Tag: new orleans

Habitat for Humanity to Provide New Home for New Orleans Family

The New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity recently broke ground on a much-needed new three-bedroom, two-bathroom house for a family of three in the Lower 9th Ward, according to Nola.com.

The New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity is constructing the home for Tririce Collins and her 10-year-old twin boys, who currently live in a cramped apartment where the three family members sleep in beds that are positioned on opposite walls of the same bedroom. After the home is complete, they will move into a three-bedroom, two-bathroom house on Tennessee Street that has more than enough ample space to accommodate the family in their present and future years.

The home will have high, vaulted ceilings, separate bedrooms for each of the twins with a shared bathroom, and a master bedroom and bathroom for Collins in the back of the home. Additionally, the house will come with a large outdoor porch, both in the back and the front yard. The front porch will be ideal for Tririce to watch her boys bike down the quiet Tennessee Street without worry, and the back porch and yard space will be perfect for the family to host familial get-togethers in a similar vein that Tririce’s great-grandmother used to do. When Tririce Collins was growing up, her great-grandmother would host the entire family for a meal in a backyard that became famous for the delicious sweet-potato pies and stuffed bell peppers that would be enjoyed at the festivities.

Tririce Collins commented on the new home with appreciation by saying, “I’m so thankful to have my home,” she said. “I am so thankful and so happy that my sons will have space of their own in the house and a yard to play in.”

The local chapter of Habitat for Humanity implemented their designs on Tennessee Street after consulting with and creating the plans in conjunction with local architects Michael Bell and J.C. Carroll. These new Habitat designs are reportedly quite different from what they would have been a few years prior due to a change in philosophy that has taken place within Habitat for Humanity. This is due to both a pandemic-era necessitating more open indoor spaces, but it’s also due to the chapter adopting the idea that “workforce housing can look different.” As a result, they have left behind outdated designs like clunky outdoor window and door frames and a reliance on overly basic floor plans. As per the local executive director for the Habitat chapter,  Marguerite Oestreicher, the Collins household will instead feature spacious indoor areas that are made possible by the vaulted ceilings, accessible attic storage overhead,  and front and back porches with ceiling fans and lighting to invite community and conversation.

The construction of the home for Tririce Collins and her 10-year-old twin boys took place in June 2022, and it involved the local chapter of Habitat for Humanity hosting its first-ever Pride Build. This type of building event brought togetherlocal members of the LGBTQ community and allies to collaborate on building the Collins’ family’s new home. A spokesperson for the organization commented on the importance of such an event by saying, “decades of systemic discrimination have barred LGBTQ families and individuals from homeownership. Through Pride Build, we hope to raise awareness of the need for affordable housing for all and its power to transform lives for the better.”

Habitat for Humanity homeowners qualify if they earn between 30% and 80% of the average local income and if they agree to partner with their local chapter to take classes in basic home repair or volunteer at the Habitat’s ReStore retail store as well as take classes in financial literacy.

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Nicholls Culinary Grad Opens Restaurant in Former Cabaret Venue

A New Orleans venue that once hosted its fair share of local and traveling cabaret performances from 1999 to 2011 has now reopened as Le Chat Noir, a casual, upscale restaurant that showcases its unique take on New Orleans cuisine, according to this article from Nola.com. The debut of Le Chat Noir is indebted to its culinary vision set forth by Seth Temple, a Lake Charles native and Nicholls culinary grad. Temple earned a scholarship from Nicholls’s John Folse Culinary Institute to attend the elite Institut Paul Bocuse in France, and upon his return to New Orleans, he worked in local kitchens that included Kenton’s and Couvant before he traveled to London and cooked at the Michelin-starred restaurant Lyle’s.

Debuting in December 2021 at 715 St. Charles Avenue, Le Chat Noir opened its doors in a space that had previously been the Italian restaurant Marcello’s, which closed due to the pandemic. Although before the building housed Marcello’s, it was known over a 12-year span as the home of the cabaret venue Le Chat Noir. But now thanks to a commercial vision from James Reuter, the founder of Bearcat Café off Freret Street, the building has reopened under its old name and as a different genre.

The Nicholls culinary grad  told The Gambit that it was at Lyle’s that his perspective of ingredients, how he liked to eat, and the relationship between the two began to completely shift. Gambit writer Beth D’Addono said of the cuisine, “Temple’s artful food commands the spotlight, the star of the show that went curtains up in early December. Temple is an alchemist as much as he is a chef, coaxing big flavors out of farm-fresh ingredients. What he does with hakurei turnips is brilliantly simple — a sauté of the small, crunchy vegetable, greens attached, in a miso-fueled umami sauce studded with candied kumquats and fronds of bronze fennel. Twirl the turnips like linguine, being sure to get the hybrid citrus in every bite, and the depth of clean flavor is worth a standing ovation.”

