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It was nearly midnight on Oct. 15, 1890, as David Hennessy, the young New Orleans police chief, walked home in a drizzle after a late meeting of the police board. Hennessy was without his usual armed escort as he approached the Basin St. house he shared with his widowed mother. The chief had use for bodyguards. In New Orleans, he was the face of...

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Eighteen-year-old gymnast Christina Desiderio says competing at the 2016 Olympic trials after earning a spot twice on the U.S. national team was by far the highlight of her career. “19,000 people, not a seat empty! Two days that I will never forget,” she says. “I worked for 10 years of my life to try to make it to the 2016 Olympics,” she says. “Tha...

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A new, Locally-owned, 1920’s themed speakeasy bar & restaurant, called Capone’s, is coming soon to the new McLain Marketplace shopping center at 819 E Broussard Road. Capone’s Drinkery & Eats will be heavily centered around the roaring twenties’ prohibition era. Imagine being in an old New York City gangster’s club with heavy curtains, pillowed fur...

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Frances Xavier Cabrini, known universally as Mother Cabrini, founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. She established 67 missionary institutions, including one in New Orleans, to which she came in 1892. Exhibiting the energy for which she would become legendary, Mother Cabrini devoted herself to caring for the poor, especially I...

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The American Society of Italian Heritage held it annual Rising Star Banquet at DiChristina's Restaurant. The organization includes members from all parts of the Northshore and several south shore members as well. Guest speaker was Professor Anthony Margavio, former University of New Orleans, Loyola University, and Southeastern Louisiana University...

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I’ve spent a good part of 2018 writing about New Orleanians of Sicilian descent and their food. Inevitably, the discussion turns to “red gravy.” In New Orleans, many of us call our spaghetti sauce by that moniker, which is a term new-to-town Italians find confusing. That includes chef Giovanni "Gio" Vancheri of Villa Vancheri in Mandeville, who in...

2020

Picture it: A farmhouse kitchen in the 1950s Sicilian countryside.  At the stove is Marianna Impastato. At her elbow is her son Sal. Atop that stove is a huge pot of simmering onions. As the onions turn translucent and shiny with olive oil, she adds minced fresh garlic; pig’s feet go in and gallons of crushed fresh Italian tomatoes.  Who would enjo...

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Under American law I technically qualify as Hispanic even though I have absolutely no ethnic Spanish ancestry in the last 500 years. The reason for this is that the law permits you to self-identify as Hispanic if you have "ancestry originating in the Spanish Empire." Which means if you have an ancestor who ever lived under the flag of Spain, even i...

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Creole-Italian restaurants blessedly still thrive in New Orleans, with their red gravies and Gulf seafood, but they’re no longer, as they were just a decade ago, the only games in town. Paladar 511 is the most recent perfect expression of the alternative that’s emerged. I call the cooking Italian because a sizable percentage of it takes the form of...

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On March 14, 1891 eleven Italian-Americans were lynched in New Orleans by a mob waving the Confederate flag who had been whipped up into believing that New Orleans Police Chief David Hennessey had been murdered by "the dagoes." It is from this incident that the term "mafia" entered the American lexicon as the thugs who lynched these 11 men, who had...

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