RL Reeves Jr

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

A Recipe For Homemade 7UP With Stevia

A Recipe For Homemade 7UP With Stevia

A few years ago I realized I had to make a change. If I was going to be able to keep on eating all the cake, pie and donuts I wanted, I was going to have to figure out how to get a chunk of sugar out of my diet or I’d be dead from the diabetes by the time I was 40.

Rest In Peace: Russell Reeves Sr

Russell Reeves Sr.

Russell Reeves Sr has died

How To Smoke Five Pounds Of Grocery Store Pork Chops

How To Smoke Five Pounds Of Grocery Store Pork Chops

When I was a kid growing up in the Cumberland Highlands of rural Appalachia, it was common practice to walk out behind my grandparents farmhouse to grab a slab of cured hog meat out of the smokehouse.

Hot 8 Brass Band Celebrates The Life Of Tuba Man Bennie Pete

Bennie Pete Birthday Celebration at New Orleans Jazz Museum

Jazz historian Dr. Michael White on Bennie Pete:

“For over 20 years one of the most popular and visible funk-style brass bands in community parades and funerals has been the Hot 8 Brass Band. In 1996 sousaphone player Bennie Pete was instrumental in merging two former Fortier High School student groups, the High Steppers and the Looney Tunes Brass Bands, to form the Hot 8. The players grew up together and maintain strong, family-like bonds and regular membership. Most of them were born between 1975 and ’87 in a generation that grew up hearing mainly modern-style brass bands in community functions.”

I would hesitate to say how many times I’ve seen Hot 8 play live. In the neighborhood of 200 times I reckon.

Bennie Pete passed away in September of 2021. The Treme neighborhood funerary second line that honored him saw thousands of people take to the streets in waves of joy. That’s how we grieve in New Orleans.

Tomorrow, July 10th, 2025 at 6pm, Hot 8 Brass Band will perform a ‘heavenly birthday’ celebration for the big man. Hope to see y’all come out.

Bennie Pete Birthday Celebration at New Orleans Jazz Museum

Thursday, July 10, 2025
5:00 PM – 8:00 PM
New Orleans Jazz Museum
400 Esplanade Ave.
New Orleans, LA

Corbin Kentucky Native Reveals Colonel Sanders Original Kentucky Fried Chicken Recipe

Corbin Kentucky Native Reveals Colonel Sanders Original Kentucky Fried Chicken Recipe

Several years ago the Chicago Tribune broke a story that still has the state of Kentucky in an uproar. Joe Ledington, a Corbin, Kentucky native who is a nephew to Colonel Sanders shared the original Kentucky Fried Chicken recipe with a writer for the paper.

RL Reeves Jr Recipe: Smoked Chicken Jambalaya With Andouille Sausage And Roasted Hatch Chiles

RL Reeves Jr Recipe For Smoked Chicken Jambalaya With Andouille Sausage And Roasted Hatch Chiles

We were rooting around in the freezer awhile back trying to ward off starvation and seeing which frozen meat packets we’d spirited in from Acadiana still held promise.

Nellie Sullivan Recipe: Sweet Batter Pudding With Fresh Blackberries

When July rolls around in the Cumberland Highlands of Eastern Kentucky it’s time to hit the strip mines with a big plastic jug, and go blackberry picking.

RL Reeves Jr Mexican Green Spaghetti Method

RL Reeves Jr Mexican Green Spaghetti Method

In the late 19th century, Texas hot guts sausage took the Lone Star state by storm. Ground up bull meat seasoned with hot red pepper, garlic and salt – then submitted to mesquite or post oak smoke suddenly became de rigueur on meat shop menus.

A hundred years later, brisket, a long-running warhorse in the Texas barbecue game, took on added verve when Bobby Mueller and his son John strapped a rocket to a steer’s ass and redefined what we thought of the old menu staple.

Yeah, we’d all been eating brisket since the FDR era but we’d never had it like this. Bobby and John are both deceased but before their passing Bobby told me that the barbecue he was serving would’ve been declared ‘over-cooked’ when he was on the come up.

Field Report: 2025 Scene Boosters Marching Club Second Line

2025 Scene Boosters Marching Club Second Line

The 2025 Scene Boosters Marching Club Second Line saw a few thousand people march through the historic Central City neighborhood of New Orleans 3rd Ward. This is what we saw:

A History Of Mayonnaise In The Southern Condiment Trade

Dynasties have been built. Rebellions have been quelled. Romances kindled. Reputations grown. Kingdoms overthrown.

Fortunes have been made.

The world of southern mayonnaise is as intriguing as any Tennessee Williams drama ever writ. Seismic rifts have jarred entire states over this fine emulsion.

Marie-Antoine Carême, the father of mayonnaise, emerged from the kitchens of 19th century France as a lion of haute cuisine.

Reflecting back on his life spent cooking over primitive, hot stoves he would exclaim: “Charcoal kills us, but what does it matter? The shorter the life, the greater the glory!”

Spoken like a true lover of mayonnaise.

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