Temple’s menu at the restaurant is approximately 70% locally-sourced, and at least 50% of the total meals are either vegan or vegetarian thanks to his connections with local vendors such as West Feliciana Parish’s Mushroom Maggie’s Farm, Kenner’s JV Foods, and Belle Chase’s Matt Ranatza Farms and Saxon Becnel & Sons citrus.

James Reuter, the founder of Bearcat Café and Bearcat CBD, just around the corner on Carondelet Street., brings with him a particular style that is indicative of other Bearcat restaurants, specifically in that they often defy simplistic categorization and feature a menu that’s representative of both a health-conscious California cafe and a permissive chef-forward tavern. While Le Chat Noir already appears to be sharing some of those characteristics like its wide array of vegetarian, paleo, vegan, and gluten-free dishes, the restaurant also seems like a more ambitious undertaking, given the history of the location.

The recent history of the Le Chat Noir cabaret is ever-present in the restaurant as the kitchen is exactly where the old theatrical stage once stood, the dining room is set in the old theatre space, and the restaurant’s lounge and impressive oyster bar are located beside the window-lined front bar, which used to feature performers mixing and mingling after post-show.

As of the time of writing, the restaurant is open for dinner with plans to serve lunch and happy hour on the horizon. The cuisine is vibrant and delicious without reinventing traditional New Orleans dishes, and with it being set in the spotlight of an old-New Orleans performance venue, the restaurant is able to satisfy the show-stopping spectacle of classic Crescent City flavor, life, and culture with every bite.

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King Cake Returns in 2022

With the christening of a new year comes a new Mardi Gras season, and while the state of the 2022 Carnival season is facing uncertainty amidst COVID-19 surges, Louisiana’s passion for the king cake is as strong as ever according to this nola.com profile.

Last year when many Mardi Gras parades, balls, and parties had been canceled or significantly limited due to the pandemic, Louisiana citizens proved that the spirit of the season wasn’t going to disappear along with the celebratory events. This was seen in the steady king cake sales seen by bakeries during the 2021 Carnival season; in fact, some bakeries even saw an increase in profits in the year despite many traditional festivities being canceled.

So it stands to reason that as the calendar has transitioned into 2022, the interest in king cakes will not have been subsidized in the least, even as the prospects for the 2022 parade season are masked in uncertainty. With king cakes becoming available during the first week of January on Twelfth Night (January 5th), the start of Mardi Gras season is officially underway, and this year’s Carnival will be nearly two weeks longer than last year’s. The 2022 Mardi Gras season is held between Twelfth Night and Mardi Gras Day, which lands on March 1st, giving the public over seven weeks or 55 days of delicious king cakes to enjoy.

Many Louisiana bakeries are seeing the lengthier season as an opportunity to be more competitive in the name of the Carnival spirit and thus more inventive with their king cakes. This inventiveness is coming in the form of new flavors, textures, and partnerships. In a traditional year, New Orleans bakeries can showcase a competitive spirit due to the limited window of king cake availability despite the ever-growing public demand, but this year is shaping up to showcase a new cooperative spirit as various collaborations have already begun.

One such collaboration is the King Cake Hub which stands as a centralized location that houses several king cakes from various restaurants and bakeries in one spot. At the King Cake Hub, one can survey a variety of flavors, textures, and confections all in a single location, allowing you to truly compare different bakers’ approaches to the opulent dessert. Originally created in 2019 by Will Samuels, who was a notable community leader in New Orleans known for his previous forays into the Crescent City food and music world.

This year, the King Cake Hub has returned to New Orleans through the help of Samuel’s wife, Jennifer, who has brought back the celebrated and innovative king cake epicenter in accordance with her husband’s wishes. Will Samuels passed away from cancer at the age of 52 this past September, but his dream lives on in 2022 in two locations: the Zony Mash Beer Project on Thalia Street and The Historic New Orleans Collection in the French Quarter, which is accessible through the museum and cultural center’s gift shop on Royal Street.

In a similar spirit of Mardi Gras resilience, Steve Himelfarb, the founder of the Marigny Bakery and Restaurantpartnered with his neighbors at the NOCCA (New Orleans Center for Creative Arts) to bring back his legendary king cake to benefit a local high school’s culinary program. Himelfarb’s bakery had closed in 2020, but that didn’t stop him from returning in 2022 at the King Cake Hub and offering king cake preorders online as well.

Speaking of online sales, one of the areas of king cake commerce that saw tremendous growth in 2021 was the shipping of king cakes around the country. Because king cakes travel well and serve as a great way to share the holiday spirit with loved ones, 2022 is projected to similarly be a successful year in terms of king cakes sales and shipping. Now’s the time to conduct your research and support your favorite small bakery with a king cake shipment, allowing you to start the Mardi Gras season in spectacular style.

