Your 22 Favorite Stories of 2022
Roadside restaurants, serial killers, hog's head cheese, Ferrari coupes, nudist campgrounds, Baton Rouge bluesmen, and Mississippi's Grand Canyon.
As we share our first issue of 2023 and bring the 39th volume of Country Roads to a close, we reflect back on a glorious year of cultural and artistic resurgence. After years of adapting and scaling down our celebrations, 2022 let us return full-force to our festivals, dance halls, and other gathering places that make our home, our home. The small editorial team at Country Roads found joy in watching the place we love return to its rowdy, vibrant self—and especially in gathering and sharing vignettes of what we found to be some of the most unique, most interesting, and most quintessentially southern stories along the way.
But enough about us—our readers make Country Roads what it is, so we're always tickled to look back at which stories from the year you read, enjoyed, and shared the most. According to Google Analytics, you continued to prove yourselves gourmands: dreaming of a drive to Marksville to visit Small Town Chef Winner Trent Bonnette at Broken Wheel Brewery, perhaps stopping along the way at our contributors' favorite roadside restaurants—or grabbing a drink at Lafayette's chicest cocktail bar, or on the opposite end of the spectrum, learning the dirty details of how hog's head cheese is made. You were also eager to follow us down a dark rabbit hole of local newspaper archives chasing historic serial killers: from the infamously jazz-obsessed Axeman of New Orleans, to the lesser-known cases of Evangeline Parish's only public hanging, and a Black teenaged girl who confessed to countless murders, but may not be guilty at all. You shared our excitement at the announcement of the country's first indigenous French immersion school, right here in Louisiana; the plans for Burden's sleek new welcome center; and the rising trajectories of young Baton Rouge blues musicians as well as local documentary filmmakers. You joined us on countless adventures, including into Louisiana's only nude campground, up Mississippi River levees to see towering bonfires, and into Mississippi state canyons to take in colors the English language just barely has words to describe.
2022 was a year that our region—more importantly, those who live here and make it what it is—returned to form, and put forth its very best. We're honored to have had the opportunity to capture even a small cross-section, and that you chose to join us for the ride.
—Alexandra Kennon, Arts & Entertainment Editor
If your favorite story didn't make this list, or you otherwise want to revisit our other stories from 2022 you can find our content all the way back to 2016 in our Issue Archive. If you'd like to continue to read these kinds of stories in 2023 (and beyond!), be sure to subscribe here. As always, thanks for reading!
22. Chef Trent Bonnette
The Marksville chef brings his brown bag ingenuity to the local brewery
"The packed parking lot at Broken Wheel is due, in large part, to its recently revamped menu, which can in turn be attributed to Bonnette’s (also somewhat-recent) presence. When Bonnette was forced to close the doors of his daytime lunch hotspot, Brown Bag Gourmet, in 2021 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, he decided to do what locals had been suggesting for years—merging with Broken Wheel Brewery."
21. Roadtrip Restaurants
Six Roadside Restaurants Worth Stopping For
"There are good restaurants. And there are restaurants so good they’re worth the drive. But how good does a restaurant have to be, to be worth stopping for?"
By Sam Irwin, Catherine Schoeffler Comeaux, Christie Matherne Hall, Chris Turner-Neal, Jyl Benson, Lucie Monk Carter, Jordan LaHaye Fontenot
20. Axeman of New Orleans
The history behind the Crescent City's unsolved axe murders of the early twentieth century
"Late into the night of March 18, 1919 and early the morning after, jazz floated into the damp, dark air from homes and bars across New Orleans and its suburbs. Normally such an outpouring of music is, and was, a product of celebration—but on this particular spring night, the sound signaled something much more sinister. New Orleanians were playing jazz music out of fear for their very lives."
19. The Golden Age of Boxing
Recalling the sport's epic history in Louisiana high schools
"Meanwhile, Plaquemine High School continued to fill its gym on Friday nights. Then, after a slow decline, in 1958, it all shut down. Once a rival to football for Louisiana’s favorite sport, boxing was ultimately deemed too dangerous, disappointing the fighters and fans alike. From that point forward, competitive high school and college boxing became a relic of another era, like horse-drawn buggies and telegrams."
