I suspect most couples don’t know the exact date of their first encounter. But then most couples probably don’t have a police report.

It took me a few days to decide to contact Nick. I’d been wrestling with that urge for five years now. My inbox was a shame trail of gushy letters typed after midnight, impulsive notes dashed off in the afternoon. All of them had cutesy subject lines, like the titles of Raymond Carver stories, but they should have been labeled the same thing: “Do you love me again? Have you changed your mind yet?”

But one evening in March, I sent Nick an email. My hands were trembling as I typed. It was subject lined “things you may or may not remember,” and this is what it said:

“My friend Charlotte is getting married in New Orleans on May 13, and I will be going. May 13 also happens to be the day I met you, six years ago on Royal Street with a lump on my head the size of a lime. (Life is WEIRD, right?) I'd like to see you. Is that possible?”

Continue Reading...

Continue Reading...

Here's the list:

1. New Orleans
2. Philadelphia
3. Los Angeles
4. Memphis
5. New York
6. Baltimore
7. Las Vegas
8. Miami
9. Atlanta
10. Houston

The ranking is not exactly scientific -- it's based on input from the magazine's readers, who fill out an annual "favorite cities" survey -- but the results hold up fairly well next to the conclusions of other studies. T+L explains:

Continue Reading...

But by the 5 p.m. deadline Sunday, the 44-year-old Ledoux and her boyfriend Billy Hanchett decided to ride it out one more night on air mattresses inside the empty home in Krotz Springs. They have a camper they plan to stay in on a friend's property outside the flood zone.

"We really don't want to go," Hanchett said. Ledoux added that she felt blessed that they had the camper because a lot of others have nowhere to go except shelters.

Meanwhile, President Barack Obama planned to fly to Memphis, Tenn., on Monday to meet with families affected when the river flooded there as well as local officials, first responders and volunteers.

Deputies all over Louisiana Cajun country were warning residents to head for higher ground and most heeded it, even in places where there hasn't been so much as a trickle, hopeful that the flooding engineered to protect heavily populated New Orleans and Baton Rouge would be merciful to their way of life.

Continue Reading...

Most residents heeded the warnings and headed for higher ground, even in places where there hasn't been so much as a trickle, hopeful that the flooding engineered to protect New Orleans and Baton Rouge would be merciful to their way of life.

Days ago, many of the towns known for their Cajun culture and drawling dialect fluttered with activity as people filled sandbags and cleared out belongings. By Sunday, some areas were virtually empty as the water from the Mississippi River, swollen by snowmelt and heavy rains, slowly rolled across the Atchafalaya River basin. The floodwaters could reach depths of 20 feet in the coming weeks.

The spillway's opening diverted water from heavily populated New Orleans and Baton Rouge -- along with chemical plants and oil refineries along the Mississippi's lower reaches -- easing pressure on the levees there in the hope of avoiding potentially catastrophic floods.

Continue Reading...

The floodgate was opened Saturday for the first time in nearly four decades, shooting out like a waterfall, spraying 6 feet into the air. Fish jumped or were hurled through the white froth and what was dry land soon turned into a raging channel.

The water will flow 20 miles south into the Atchafalaya Basin, and from there it will roll on to Morgan City, an oil-and-seafood hub and a community of 12,000.

In the nearby community of Stephensville, rows of sandbags were piled up outside nearly every home.

Merleen Acosta, 58, waited in line for three hours to get her sandbags filled by prisoners, then returned later in the day for more bags.

Floodwaters inundated Acosta's home when the Morganza spillway was opened in 1973, driving her out for several months. The thought of losing her home again was so stressful she was getting sick.

"I was throwing up at work," she said.

Continue Reading...

About 25,000 people and 11,000 structures could be in harm's way when the Morganza spillway is unlocked for the first time in 38 years. Sheriffs and National Guardsmen were warning people in a door-to-door sweep through the area, and shelters were ready to accept up to 4,800 evacuees, Gov. Bobby Jindal said.

Some people living in the threatened stretch of countryside -- an area known for small farms, fish camps and a drawling French dialect -- have already started fleeing for higher ground.

"Now's the time to evacuate," Jindal said. "Now's the time for our people to execute their plans. That water's coming."

Opening the spillway will release a torrent that could submerge about 3,000 square miles under as much as 25 feet of water in some areas but take the pressure off the downstream levees protecting New Orleans, Baton Rouge and the numerous oil refineries and chemical plants along the lower reaches of the Mississippi.

Continue Reading...

