A ‘culinary destination’ event: The Louisiana Food and Wine Festival returns – [225]
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Photos courtesy Louisiana Food and Wine Festival
By Olivia Deffes
Photography by Collin Richie
Most of the U.S. has heard of Louisiana’s spicy, ruby red crawfish, tasty boiled shrimp and hearty crab-filled dishes. But Jan Gourley, founder and director of the Louisiana Food and Wine Festival, encourages local, regional and national attendees to bust out of their culinary comfort zones.
“(We’re) opening their eyes to boudin, cracklins, andouille and things that Louisiana is known for,” she says.
The Louisiana Food and Wine Festival aims to prove there’s good cookin’ to be found not only in New Orleans but statewide—and particularly in Acadiana, where the event is staged. Hosted at locations around Lake Charles, the festival Sept. 19-22 returns for its second year with formal six-course dinners, tastings, cooking classes, barbecues and more. Attendees should bring their appetite for three days of tasty events, plus an introductory dinner on Thursday.
Advertisement
“What I try to explain to people is that the Cajun and Creole culture that Louisiana has built its famous cuisine on truly lives in Acadiana and southwest Louisiana,” Gourley says. “(This festival) is more of an authentic Louisiana experience.”
Last year’s inaugural event lured attendees from every parish in Louisiana along with others from Texas, Alabama, Mississippi and even Canada, Gourley says.
“A lot of people had said, ‘It’s going to be a hit-or-miss thing,’” Gourley says. “‘People probably won’t get it because it’s the first year, and it’s a lot different from every other festival.’ But they did. … The objective of creating a culinary destination event, I believe, was achieved.”
Things kick off on Thursday, Sept. 19, with Louisiana’s Celebrity Chefs Wine Dinner. Held at L’Auberge Casino Resort Lake Charles, the meal will feature six courses prepared by acclaimed chefs. Each plate will be expertly paired with a wine.
Advertisement
The festival continues on Friday with master classes taught by celebrity chefs with themes like “The Perfect Wine & Oyster Pairings” and “Southern Inspired Smokey Seafood Mac & Cheese.” That evening, pitmasters will serve up grilled dishes for Fire on the Lake. The Grand Tasting event on Saturday and a lively Jazz Brunch on Sunday close it all out.
“(We hope to) introduce people to new things,” Gourley says. “Especially people that are not from Louisiana that have never heard about what maque choux is. Last year, we had a pitmaster that had an alligator on a spit.”
Louisiana Food & Wine Festival
Sept. 19-22 Locations vary | Lake Charles
louisianafoodandwinefestival.com
This article was originally published in the September 2024 issue of 225 Magazine.
DESTIN, Fla. — A North Carolina man allegedly headed to do a mass shooting at a large Louisiana festival was arrested in Okaloosa County Wednesday evening.
Federal authorities contacted the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office in regards to the man. The department was told the man would be in the area.
The man’s name has not been shared by authorities.
Deputies found the man at a Destin Hotel. They took him into custody as a “fugitive from justice.”
Advertisement
The man will be extradited to Louisiana to face state charges, deputies say.
The mother of three of the eight children massacred by deranged Army veteran dad Shamar Elkins in Louisiana still has a bullet lodged in her head and is struggling with her memory — sometimes believing her kids are still alive, according to a relative.
Christina Snow, the girlfriend of 31-year-old Shamar Elkins, was shot in the face early Sunday when the former National Guardsman went on a shooting rampage at two nearby homes in Shreveport.
Three of Snow’s children she shared with Elkins — Braylon Snow, 5, Khedarrion Snow, 6, and Sariahh Snow, 11 — were killed in their home.
Christina Snow (right) was shot in the face early Sunday by her 31-year-old boyfriend Shamar Elkins. Facebook/Christina SnowThree of Snow’s children she shared with Elkins — Braylon Snow, 5, Khedarrion Snow, 6, and Sariahh Snow, 11 — were killed in their home by their deranged Army veteran father. Facebook/Christina Snow
Elkins fired a bullet through Snow’s nose which is lodged in her head, and doctors aren’t ready to risk surgery, according to her cousin Jamarckus Snow.
Advertisement
The mom is now dealing with heartbreaking memory loss about the fate of her kids.
