 5 Actor Studi 6 Herr’s “Alas!”

7 Sits tight 8 Writer Rice 9 Pa Clampett 10 Arg. neighbor 11 Last mo.

12 Golfer Lorena 13 Volcano in E. Sicily 14 — Fables 15 Six-pt. plays 16 Shredded bit 17 Pontificate 18 Fructose, e.g.

19 Yoked yaks 24 Utters breathlessly 29 Oral 31 Most vinegary 32 “Understood” 34 Sch. in the Granite State 35 Director Ang 36 Mai — (drink) 37 UFO pilots 38 Commotion 39 Commotion

40 Actress Mireille — 41 Singer Paul 44 Ending for cash 45 Comedian Hart, casually 47 Hoosier State 48 Building story 49 Part-goat god 50 Where it’s at 54 “It’s — real!”

55 Boast 58 Irritated 60 Big name in peanut butter 61 Break out in — 62 Actress Berry 63 Set to a slow speed 64 Bow shapes 66 Berry of Brazil 70 Some mollusks 71 Loathe 72 Oohs and — 73 “Lord, is —?”

74 Precursors of embryos 75 Brief parody 76 Cry of woe 81 Person crying 82 Golf gizmo 83 Kind of tide 84 Used a spade 86 Cronies 87 Model Macpherson

88 Doe or stag 92 Spaghetti sauce brand 95 GPS calculation 97 Egyptian — (cat breed) 98 Cold cubes 99 GPS calculation 100 Grape cluster 101 Visual insult 103 Slope-hitter’s headwear 104 Energetic sort 107 Small sailboat 108 Citation 109 Officiated on the diamond 110 Vessel used to lure U-boats 111 Foul-smelling 112 Profs’ degs.

115 Maestro Klemperer 117 Strong desire 118 1940s film critic James 119 “— she blows!”

121 This yr.’s grads 122 Hosp. VIPs 123 “Give — try” 124 Obtained 125 Med. group 126 DVD- —

ANSWERS FOR LAST ISSUE’S PUZZLE: P 2

PUZZLES

ACROSS 1 Gilda Radner character on “Saturday Night Live” 9 Certain martial arts surface 16 Just OK 20 Enthusiastic reply to a request 21 Raised, as a building 22 Central point 23 British ruler applying veneer?

25 Violent anger 26 Nutrition Facts category 27 Brewed beverage 28 Great Plains tribe 29 The Devil 30 Nile goddess

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