The Intercept / Louisiana Protests Resurface Shooting of a 14-Year-Old Boy, Months ago, an officer in Jefferson Parish shot a 14-year-old boy. It took the George Floyd protests for people to pay attention
Jacobin / Why Have a Spate of Police Shootings in New Orleans Suburbs Been Ignored? Just two days after the murder of George Floyd, a young welder and rapper named Modesto Reyes was killed by police in the New Orleans suburb of Jefferson Parish after a traffic stop. Why aren't the deaths of Reyes and the other young black men recently killed by police in the New Orleans area national news?
The Los Angeles Times / They came to make art, but coronavirus forced them to stay, How artists and residencies are making do in these times
The New York Times / Last Man on the Appalachian Trail, The coronavirus hit just as my dad set out on a journey. Convincing him to come home has been difficult
The Los Angeles Times / An American tale of victory and vindication against Big Pork, Corban Addison’s Wastelands
The Los Angeles Times / Chelsea Bieker’s rural Cali stories, A review of Heartbroke
The Los Angeles Times / Grief becomes a glimmering memoir, A review of Kathryn Davis’s Aurelia, Aurelia
The Los Angeles Times / Christina Smallwood’s cerebral debut, A review of Life of the Mind
The Los Angeles Times / Books Bound in Human Skin, Megan Rosenbloom’s Dark Archives
The Los Angeles Times / Leigh Stein’s novel Self Care is a takedown of VC feminism, A review of Leigh Stein’s Self Care
The Los Angeles Times / A wicked debut about a levitation cult occasionally lifts off, A review of Emily Temple’s The Lightness
The Los Angeles Times / Debut novelist Naoise Dolan is no Sally Rooney, for better and worse, A review of Exciting Times
The Los Angeles Times / Technology cute and horrific in Samanta Schweblin’s latest modern nightmare, A review of Little Eyes
The Los Angeles Times / A Western romance novel about a brawling Texas fiddler pulls its punches, A review of Paulette Jiles’ Simon the Fiddler
The Los Angeles Times / A dark gig-economy fantasy and an enchanting debut, A review of Hilary Leichter’s Temporary
The Los Angeles Times / Fighting late capitalism, one chicken at a time, A review of Deb Olin Unferth’s Barn 8
Oxford American / Sting Like a Bee, Voodoo priestess, Indian queen, baby doll—Resa “Cinnamon Black” Bazile is like no other New Orleanian
The New York Times / Tobe Nwigwe Never Planned to Go Viral. Then He Rapped About Breonna Taylor, The Houston rapper and singer has been making music with a close-knit team for five years. A 44-second track released in July brought his message to a larger audience
GQ / Meet Eric Thomas, Your Favorite Athletes’ Favorite Life Coach, If you’re one of the planet’s best athletes, there’s a good chance you’re texting with Eric Thomas, a motivational coach with a rare talent for squeezing greatness out of the guys who are already on top of the world
Oxford American / Hunger for Water, Melissa Martin, author of Mosquito Supper Club, retraces the bayous and back roads of her Cajun upbringing
PUNCH / Wondrich After the Renaissance, What does the future of the cocktail look like to the man who unearthed its past?
PUNCH / Drinking with Salman Rushdie, The 12-time novelist on drinking with the literary establishment, his crash course in reality television and how Toni Morrison taught him to write like jazz
PUNCH / Mimi Casteel Is Betting the Farm, How one farmer, biologist and winemaker is trying to change an entire industry’s mind about the way it grows wine
PUNCH / Taffy Brodesser-Akner Is Anything But Basic, The prolific culture writer on her hatred of jazz, drinking with Gwyneth Paltrow and the people she’ll never profile
PUNCH / Drinking with Men in Blazers, The podcasters who helped make soccer a thing in America talk Budweiser, baldness and the Shakespearean nature of the sport
PUNCH / The Keeper of Cocktail Culture, With his library of 3,800 cocktail books and deep knowledge of high-end barware, Greg Boehm is perhaps the cocktail world’s greatest benefactor
PUNCH / Lizzie Post Will Save Us All. With Weed, The great-great granddaughter of Emily Post says that etiquette—and generosity—is baked into cannabis culture. It might be just what we need right now
PUNCH / Drinking with Karina Longworth, The podcast host and former film critic on her book, Seduction, drinking dirty Martinis at Musso & Frank and reporting on Hollywood’s lurid past amidst its current upheaval
The Ringer / Troma: A Love Story, With the guidance of its indefatigable leader, Lloyd Kaufman, the legendary independent New York studio has been cranking out gross, glorious, and message-laden movies for decades and launching the careers of figures like James Gunn, Marisa Tomei, Eli Roth, Trey Parker, and Matt Stone. And more than 50 years later, Kaufman is still flipping off the film establishment