18. The Documented South
6 Gulf South-produced and -focused documentaries in production or on the festival circuit this year
"From biographing the life and shocking death of a gay New Orleans gospel singer, to marking the history of a Baton Rouge high school that elevated its athletics programs with inclusivity, to chronicling the urgency of preserving Cajun music in today’s age—documentary filmmakers in Louisiana and Mississippi have been busy this year, and they have something to show for it at the slate of local film festivals coming up over the course of the next several months."
17. Use Your Head
Jarred Zeringue on all things hog's head cheese
"When we arrived at Wayne Jacob’s Smokehouse, tucked away in Old LaPlace, we were greeted by owner Jarred Zeringue and a disembodied, smoked hog’s head encircled by peppers, parsley, onions, garlic, and green onions. Although known for its andouille, Wayne Jacob’s offers a range of preservative-free smoked meats prepared in the old-world style—including hog’s head cheese."
16. Confessions of a Car Fanatic
A 1956 Ferrari 250 GT "Boano" Coupe Returns to its Origins, After it Makes a Home in Baton Rouge
"It was June—high summer—and hot the day the vintage sports cars participating in the 2021 Mille Miglia swept into the Italian city of Modena. Inside Dr. Eric Oberlander’s 1956 Ferrari 250GT “Boano” Coupe it was even hotter. After three days and more than seven hundred miles behind the wheel, the heat of the V-12 Colombo engine flooding through the firewall into the un-airconditioned cockpit seemed on the verge of setting the Baton Rouge neurosurgeon’s feet on fire."
15. Burden's New Welcome Center
Inspired by the Southern architectural tradition, the master plan for The Burden Museum & Gardens' new welcome center is a work of sustainability and innovation
"The current Burden Museum and Gardens site is the realization of the vision of Steele Burden, one of the original benefactors, featuring formal gardens at Windrush, the LSU Rural Life Museum, numerous agrarian buildings relocated to the site from historical properties around the region, an interactive learning and exhibit space, and the beautiful Orangerie, the last-built project of revered architect A. Hays Town.
Looking to the future—Suzanne Turner Associates and Carbo Landscape Architects’ master plan, finalized in December 2021, proposes a road map for the complex’s next chapter, starting with the welcome center."
14. École Pointe-au-Chien
The country's first indigenous French immersion school represents a victory for Louisiana tribes after a long history of cultural erasure
"The bayou community’s battle against the Terrebonne Parish School Board’s efforts to close Pointe-aux-Chênes Elementary School represents the latest chapter in Louisiana Indigenous tribes’ centuries-long struggle for cultural recognition and access to education.
But in this battle, finally, there was a victory. Due to the tribe’s relentless efforts and the swift mobilization of partner agencies, researchers and scholars, and state officials—next August, not only will there once again be an elementary school in Pointe-au-Chien, but the school will open as the country’s first-ever Indigenous French Immersion school."
13. Wild Bush Farm + Vineyard
Mindful guzzling at the Northshore's newest vineyard
"Now I’m standing with Gernon at their new venture, Wild Bush Farm + Vineyard in Bush, Louisiana, just outside of Covington on Old Military Road. In the years ahead, Gernon and Bourgeois are overhauling the thirteen-acre property—which operated as Pontchartrain Vineyards for thirty years—into the farm and venue of their dreams. They’re pairing all they’ve learned from the world of wine with a homeland terroir they’re eager to understand."
12. Recovering Lost Wisdoms
A beginner’s guide to homesteading in the twenty-first century
"Now a decade into homesteading, I can say that every tear shed over spilled milk and dead plants was just part of learning what should never have been forgotten. For anyone who’s willing to listen, I’ll go on for days about all that I’ve gleaned over the years and how I’ve gotten to the point of feeding my family most of their meals from our own backyard."
By Stevie Mizzi
11. The "Ghost Bird" Located at Last?
Almost eighty years since its last officially accepted sighting, the Ivory-billed Woodpecker is believed to survive in remote parts of Louisiana
"In the almost eighty years since, no verifiable sighting of an Ivory-bill has ever been confirmed, although enough potential sightings have been reported to keep the possibility of the Ivory-bill’s survival in remote, forested tracts across the southeast tantalizingly within reach. Despite these, in 2021 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed declaring the Ivory-billed Woodpecker extinct. But now, in a newly released paper, biologists working with Project Principalis, a long-running search for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker run by the National Aviary, appear to have gathered evidence to the contrary."
