Country Roads Magazine

12/09/2024

In this month's "Holiday Traditions" issue, Kristy and Paul Christiansen take us along on their journey to "wholesome winter fairyland," Branson, Missouri, where the Ozarks are alive with the spirit of Christmas. Read about their weekend retreat in the mountains, where they filled their itinerary with the best of Branson, including Silver Dollar City, Marvel Cave, and a stay at Westgate Resorts.

https://countryroadsmagazine.com/travel/getaways/christmas-in-branson-missouri/

Photos by Paul Christiansen

12/07/2024

Now through the almost-end of December, tour "Louisiana Lights", a winter wonderland of botanical light displays through Burden's Windrush Gardens in Baton Rouge.
“We didn't want just another light-wrapped tree garden,” said Jeff Kuehny, director of the LSU AgCenter Botanic Gardens.
Read about what sets LSU AgCenter's dazzling holiday experience apart from the rest in Country Roads' "Holiday Traditions" issue, on stands now.
https://countryroadsmagazine.com/art-and-culture/people-places/louisiana-lights-baton-rouge/

"Louisiana Lights" will be open Thursday through Sunday, from November 29–December 29 starting at 5:30 pm. lsuagcenter.com.

Story by Jacqueline Derobertis-Braun. Photos by Sean Gasser.

12/07/2024

Under the Overpass, the legacy of one aviating colonel lives on at Baton Rouge's newly revived restaurant, the Colonel's Club.
"When we started hearing their stories about the Colonel," said restaurateur Jordan Piazza, "we just knew we had to built things around him."

Read more about the team who made the Colonel's story tangible in our Holiday Traditions issue's article, "Catch a Flight with the Colonel" by Lucie Monk Carter here: https://countryroadsmagazine.com/cuisine/restaurants/colonels-club-baton-rouge/

12/06/2024

Within author and illustrator William Joyce's 53rd published children's book holds a tale (or should we say, "tail") of childlike wonder, namely starring the Rocket Puppies and their furry foe, Snarly McBummerpants, who proves to be no match for the Puppies' overpowering positivity.

An animated film version of Rocket Puppies is coming to YouTube sometime in 2025, followed next fall by the release of the sequel Glitter Kittens.
Read more about Joyce's "Rocket Puppies" in Country Roads' "Holiday Traditions" issue: https://countryroadsmagazine.com/art-and-culture/literature/rocket-puppies-william-joyce/

12/04/2024

Tomorrow evening, Dec. 5, the LSU Museum of Art will host a free reception from 6 pm - 8 pm on the fifth floor of the Shaw Center for the Arts to celebrate its two winter exhibitions: In a New Light: American Impressionism 1870-1940, Works from the Bank of America Collection and Rembrandt, Goys, and Durer: The Marvel of Old Masters.

Find more events happening from the Mississippi Delta to the Louisiana Coast in our Holiday Traditions issue.

Photo courtesy of LSUMOA.

12/04/2024

A hole in the ground, a wagon wheel, and spare speed track parts — all perfectly acceptable mediums for world-traveler Mark Stevens' primitive twist on barbecue cooking.

In our Holiday Traditions issue, read about how his hike through Argentina inspired Stevens to launch Open Fire Co., an open-flame culinary experience connecting people to nature at fundraisers, weddings, and most recently, the St. Francisville Food & Wine Festival's Bubbles & BBQ event.

Photo by Jess Kearney

12/02/2024

Have you heard? StoryCorps is in town!

Until December 13, the organization's Airstream-turned-traveling recording studio will be set outside the New Orleans Museum of Art's Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden, in partnership with WWOZ 90.7 FM New Orleans.

Members of the community are invited to sign up for recording sessions, guided by trained StoryCorps facilitators, in which they can tell and preserve personal stories of their lives in the New Orleans region.

Read more in our December issue!

StoryCorps sets up shop at the New Orleans Museum of Art

12/01/2024

From mistletoe hunts and citrus harvests, to the Trail of Lights and “Cajun Night Before Christmas”-themed swamp tours—Louisiana’s penchant for tradition emerges especially magical at this time of year.

And in Baton Rouge, the folks at the LSU Rural Life Museum have unveiled a brand new tradition for the Capital City: Louisiana Lights.

This captivating installation, captured by Sean Gasser Media for our December cover, transforms beautiful Burden Gardens into a glittering world of wonder.