“One day, she’ll remember they’re dead. I heard yesterday she woke up and was like, ‘I got to get my kids ready for school.’ She’ll lose memory of what happened,” he told NBC News.
“One day, she’ll know, and the next day, she’s thinking her kids is still there.”
Follow the latest updates on the Louisiana father who killed 8 children in Shreveport shooting:
Elkins fatally shot his seven children — the three he shared with Snow and his four daughters with his wife, Shaneiqua Pugh: Jayla Elkins, 3, Shayla Elkins, 5, Kayla Pugh, 6, and Layla Pugh, 7.
He also killed Mar’Kaydon Pugh, 10, the son of his wife’s sister, who was staying at their house.
Advertisement
Elkins’ rifle used to gun down the eight children. DOJ
The vet turned his gun on Pugh and Snow, too, severely wounding both women, who are still in the hospital.
Elkins shot himself in the driveway of his former military mentor as law enforcement closed in.
The motive for the shooting remains unclear, but Elkins was suffering from mental health issues and was scheduled to appear in court on Monday after Pugh asked him for a divorce.
A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld a Texas law requiring public schools to post the Ten Commandments, just weeks after the same court allowed a similar Louisiana law to take effect.
A majority of judges on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Texas’ law, which is nearly identical to Louisiana’s, is constitutional and does not violate students’ religious freedom. In February, the court lifted an injunction on Louisiana’s law, which cleared schools to put up the posters, but the judges said it was too early to rule on that law’s constitutionality.
Tuesday’s ruling could bode well for Louisiana’s law if it eventually returns to the 5th Circuit, considered the country’s most conservative federal court of appeals.
In their majority opinion, the judges rejected the argument that posting the Ten Commandments in classrooms would pressure students to honor the biblical mandates or adopt particular beliefs.
Advertisement
“To plaintiffs, merely exposing children to religious language is enough to make the displays engines of coercive indoctrination. We disagree,” the majority wrote about the Texas law, known as S.B. 10. A minority of the court’s active judges dissented.
Even though Tuesday’s ruling only addressed the Texas case, defenders of Louisiana’s legislation celebrated it as a victory. Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said the 5th Circuit’s argument in upholding Texas’ law was identical to the one Louisiana made in defense of its law.
“Our law clearly was always constitutional,” she posted on X, “and I am grateful that the Fifth Circuit has now definitively agreed with us.”
Louisiana’s Republican-controlled Legislature passed the law in 2024, which requires all public K-12 schools and colleges to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom. A group of parents quickly challenged the law in court, and a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction that stopped the state from enforcing the law.
In February, the 5th Circuit reversed the lower court’s decision, saying it had been premature to block the law before it took effect. The judges said they could not rule on the law’s constitutionality before seeing how it played out in schools.
Advertisement
But in the case of Texas’ law, which that state’s Republican-led Legislature passed in 2025, the court did rule on the merits.
Rejecting arguments made by attorneys for the Texas families who challenged the law, the 5th Circuit majority said that requiring public schools to post the Ten Commandments does not amount to the government endorsing a particular religion, which the U.S. Constitution forbids. The law also does not impose religious beliefs on students, the judges wrote.
“As noted, S.B. 10 authorizes no religious instruction and gives teachers no license to contradict children’s religious beliefs (or their parents’),” the majority opinion says. “No child is made to recite the Commandments, believe them, or affirm their divine origin.”
The Texas families were represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Texas, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, with the law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP serving as pro bono counsel. The same groups, including Louisiana’s ACLU chapter, represented the Louisiana families.
In a statement Tuesday, the organizations said they are “extremely disappointed” by the 5th Circuit’s ruling, adding that they expect to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Advertisement
“The First Amendment safeguards the separation of church and state, and the freedom of families to choose how, when and if to provide their children with religious instruction,” the groups said. “This decision tramples those rights.”
![A 'culinary destination' event: The Louisiana Food and Wine Festival returns – [225]](https://i3.wp.com/d1dxs113ar9ebd.cloudfront.net/225batonrouge/2024/08/Red-White-Rose-copy-scaled.jpeg?ssl=1 "A 'culinary destination' event: The Louisiana Food and Wine Festival returns – [225]")