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LUNA Fête 2021 Lights up the Night in NOLA

With so many events filing up the holiday calendar during the New Orleans holiday season, one event seems to quite literally outshine the others, LUNA Fête. According to this detailed profile from Nola.com, the annual light-art experience will be lighting-up the new Ernest N. Morial Convention Center Pedestrian Park in 2021 from December 16-19 from 6 pm to 10 pm.

LUNA Fête was initially founded by the Arts Council of New Orleans in 2013, and it was first set in Lafayette Squarenear Gallier Hall before it was held in various socially distanced locations scattered across town in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. LUNA Fête 2021 makes its extravagant return by relocating to the Convention Center Pedestrian Park, which is located along Convention Center Boulevard and is free to the public.

Those unfamiliar with the annual light-show may be surprised by the sheer scale of the event which has previously been described as an all-out “extravaganza” that is also a vibrant “mashup of Celebration in the Oaks and The Matrix.”  LUNA Fête credits its electrical and architectural inspiration to various European light-art festivals, as it features the traditionally decadent holiday lights along with large, radiant sculptures and massive projections.

The end result is described as having a “certain digitized, science fiction vibe,” which is quite appropriate for anyone who has attended the public outdoor event. In fact, LUNA Fête will be taking place at the same time as the annual convention for the American Geophysicists Union, making the intergalactic architecture and settings an appropriate backdrop for convention attendees.

This year, the Arts Council of New Orleans had commissioned the renowned architecture “mapper” Bart Kresa to produce a massive projection on the wall of the Convention Center’s Hall D for LUNA Fête. In electrical architectural circuits, Kresa is likely most known for his work at the 2017 Los Angeles premier for Game of Thrones, where he projected jaw-dropping settings and Westeros-inspired iconography across Frank Gehry’s Disney Concert Hall.

An additional must-see of the event that’s been gaining buzz around the Crescent City is a particular art installation from the New Orleans-based art team known as the Virtual Krewe of Vaporwave. Taking inspiration from psychedelic and cyber-space-adjacent iconography, the krewe is often heralded for its unique interpretation of Carnivale. For instance, the krewe created a “memorably frenetic and fractured rock opera in the Piazza d’Italia” for 2019’s LUNA Fête. This year, the Virtual Krewe of Vapor Wave’s projected production will take place during the December 19th New Orleans Saints game and thus will serve as a tribute to the team.

Not only is attending LUNA Fête free, but festival access to the exhibits is currently unlimited though this is subject to change. Lindsay Glatz, an Arts Council spokesperson told Nola.com that if it’s decided that reinstating social distancing measures is necessary, then access to the events may be scaled back, but the event won’t be scattered across the city as in 2020. This is due to the fact that social distancing is made much more possible at the Convention Center Pedestrian Park rather than Lafayette Square.

Due to the fact that many LUNA Fête exhibits have specifically timed electrical components as a part of their theatrical art installations, many of the art installations are temporary. However, this year’s light festival will debut several sculpture exhibits that will be permanent installations at the Convention Center Pedestrian Park. One of the installations is a tribute to Louis Armstrong created by New Orleans sculptor Rontherin Ratliff, and another is an LED-lit, crescent-shaped bench by internationally acclaimed artist Erwin Redl.

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What to do on a New Orleans Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving serves as a time to gather together to be completely humbled and thankful for all the blessings and benefits of the past year. This is often done over excellently prepared meals, so it stands to reason that there’s no better city to gather for the celebration than New Orleans, Louisiana, and thanks to this excellently compiled holiday resource from NewOrleans.com, you’ve never been in a better position to enjoy the Crescent City in all its bounty.

Before we give an overview of the food offerings in the city on the infamous Thursday for those of us wishing to take the day off, sit back, and enjoy the world-class cuisine of the various chefs and culinary artists found in the city, you should know about the various Thanksgiving Day activities that are available city-wide this autumnal holiday season.

Particular events that are positioned to be a large draw on Thanksgiving Day are the horse races at the Fair Groundsand the annual Turkey Day Race at Tad Gormley Stadium in City Park. Outside of athletic racing events, the New Orleans tourism site suggests digesting your Turkey Day meal with a carriage ride across the French Quarter so that you can learn about the elaborate history of the city. And of course, there are always plenty of movie theatres open throughout the city on Thanksgiving Day for those of us wanting to digest amidst amazing narratives and visuals.