Read more about our regional holiday traditions in the latest issue, now available online and on stands soon: https://countryroadsmagazine.com/topics/december-2024/

11/30/2024

Doesn’t matter whether you’re a lifelong Louisianian or a first-time visitor to the Pelican State: if you’ve never experienced Louisiana’s River Parishes’ Christmas Eve lighting of the bonfires tradition, this event belongs on your bucket list!

In the weeks between now and Christmas day, the Mississippi River levees play host to various festivities—from the The Norco Civic Association Christmas Parade this weekend, to "The Spirit of Christmas" programs at Destrehan, to the Festival of the Bonfires in Lutcher and the grand finale on Christmas Eve.

Read on, and start planning the most magical Louisiana Christmas yet!

by Louisiana’s River Parishes

This holiday season, let the good times BURN while exploring “Bonfire Country” – aka Louisiana’s River Parishes — home to South Louisiana’s world-famous Christmas Eve lighting of the bonfires tradition.

11/28/2024

Happiest of Thanksgivings to our readers near and far.

In honor of this day of gathering, we're resurfacing an old "Reflections" essay from publisher James Fox-Smith pondering the joys of the holiday, and especially its vital sense of "home—where every sight and smell evoked rose-colored childhood memories and each creaking stair felt like an old friend—seemed the very epitome of belonging."

On the pressures of gift-giving, and grown children's homecomings

11/27/2024

"When I was a boy rambling around, I didn’t worry much about snakes and other critters, but I did have a healthy respect for the PWRs. PWR was an initialism for 'Piney Woods Rooter' and is what we called the hogs that roamed free.

Pork was an essential food item for rural people, and families ran hogs in the woods for generations. PWRs were so important in Winn Parish that it was said you were better off fooling around with a man’s wife than his hogs."

The hogs of Winn Parish

11/26/2024

Speaking with National Book Award winner Lauren Groff—who was named one of TIME Magazine’s Top 100 Most Influential People of 2024—Managing Editor Jordan LaHaye Fontenot asked about the art of writing about the South, which Groff describes as “humid, moist, fertile” like a woman.

“I think any place that has a self-contradictory understanding of its own history and its own future, that place is going to be really, really rich for art,” she said.

Read the entire interview in our Film & Literature issue.

A Q&A with National Book Award Winner Lauren Groff

11/25/2024

Karisma Price's debut poetry collection, "I’m always so serious," holds within it words splayed every which way across eighty-three pages, sometimes scaring the punctuation flat off the page. In the critically acclaimed work, the New Orleans native mines a mother lode of loss, musing on Blackness while family and grief stand shoulder to shoulder with a fierce testimony to love and truth.

Karisma Price on poetry as prayer

11/24/2024

It was the talk of the town when a Hollywood movie crew came to the Mississippi Delta in 1955 to shoot a “black comedy” feature film—a project that would later be condemned by the National Legion of Decency for its “implied sexual themes.”

Still, Elia Kazan’s "Baby Doll" was a universal hit—and to this day fans make their way to Benoit, Mississippi to see the historic home in which the film was made, forever now known as "the Baby Doll house".

Hollywood History in the Delta

11/22/2024

For the final installation of the writer-photographer duo Kristy & Paul Christiansen's "Made in Louisiana" series—they visited the iconic Abita Brewing Company, Louisiana's largest and oldest craft brewery. Get the scoop in our November issue.

The Ins and Outs of Louisiana's First Craft Brewery

11/22/2024

Tip No. 1—Turn off the subtitles

"It really helps if you can’t see what you think you just heard."

Taking a new, more forgiving perspective on Adam Sandler and his Cajun accent

11/20/2024

Not for the faint of heart, nor the tiny space, the Sugar Cane Plume reaches tall and possesses great drama.

Full of drama, a lovely addition to a rain garden or pondside

11/19/2024

Fall is the culminating time for native grasses, which bloom alongside the asters and goldenrods, heralding the changing of the seasons. They come with varying and, sometimes, bold characteristics, yet maintain a special place within the home perennial garden or meadow.

Despite this, gardening columnist Jess Cole finds that the general public tends to shy away from grasses. "They don’t buy them, they don’t plant them; they don’t seem to understand them."

In this month's "Our Sustainable Garden" column, learn four reasons why planting native grasses can be beneficial for your garden and landscape.

4 Reasons to Plant Native Grasses in Your Garden