The Best Gambling Towns in the Deep South
Regulations have relaxed and global operators have invested, creating some exciting opportunities for gambling across the lower Southern states.
A Beautiful View at Beauvoir
The home of Jefferson Davis continues its restoration and demonstrates the resilient character of a landmark in a hurricane town.
After Isaac
Here in Lafayette, we fared well for Isaac and were basically spared being on the west side of the storm. Unfortunately, our friends to the east and along the Gulf Coast weren't.
Comeback Coast
Biloxi's Ohr-O'Keefe Museum opens this weekend, signaling the Mississippi Gulf Coast is alive and well - and ready for holiday travelers. by Erin Z. Bass Five years after Hurricane Katrina, Mississippi’s Gulf Coast is still busy rebuilding and re-inventing itself, and there’s no better time than now to plan a trip to view its progress. With the much-anticipated opening of the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art this weekend, locals and travelers will have the opportunity to visit a Frank Gehry-designed space that celebrates the self-proclaimed “Mad Potter of Biloxi” on Beach Boulevard. Joining new hotels, plush casino spas, thriving downtowns, historic homes and restaurants that have stood the test of time, the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum is just another reason why the Mississippi Gulf Coast is making a comeback and here to stay. In 1994, a group of Mississippi citizens opened the George Ohr Arts and Cultural Center. Ohr was born in Biloxi in 1857 and studied to be a potter in New Orleans, exhibiting his work at the 1884 World’s Fair. Having created more than 10,000 pots in his lifetime, Ohr’s style was described as abstract and without perfection; his pots are thin with metallic glazes and twisted, pinched shapes. Much of his clay
Elusive Catch
Contemplating the rare qualities of the softshell crab in Biloxi. by Julian Brunt The briny waters of the Gulf of Mexico offer up an abundance of seafood that is unequaled in variety and quality. Thus, the recipes created for that abundance by those lucky enough to live on its shores - gumbo, courtbouillon and etouffée come to mind - are famed near and far. But there is one delicacy that you may never sample unless you visit the Gulf Coast during late summer/early fall and have the good luck to arrive at just the right time. The blue crab (callinectes sapidus), which is harvested by the multitudes in the shallow waters of the Gulf, must shed its hard shell periodically as it grows into a bigger fellow. When the shell is discarded, he becomes a softshell crab, but for only a few days. Called a buster when his shell first starts to come undone, this crab has three or four days as a softshell and then a few more as a paper-shell (much less desirable, but still edible). Then, if his luck holds and a big red fish has not made supper of him, it is back to life as usual for