Saveur / The Soul of Princess Pamela, Stumbling upon an old soul food cookbook, the Lee Bros uncovered the story of restaurateur, poet, and jazz legend Pamela Strobel
Saveur / The Spirit Hunter, Nicolas Palazzi collects exceptional cognacs and handmade eaux-de-vie. But his greatest finds are the families and stories behind them
Vanity Fair, Juan Thompson, Son of Hunter S., Writes a Book of His Own, A discussion with the younger Thompson about his life with the late master of gonzo journalism
Condé Nast Traveler / City of Dreams, New Orleans 20 Years After Katrina
Afar / A Deep Dive into New Orleans Pop-Up Culture, In New Orleans “pop-up” is a place, a verb and a lifestyle
PUNCH / The Wines of Right Now Spring 2022, The inaugural list of 15 producers that represent the wine zeitgeist right now
PUNCH / Can a Wine List Be More than its Wines? At Harlem's Contento, sommelier Yannick Benjamin is the latest to envision a program as a means of representation beyond territory and terroir
Condé Nast Traveler / The Keys Unlocked, Traveling the flawed and fragile Florida Keys with Joy Williams’ legendary guide
Oxford American / Saturday on the Shrimp Lot, A profile of Westwego, Louisiana’s homegrown seafood emporium
Condé Nast Traveler / Where the Stars Shine Brightest, Americans are increasingly taking road trips that are about the skies as much as the land
Condé Nast Traveler / Rolling Stone, At once grand and graffitied, and despite years of neglect, Detroit never lost its innovative streak
PUNCH / All the Wine That’s Fit to Print, What can 60 years of New York Times restaurant reviews tell us about wine’s journey in America?
PUNCH / Dispatches from New Orleans, Testimonials from bartenders, owners and community organizers in the wake of COVID-19
PUNCH / Is This Wine OK? The 20-second tableside dance between guest and sommelier reveals a lot about wine today
TASTE / The Secret Society of Marmalade Makers, Behind the cult of old-school English jam (winner of the 2021 IACP Narrative Food Writing award)
The Los Angeles Times / We’re Drowning in Wine Clubs, A look at the proliferation of subscriptions, which are for real, and which aren’t
PUNCH / So Everything’s a Natural Wine Bar Now? How the fringe hangout when from ubiquitous to rebellious
Grub Street / Can an Ice Cream Sundae Show Us True Perfection? Nick Morgenstern is chasing the Platonic ideal
Saveur / Higher Ground, At 12,000 feet above sea level, a legion of Bolivian women power an industry around the country's most valuable resource
Saveur / Pesto Is a Place, Somewhere on its path to global ubiquity, pesto became a catchall term. Now Ligurians want it back
Saveur / Four Million Pots, Once a year, millions of women make a pilgrimage to Kerala, India to make an offering for their goddess, Attukal Amma (nominated for a James Beard Award 2018 in Foodways, and an IACP award for travel journalism)
Saveur / The Shipwrecked Sailors & the Wandering Cod, In the remote archipelago of Lofoten, Arctic cod have been dried on oceanfront racks since the age of the Vikings. This is the unlikely story of how the humble fish became king of Norway
The New York Times / At Kali in LA, California Cuisine Without the Pretension, A restaurant that skirts preciousness for seriously beautiful food
The New York Times / Touring the Dark Side of Los Angeles, Thoughts on L.A.’s preoccupation with death tourism
Some Bars Never Really Close, Even when the doors are locked, Pete’s Out in the Cold keeps watch over its corner of New Orleans
Detroit’s Last Great Blues Bar, In a changing city, the 75-year-old Raven Lounge & Restaurant remains a spiritual home for America’s original music
At Happy’s, Midcentury Miami Still Glows Beneath the Grunge, This relic of the Rat Pack heyday has acquired the patina of a true locals' haunt
Snake and Jake’s Operates on the Other Side of Twilight, An Uptown New Orleans bar that’s become a landing place for oddball night owls, even at 6 a.m.
The Old Brooklyn Still Drinks at Bamonte’s, The bar within this 118-year-old mecca of Italian-American cuisine is one of Brooklyn’s best-kept secrets
America Is Alive and Well at Paradise Alley, The Queens bar where everybody is treated like a local
Dardy Bar Doesn't Want You to Grow Up, The Williamsburg dive that falls somewhere between rock ‘n’ roll bar and eighth grade art project
Santa Monica's Late Great Celebrity Dive Abides, On Chez Jay, the bygone celebrity haunt that remains an idiosyncratic relic of old Hollywood
The Last Speakeasy on Swing Street, A meditation on the Harlem jazz joint, Bill's Place
The Desert Lounge Where Old Hollywood Lives, Thoughts on Melvyn's a one-time Rat Pack refuge and Hollywood haven in Palm Springs