#southern-us-cultural-issues

#southern-us-cultural-issues

Elvis loved our ribs. However, he never came to The Rendezvous. Elvis always wanted to rent the whole place out and my father didn't want to lose customers so he refused.

"We're hanging on by the skin of our teeth," said Shaun Blakeney, the manager of Arrow Wine and Spirits in Clinton. "This store's my whole world, and I don't want to lose it."

Fia Backström describes her experience of West Virginia as akin to being called by aliens, framing the region in a way that echoes a long history of it being seen as strange and backward.

Booking shows is not a career for the faint of heart. Beyond coordinating schedules, hosting live music night after night requires a skilled ear behind the sound board to make sure the drums don't overpower the bass, and that the vocals don't overpower the drums.

Exploring Transgender Identity in South Carolina is a candid photographic and interview-based documentation of transgender life in South Carolina. This project offers a contemporary visual record of a community that exists largely outside of that narrative yet within its realities.

Dooky Chase's Restaurant has been a culinary landmark in New Orleans, known for its signature dishes like fried chicken and gumbo, attracting celebrities and political figures alike.

[To make] Cajun-style deviled eggs, which actually sounds like a great idea, I would mix Creole mustard, Cajun spice, and crispy andouille into the egg yolk mix and garnish a piece of crispy andouille on top with charred corn kernels or crispy fried onions as well.

Louisiana has a really great infrastructure for film, with really talented filmmakers. That's where I started my career, so I've done many films there. I came up in New Orleans in the art department, right before Katrina in 2004.

I remember stepping out of Austin-Bergstrom Airport last July, and the heat hit me like opening an oven door. Not the dry, manageable warmth I knew from Southern California, but something thick and heavy that made my shirt cling to my back before I even reached the rental car. That moment was my first real hint that moving from California to Texas would be more than just a change of scenery.

From November 1909 until August 1912, an unknown assailant - or assailants - zigzagged across southwestern Louisiana and southeastern Texas. Many Black families were slaughtered in their homes under the cover of darkness. An ax - the telltale weapon - was almost always found in the bloody aftermath. All but one of the scenes were located within a mile of the Southern Pacific Railroad's Sunset Route. In each case, a mother and child were always among the victims.

This devastating début novel takes the form of an oral history about a tragedy that shatters a family. At its heart is a couple who arrived in the U.S. in the late nineteen-nineties as refugees from Afghanistan. They prospered, and brought up four children in an affluent suburb in Virginia. Rotating testimonies from people they know-family friends, a cousin, lawyers-offer theories about what led to the novel's central catastrophe.

Megan Keller was a 21-year-old next-big-thing-on-defense when she won her first Olympic gold medal, in Pyeongchang, the winter before her senior year of college. She was also very nearly the reason her team lost it. The refs whistled her for an illegal hit on Canadian captain Marie-Philip Poulin late in overtime, and her teammates spent 95 chilling seconds on the penalty kill atoning for her sins.

In what seems to be the most uniting moment since Chardonnay was invented, older white Republican women flocked to movie theaters this past weekend to watch Melania, the nearly two-hour-long documentary about the First Lady financed by Jeff Bezos and directed by accused sex pest Brett Ratner. The film allegedly follows her during the 20 days leading up to Trump's second inauguration in 2025, though the trailer basically just showed her wearing sunglasses.

It's a standard trope in portrayals of assimilated Jews to open with a scene built around a Christmas tree. That's how Tom Stoppard's " Leopoldstadt" and Alfred Uhry's " Last Night of Ballyhoo" begin, and also Ian Buruma's memoir about his grandparents, " Their Promised Land." The idea is, as soon as you show that, you've got the audience's full attention, especially if it's a Jewish audience, because it's so peculiar.

There's something to be said about the appeal of chain restaurants. In theory, customers can walk into any location and get much the same experience. There's nothing wrong with that, especially considering some chains take quality seriously. Chain barbecue restaurants are fewer and farther between than, say, steakhouse chains, and that's because of some unique challenges, including the differences between beloved regional styles. However, the one thing that unites great barbecue is the need for great sides - which is why we're here.

Sonic seasoning is the phenomenon where specific musical elements: tempo, pitch, instrumentation: can influence how our brains perceive the five basic tastes: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami. High-pitched tones can make dishes taste sweeter. Bass-heavy tracks can enhance umami and savory notes. Even the crunch sounds we hear while eating can make food seem fresher and crispier. It's not just about mood: it's about fundamentally altering taste perception through sound.

At first glance, Buck & Johnny's, a restaurant just outside Lafayette, Louisiana, looks unremarkable: a warehouse-like space with exposed brick, a large dance floor, and walls decorated with football helmets and old oil company signs. Then, a five-piece band strikes up in the corner. Louisiana zydeco rolls across the room, driven by accordion and the full-body washboard frottoir (a percussion instrument). Couples of all ages gravitate to the dance floor, stepping, spinning, and swaying with varying degrees of confidence.

"We just always believed that barbecue was a part of our culture, going all the way back in history," Cedric explained. And Anthony put it even more personally: "When you go to a barbecue, no matter where you go, it's like a family reunion. You've got the spades, you've got the dominoes, you've got the good music, you've got the great food, you've got the great camaraderie, you have family around you, and that's what this business is for us."