However, if you prefer the holiday season that begins immediately following your Thanksgiving Meal, then you’ll be delighted to hear that Celebration in the Oaks will return to New Orleans City Park from 5:00 PM to 11:00 PM on Thursday the 25th, and it’s set to last until January 2, 2022- with tickets costing $35. This annual holiday festivity is always heralded as a must-see of the New Orleans holiday tradition, as this incredible, breathtaking holiday light show transforms the already beautiful grounds of City Park into 25 acres of dazzling lights and impressive festive displays. In total, the winter wonderland is spread throughout the Park, Botanical Garden, Storyland, and Carousel Gardens Amusement Park with millions of lights scattered throughout the 2.25-mile expanse.

Now it’s time for the food. On Thanksgiving, you’re essentially left with two options in New Orleans if you want to take the day off from cooking or organizing a family potluck: you can dine out or order catering from the many restaurants offering to do the cooking for you. If catering, some suggested favorites are Deanie’s Seafood, Mother’s, Brigtsen’s, Desi Vega’s Steakhouse, Blue Oak BBQ, Central City BBQ, and Cochon Butcher for your savory meals and Willa Jean, Bywater Bakery, Beth Biundo Sweets, Camellia Grill, La Boulangerie, and Levee Baking Co. for sweets.

Alternatively, if you’re planning to experience the classic and authentic New Orleans dining atmosphere, then you’re left with plenty of options for restaurants open in the city on Thanksgiving Day, leaving you more time to celebrate and less time coordinating, stressing, and planning.

It should definitely be noted that most of the city’s finer hotels offer excellent meals on Thanksgiving, but for those of us who want to enjoy a great meal “in-house,” then the following restaurants are set to be open on Thanksgiving and are recommended for a pleasant, decadent, and well-rounded experience.

Uptown/Garden District

Central Business District/ Downtown

The French Quarter

 Greater New Orleans Area

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New Orleans Entrepreneur Week to Return in Spring 2022

An event that is normally considered to be a vital part of Crescent City business culture, the New Orleans Entrepreneur Week is set to return in March 2022, according to Nola.com.

New Orleans’s premier event for established and emerging businesses, the New Orleans Entrepreneur Week, is set to return in accordance with all public health guidelines over March 21-25, and its return is being attributed to Idea Village, a self-described “accelerator” of small businesses. Idea Village provides a wide range of support for start-up and emerging businesses in the New Orleans area. In fact, they report a total of 286 companies participating in their accelerator program, and those firms have so far earned an estimated $367 million in combined revenue just in the past year alone.

The last in-person New Orleans Entrepreneur Week was held in 2019 when approximately 2,000 people gathered in the city’s downtown Ace Hotel to hear presentations on topics designed to inspire and create a new wave of successful South Louisiana business owners. The following year, the event was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but if all goes according to plan, then the decade-old NOLA event will return once more to an in-person gathering, offering local business owners the chance to learn from and network with local industry leaders.

CEO of Idea Village, Jon Atkinson, said of the event’s projected return, “not being able to convene in person for the last two years has been heartbreaking and we are optimistic about the opportunity to start getting people back together while also embracing all we have learned about hybrid and digital communication this spring.”

During a normally scheduled New Orleans Entrepreneur Week, Idea Village offers businesses several opportunities to advance the stake they hold in industry success by calling upon curious entrepreneurs to apply for the latest version of their accelerator program, as Idea Village is also known for choosing several early-stage technology-enabled companies each year that show high growth potential. After they’re selected, these companies participate in an intensive four-month program wherein they are taught financing and marketing lessons, mentored by industry leaders, and given the opportunity to network with potential funders.

The four-month program ultimately culminates in a “pitch competition” among the top three finalists with the overall winner receiving $50,000. The winner of the last NOEW pitch competition, RentCheck, the developer of an app that aims to smooth tenant-landlord relations, is now sitting alongside previous successful startups on Idea Village’s list of the “10 Companies to Watch.”

Though, if recent Accelerator program pitch competitions are any metric to go by, the most successful start-ups completing the program aren’t always the winners of the competitive pitch component.

One such company benefiting from Idea Village’s accelerator program was Levelset, a Louisiana start-up tech company that assisted people in the construction industry with contracts and bill collection. Last month, the 10-year-old company sold for a record $500 million to a California tech company, setting a new record sale for a Louisiana start-up company. CEO and founder of Levelset, Scott Wolfe, attributed part of his company’s success to Idea Village, saying, “after The Idea Village accelerator program, our company was unrecognizable. We became a more mature business post-program, with a clear understanding of our vision, mission, and values.”

Even though no in-person Entrepreneur Week was in session this past year, the accelerator program moved forward with an approximate dozen participating companies. These participants ranged from the eco-friendly company Youni Co. to the Bywater-based Culturalyst, which is an online network designed for creative types in the New Orleans area.

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