The only problem? Nic Cage was not involved in a "domestic assault." He and his wife were drunkenly arguing about which house they lived in (LOL), he "grabbed her arm," the cops came, and Nic screamed "Arrest me!" until they finally did. His wife is not pressing charges. Dog the Bounty Hunter bailed him out of jail.

Continue Reading...

Continue Reading...

"Dad says to ask the voodoo priestess what she can do," my sister said, speaking as if all the words were foreign to her.

I felt it in my gut: Mom's life was coming to an end. My father wasn't a religious man. If he'd ask me to speak to a minister or priest, it would have been just as heartbreaking.

Although we often accepted UPS packages for each other, I had never consulted my neighbor the priestess before, aside from the standard chicken foot above my door for luck. I didn't know where to begin. "I'm looking for something for my mother," I said, as if picking out something for her to wear. And then I had to tell her the details of my mother's terminal illness. I wasn't used to saying it out loud. My family spoke mostly in euphemisms about things like this; 9/11 was "the incident," Katrina was "the storm," and my mother's aplastic anemia was "her condition." The priestess suggested healing salts, or a special candle, but my mother's compromised immune system made those options forbidden.

Continue Reading...

While prosecutors insisted Katrina offers no excuses, attorneys for the five current or former officers charged in Henry Glover's death have urged jurors to consider the 2005 storm when judging their actions.

The jury of five men and seven women is expected to begin deliberating Tuesday after hearing 12 days of testimony and up to eight hours of closing arguments Monday.

Police officers and civilians alike had to take desperate measures to survive after Katrina, but the storm can't excuse a murder, the barbaric act of burning a corpse or police covering up for other officers, Justice Department prosecutor Jared Fishman said.

"Hurricane Katrina did not mean that it was open season to shoot looters," Fishman said. "Hurricane Katrina didn't turn petty theft into a capital offense."

Glover was apparently driving a stolen truck and retreiving looted suitcases from outside a strip mall when a former officer, David Warren, shot him once from a second-floor balcony on Sept. 2, 2005.

Continue Reading...

Obama ends his Martha's Vineyard vacation Sunday and heads to the Gulf, five years to the day from when Katrina roared ashore in Louisiana. Eighty percent of New Orleans was flooded when the storm tore through protective levees.

More than 1,800 people along the Gulf coast died in the storm, mostly in Louisiana.

After years where halting progress mixed often with setbacks and despair, the city was getting back on its feet when the BP oil spill dealt another blow. The exploded well spewed more than 200 million gallons of crude into the Gulf before it was capped in mid-July.

Obama is to speak Sunday afternoon at Xavier University, a historically black, Catholic university that was badly flooded by the storm. The White House says he will discuss what's been done and remains to be done in rebuilding from Katrina, and also talk about an oil spill cleanup that's been complicated by conflicting assessments of how much oil remains and its long-term effects.

Continue Reading...

New Orleans now hosts 354,850 residents, almost 78 percent of its pre-Katrina population. At the same time, the city has become significantly whiter since the storm: It is now only 60 percent black, compared to 67 percent black, pre-Katrina. And many of the poorer black people who left town after the storm have yet to return.

New Orleans has gone through a boom while other cities have suffered during the recent recession. The number of poor people living in Orleans Parish has halved to 68,000 over the last five years, with median household incomes rising to $47,585 -- just as household incomes declined nationally over the same period. There is a healthier share of middle-class families in downtown New Orleans.

Continue Reading...

My neighbors and I parted ways, and within half a block everything changed. I saw a group of kids on bikes ahead of me and turned to avoid what looked like trouble. Two stray dogs came charging toward me, but I was too slow to realize it was because someone was about to club me from behind. Because it was from behind, I never got a good look at who it was, but he probably used a two-by-four to hit me, a popular weapon in New Orleans these days. I hit the pavement and skidded across. It was the kind of impact that leaves logic knocked loose, so when the kids jumped on top of me asking "What have you got?" I lifted my head as if to respond. Fortunately, the damage from the blow kept me from saying what I was really thinking, otherwise they might have finished the job. I lay paralyzed in the middle of the street while I felt their hands in my pockets. They took my iPhone, left the cash, and then they were gone.

Continue Reading...

Spike Lee gives his answer in a new documentary, "If God Is Willing and da Creek Don't Rise," a loosely structured, four-hour meditation on everything right and wrong with New Orleans five years after Katrina. It premieres Aug. 23 and 24 on HBO.

Continue Reading...

Citing unidentified sources, the BBC and Sunday Telegraph said detailed talks regarding Hayward's future had taken place over the weekend. The BBC said a formal announcement on Hayward's exit is expected in the next 24 hours; the Telegraph said it would be made in the next 48 hours.

