Christie Matherne Hall

An exploration into barriers to sailing, and two organizations seeking to remove those barriers in New Orleans.

"When we get these thruways across the whole country, as we will and must, it will be possible to drive from New York to California without seeing a single thing."
—John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America

A series of vignettes by different walking Mardi Gras revelers. Mine is last on the page.

Profiles of four southern tarot decks that push the boundaries of representation.

Don’t ask a mixed group of Louisianans what constitutes the best gumbo, unless you want to start a war. They might all be from the same state, but they most certainly all come from different pots of gumbo. You could say every Louisiana family has their own version of gumbo, but it would be more accurate to say every person who makes it has their own.
The word gumbo either comes from kingombo, an Angolan word for okra, or kombo, the native Choctaw word for filé powder, but neither has much tru...

What's lost in a well-lit night sky? A lot. This article explores light pollution in Baton Rouge and how (and why) some folks are trying to turn on the night.

Lessons in oyster shucking from professional (and award-winning) oyster shuckers in South Louisiana.

The path to a tea cultivation industry in the South.

Meet the people who volunteer to make bereavement meals for grieving families.

In parts of South Louisiana, people gather their wits and their coins (or dollars, or Rolls-Royces) to play the cutthroat, trash-talking card game, bourré.

A drive through time in Port Vincent, Louisiana; complete with cracklins.

My friend Ross and I traverse the Amite with a little less than everything we need.

Yellow fever went by many names in the nineteenth century: The Saffron Scourge, Yellow Jack, Stranger’s Fever, Bronze John on his Saffron Steed. The virus earned all these names during its century-long stay in New Orleans, while doctors, governors, and generals argued over...

Chef Pietro Vardeu—Sardinia native, restaurateur, and chef extraordinaire—is a busy guy. DiningOut Miami caught up with him recently as he made his rounds between Sardinia Ristorante in Sunset Harbor and the new Sardinia location in Delray Beach.

Origins of the Spanish Town Mardi Gras Parade