10. The Acadian Accordion
In a new memoir, accordion-maker Marc Savoy chronicles the instrument’s history in Cajun Country
"By the time Savoy started playing in the 1950s, most of the existing accordions in Cajun country were German-made, and they were old. After World War II, with most of the German factories in ruins or behind the Iron Curtain, the only new accordions making their way through the South Louisiana music scene were Hohners like Courville’s and Savoy’s."
9. Raising Cane
Growing and maintaining bamboo in South Louisiana
"River cane is a running bamboo which grows in thickets referred to as canebrakes. Modern day agricultural and cattle grazing practices have reduced the canebrakes in South Louisiana drastically, but recent efforts by Chitimacha leaders have resulted in the re-establishment of the river cane on the Chitimacha Reservation—ensuring a supply of material for basketweaving, which remains an integral part of the Chitimacha culture."
By Catherine Shoeffler Comeaux
8. Oh My Darling, Clementine
Nineteen murders, a death cult, and a wild confession
"The story is deeply confusing—the records are iffy, incomplete, overwrought, racist, and credulous to varying degrees. Names are absent for several victims. A woman named Opelousas is murdered in Rayne, and the Broussard family dies in Lake Charles—but one of the main suspects has an alibi in Broussard. Reputable published accounts conflate murders in Beaumont and San Antonio—a four-hour drive on modern roads. Clementine herself changed her story more than once, which is not surprising for a young Black girl who may have been mentally ill and found herself caught up in the white justice system."
7. Camping, au Naturale
Inside Louisiana’s only clothing-optional campground and resort
"It was ten in the morning, and I was riding backward on a golf cart past a group of naked men.
I hadn’t won a prize or lost a bet: I was on a tour of Indian Hills Nudist Park in Slidell, Louisiana’s only clothing-optional campground and resort."
6. The Life (and Death) of Euzebe Vidrine
The only public hanging ever held in Evangeline Parish
"Vidrine’s acts of violence lacked the passion, fury, or desperation characteristic of most killings in the area at that time. Today, we use the words 'sociopath' and 'serial killer' to describe such men.
In 1924, the only word they had for someone like Vidrine was pure, unadulterated evil."
5. Home Sweet Batture
Repurposed treasures style a batture-dweller's hand-crafted homestead on the Mississippi River
"For thirty-six years, Fry has resided on one of the twelve lots grandfathered in at the Southport Colony located on the river’s Carrollton Bend, and the local road, used exclusively by bicyclists and colony residents, is the levee top. The colony—which exists on the Mississippi River batture in Jefferson, right on the Orleans line near the end of Oak Street in uptown New Orleans—is a hidden landscape, a neighborhood between the inside of the levee and wherever the water happens to be."
4. Light the Levees
Christmas arrives in the River Parishes with a spectacle like no other
"Fathers and sons stand next to their creations—massive towers of driftwood stacked neatly into triangles pointing to the sky. Everyone waits eagerly for nightfall. The pyres line the ridge of the levee, casting shadows as dusk officially settles in."
3. Palmyre, a Parisian-Inspired Paradise
Inspired by one of Lafayette’s most iconic early-twentieth century socialites, River Ranch’s new cocktail lounge drips with open-armed opulence.
"Stepping into Palmyre on a warm, rain-misted evening is like stepping out of time. This evocation, like every detail inside the parlor-esque lounge, is intentional."
2. Baton Rouge Blues: The Next Generation
Meet seven up-and-coming blues musicians working in Baton Rouge
"While the legacy that Harpo, Neal, singer-pianist Henry Gray, and their contemporaries created might never be rivaled, today there is a rising cadre of dedicated and talented young musicians from the region who know their blues heritage. Now early in their careers, this new generation is building on the rich foundation of their forebears, and bringing something new to the table, as well."
1. The Grand Canyon of Mississippi
Descending into a Gamboge Dreamscape
"So, when I tell you Red Bluff has the prettiest dirt I’ve ever seen, believe me. I’ve borne witness to the rich, fertile black earth farmers covet, as well as the dusty-rust desaturated reds of the drive to my grandparents’ house in West Texas. But this canyon had another vocabulary entirely. Iron-rich reds layered and striped: the colors of Mars beamed back to us, hinting at our own metallic blood. Yellow upon yellow upon yellow: ochre and turmeric and butterscotch and gamboge."