The Sunday Times reported directors are "considering a plan under which (Hayward) would leave as soon as the ruptured well is sealed."

Hayward, 53, has come under heavy criticism for his leadership following the April 20 fire and explosion on the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico. He has repeatedly apologized and expressed sorrow for the oil leak, but in May, he shocked some U.S. residents when he said "I'd like my life back," and weeks later went yachting.

BP is due to release its second quarter results on Tuesday, and the board of directors is scheduled to meet before the earnings announcement.

Asked about the reports, company spokesman Toby Odone said, "Tony Hayward remains BP's chief executive, and he has the confidence of the board and senior management."

Continue Reading...

This letter was sent to me from a friend. She was very active and brave when she lost her city, New Orleans, to Hurricane Katrina; she is now afraid of the implications of the Louisiana oil spill to her city and grieves for those who are affected and suffering from the spill. She gave me permission to send the letter to you. Perhaps within that deep well of compassion of yours, there are words that you can offer up to help guide her (and the rest of us) to see through to that ever-burning flicker.

Does God really hate us?

Musings of a New Orleanian...

Yesterday we awoke to the news that the oil has reached Lake Pontchartrain — which is north of the city.

It was mainly the waters of Lake Pontchartrain (the second-largest saltwater lake in the country, I'm told) that raced in through the various levee breaks to drown the city at the end of August 2005.

Continue Reading...

"Would you rather have a strong economy or a four-hour lunch?" This is Davis McAlary (Steve Zahn) imploring Janette (Kim Dickens) to stay in New Orleans instead of leaving for New York, but his words reflect the patient, sensual spirit of HBO's "Treme," a four-hour lunch of a drama series if there ever was one. All season we've been treated to episodes that center on live music, great food, second-line parades, ambling along at a pace best described as audaciously relaxed. But while such bold choices made David Simon's "The Wire" an outright masterpiece, "Treme's" relentless effort to capture the "real" New Orleans sometimes sinks viewers into an blurry fog of dark, packed dive bars and crowded late-night parties, only to jolt them out of their blues-chord-induced trance with another awkward scene where this or that character smilingly greets this or that famous face and trades mutually flattering banter.

Continue Reading...

Ingredients

Between 7 and 11 of the following (traditionally an odd number, for luck):

• 1 bunch collard greens
• 1 bunch mustard greens
• 1 bunch turnip greens
• 1 bunch or bag spinach
• 1 bunch carrot tops
• 1 bunch arugula
• 1 bunch parsley
• 2 bunches green onions
• 1 bunch watercress
• 1 head romaine or other lettuce
• 1 head curly endive
• 1 bunch kale
• 1 bunch radish tops
• 1 bunch pepper grass
• 1 bunch basil

Specified quantity of the following:

• 3 medium yellow onions, quartered
• 1/2 head garlic, peeled, cloves kept whole
• 1 pound andouille sausage
• 1 pound smoked pork sausage
• 2 pounds fresh, bulk hot sausage
• 2 smoked ham shanks (or 3 big, meaty ham hocks)
• 1 pound beef chuck, or other stewing meat
• 1/2 pound ham (we're showing restraint here)
• 1 pound chicken (drumettes or wings preferred)
• Vegetable oil
• 1 cup flour
• 2 tablespoons dried thyme, or to taste
• 2 teaspoons cayenne pepper, or to taste
• 3 bay leaves
• Salt, to taste
• 1/2 teaspoon file powder, optional

Special equipment:

• An arsenal of huge pots, a wooden spoon, and be prepared to improvise

Continue Reading...

The New Orleans Wine and Food Experience, an annual celebration of the city's love of all things tasty, is pairing wines from around the world with the cooking of some of the city's best chefs to help deliver the message:

Louisiana seafood is still safe, available and delicious.

"What's at stake is a whole way of life," said John Besh, a cookbook author and one of the city's most celebrated chefs.

"It's one of the richest ecosystems in the world. Anything that lives, swims, eats or breeds in the Gulf of Mexico starts out in the Louisiana wetlands," he said. "We need to protect it, and we need to let the world know it's still available."

The festival, which opens Wednesday, is a bit more tony than the recent Jazz and Heritage Festival or French Quarter Festival -- organizers say they expect attendees in the $100,000-plus income bracket. It traditionally provides a tourism boost as New Orleans' begins its slide into summer, when visitors tend to avoid the city's heat and high humidity.

Continue Reading...