Writer documenting life in New Orleans 9th Ward. I'm eating 500 po boys at 500 different restaurants, gas stations, corner stores and cafes in New Orleans

Author: rlreevesjr2@gmail.com Page 8 of 13

The Banh Mi Culture Of Vietnam Is Thriving On The US Gulf Coast

The Banh Mi Culture Of Vietnam Is Thriving On The US Gulf Coast

The exodus started in May 1975.

Following the fall of Saigon to the Communist North Vietnamese, 130,000 refugees were evacuated from South Vietnam.

Operation Frequent Wind, the largest boat and air lift in refugee history was a rousing success that would lead to 1.4 million Vietnamese émigrés resettling in the United States between 1975 and 1994.

The Gulf Coast South was a favored destination.

A Recipe For Vietnamese Crawfish Stew With Andouille Sausage

It’s crawfish season in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Recently, Canseco’s Market on Esplanade had a sale on locally grown as well as Vietnamese crawfish. The price difference was remarkable. Crawfish from fisheries within 20 minutes of my 9th Ward home cost nearly five times as much as the Vietnamese fishes.

Albert “Booth” Campbell of Maylie’s on Poydras St. Red Beans and Rice Recipe

Maylie’s on Poydras where Albert Booth Campbell cooked the best red beans and rice in New Orleans

Albert Booth Campbell is one of the mythical old-school Black cooks of New Orleans.

Field Report: 2025 VIP Ladies and Kids Second Line Parade in New Orleans

2025 VIP Ladies and Kids Second Line Parade in New Orleans

500 Po Boys: Spuddy’s Cajun Foods

If you like whiskey barrel-cured tobacco and andouille sausage, St James Parish, Louisiana is where the conversation begins. Purists claim this is the one true place on earth where Perique, a spicy tobacco varietal is grown, and this same region is famous state-wide for producing some of the finest andouille sausage in all of Acadiana.

Bloody Bogalusa and the Deacons For Defense And Justice

KKK Stronghold Bogalusa in 1965

Sometimes you have to meet violence with greater violence.

That was the creed espoused by the Deacons for Defense and Justice, a paramilitary group of Black men dedicated to protecting civil rights workers and regular Black citizens during the bloody battles pitched on the city streets and country roads of Jim Crow-era Louisiana.

A Recipe For Alabama Apple Cake

When I was in culinary school in Alabama back in the 90s, I read the Birmingham News and the Birmingham Post-Herald every single day. On Wednesdays I kept a pair of scissors handy so I could cut recipes out of the food section.

Just like my mom and grandma did in the 70s.

Field Report: 2025 Uptown Super Sunday Indian Party at Shakespeare Park

2025 Uptown Super Sunday Indian Party at Shakespeare Park

New Orleans has a thousand parties a year but there are only two that you have to experience no matter where you’re from, be it Mongolia or Shreveport: Mardi Gras Day and Uptown Super Sunday.

500 Po Boys: Seither’s Seafood Restaurant

One fatal flaw kept Jason Seither’s seafood joint out in Harahan from entering the rarefied arena occupied by po boy hard-hitters like Heard Dat Kitchen and Rampart Food Store.

You can’t hang with the New Orleans heavyweights if you don’t take the time to press the bread on a hot plancha for a few seconds. The Dong Phuong loaf was fresh but cold as a parson’s cupboard at Epiphany.

Cajuns, Rednecks, And Longhairs: Notes On The Celebration Of Life Music Festival in Point Coupee Parish, Louisiana

Cajuns, Rednecks, And Longhairs: Notes On The Celebration Of Life Music Festival in Point Coupee Parish, Louisiana

It should have been the biggest party Louisiana ever saw. The Celebration of Life in 1971 was to be a deep south version of Woodstock where the hippies, rednecks and Cajuns all beat their feet in unison on that sweet Point Coupee, Parish mud.

Instead it careered out of control with drownings, gunfire, and kids overdosing on methadone.

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