‘Tis the season for big holiday parties and for some people I know those big holiday parties are traditionally held at Crescent City Steakhouse.

If you’ve never had the pleasure, the menu is simple: the classic steak cuts, all of excellent quality, a couple of salad options, shrimp cocktail, a few side dishes and onion rings. There aren’t too many decisions to make and the food presents a crowd-pleasing spread. . .unless, you’re like a friend of mine who refuses to eat steak. Seafood would be okay for him, but definitely not red meat. He’s what I call a sortatarian, an aquaratrian or a New Orleans vegetarian, someone with vegetarian sensibilities but enough sense to indulge in the bounty of local waters.

He was evidently in the dark about Crescent City Steakhouse when he accepted an invitation to a big group dinner we both attended there recently. Maybe he thought it was like Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse, where the menu runs to tuna, giant Portobello mushrooms and even lobster, that favorite of local minor politicians when a constituent is picking up the tab. Read the rest of this entry »

Until recently I taught in the Treme, beside Armstrong Park, at Craig Elementary. I’m not certified, just an artist who, after-school, teaches a writing course that’s disguised as a rap music class, to trick New Orleans kid into writing, an act they generally hate. I don’t know much about Craig, beyond what I observed between 2:30 and 5p.m., Monday through Thursday for a year. I do know it was an historic school, and had recently been part of the Recovery School District, and that people I briefly encountered there – most of them leaving for the day just as I arrived – blamed every misstep on RSD. Though the Craig kids I worked with possessed remarkably positive attitudes (their high-pitched joi de vive got them in trouble more than any negativity), the majority read and wrote at a kindergarten or pre-kindergarten level. This, though most were smart as hell. Of the many illiterate kids I’ve met in New Orleans, very few seemed to suffer any learning disability. Usually it’s just obvious that the adults in their lives let them down. Read the rest of this entry »

When the Louisiana Recovery Authority (LRA) board approved the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority’s (NORA) “Parish Redevelopment and Disposition Plan,” Orleans Parish became, along with Jefferson Parish, one of only two parishes statewide to receive this approval. The plan refers to those properties that homeowners decided to sell back to the state as part of the Road Home program. It’s not often that Orleans, especially in terms of recovering from the levee failures, is first in anything.

It’s not always the parish’s fault — the amount of damage and loss, both human and property, dwarfs most of the other parishes — but still, it is nice surprise when we come in first. No one expected the plan to be ready, and, according to Joe Williams, the executive director of NORA, that included the LRA. Read the rest of this entry »

by Sam Winston

There’s plenty of blog chatter over the demolition of public housing. The full schedule of planned protesting as well as a general overview was posted here. There was also a response to why the media spent so much time covering the threatening posters. Others found it hard to pick a side strongly. Below are two videos Read the rest of this entry »