Your 23 Favorite Stories of 2023

As Country Roads magazine closes out the 40th anniversary year (can you believe it?) since founding Publisher Dorcas Brown had the idea to start a magazine to celebrate the many wonderful and strange facets of Southern culture, we editors are indulging in a bit of nostalgia (yes, still) looking back at our coverage from 2023. Especially after a year spent digging through the archives to gather our 40 Stories from 40 Years project, we're a little extra sensitive to the fact that the stories we publish each month are part of something larger. Besides marking unique moments in place and time, and hopefully amplifying such stories to those interested in hearing them, Country Roads's monthly issues become a sort of cultural historical record—documenting the people and art and efforts that make the South so vibrant and complex, that inspire us to call it home. 

So, after forty years of telling such stories, we again turned to you, our readers (via trusty old Google Analytics), to tell us your favorites (most-read) from 2023. This year, you dove into stories of local efforts to save endangered whooping cranes and giraffes; turned a new leaf to attract pollinators to your own yards via our home gardener's guide to rewilding; and looked to Louisiana herbalists for a bridge between nature and modernity. You nestled into the places where good food and culture meet, reading about St. John Restaurant's hydroponic greenhouse, Acadiana's long-standing obsession with Hitachi rice cookers, and following our contributors across Louisiana to their favorite bakeries. You laughed with us at the hilarious accuracy of the satirized American Girl Doll Acadian Collection (and maybe, like us, even wished that they were real). You pored over the musical life of Moroccan New Orleanean oud virtuoso Mahmoud Chouki, and looked to the future of Cajun music in the form of the young women picking up fiddles and accordions to carry the genre ahead.

You turned on locally-produced films and documentaries, which we hope were enriched by our stories about their making. You danced with the first Bollywood-inspired Mardi Gras krewe, joined a woman on a journey down Bayou Teche to find her Louisiana ancestors, and witnessed the restoration of one of A. Hays Town's grandest homes. You also joined us in serious reflection about the way plantation tourism is approached in Louisiana, engaging in difficult but important conversations about who historic landmarks serve. You packed into the car with us for roadtrips to Brookhaven, the Mississippi Delta, and the Texas Hill Country; you ate your way along the Mississippi Gulf Coast and explored spring festivals at our suggestion, too. And in the end, you brought it all home to St. Francisville, by celebrating and mourning beloved local business Grandmother's Buttons's closing its doors on Royal Street and excitedly reading about all of the new developments happening in the small town where Country Roads was born. And while we're known to indulge in nostalgia, we hope you agree that feels like a more than fitting way to close our 40th volume. 

—Alexandra Kennon, Arts & Entertainment Editor

If your favorite story didn't make this list, or you want to revisit other stories from 2023, 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 2024 (and beyond!), be sure to subscribe here. As always, thanks for reading! 

23. "I Believe in the Delta"

Rambling across blues country with one tour guide, one poet, two mules

"Clarksdale is just one of the several small towns to dot this alluvial plain. To the untrained eye, the farms, swamps, and Double Quick convenience stores hint at monotony. But this is a rich cultural landscape, an area deeply affected by human activities harmonious, destructive, symbiotic.

For visitors like myself, the Delta extends its welcome over and over again. For others, like my friend and co-author, Marshall Blevins, it becomes home. For both of us, the Delta provides a canvas against our linked but distinct explorations of the quintessentially southern Mule."

By Charlotte Jones and Marshall Blevins

[Listen to the "Well Read" episode of DETOURS Podcast featuring a reading of "I Believe in the Delta, here.]

22. 4 Louisiana Herbalists, Spanning Generations

Local herbalism traditions endure into the future

"Even as Martin embraces herbal alternatives, she warns against getting stuck in the mindset that medicine has to be 100% alternative or 100% conventional. 'We’re lucky in this country to have access to a spectrum of intervention,' she said. 'We have options. Healing doesn’t always have to be something a medical expert does for you. You can be an active participant in your own healing and herbs can help you do that. But when we need conventional intervention, we’re fortunate to have access to that as well.'"

By Mimi Greenwood Knight

21. Over the Hills

A travel guide to Texas Bluebonnet Country, without the Bluebonnets

"A full day exploring Fredericksburg under our belts (and still so much left on the table for next time), we headed southeast toward one of the more legendary destinations on our itinerary (in a landscape full of legends, jutting out of the desert like Enchanted Rock). In under twenty minutes, we arrived at Luckenbach: an autonomous zone where country music history and reverence thereof surpass all else on that beer-soaked acreage."

By Alexandra Kennon

20. 5 Spring Festivals Worth a Road Trip

From the Hill Country to the Gulf Coast, regional celebrations worth hopping in the car for

"Here in the land of elaborate regional celebrations, we know more than most how to use our hometown’s idiosyncrasies as an excuse for a party (see our event calendar for Frog Festivals, Alligator Festivals, Smoked Meat Festivals, Giant Omelette Festivals, the list goes on …). But the sentiment extends along the highways, to towns large and small across the American South. What better way to travel, to really immerse yourself in a place, than to visit when it is celebrating its most prized qualities?"

By Jordan LaHaye Fontenot

19. The St. John Restaurant Goes Hydroponic

The St. Martinville restaurant growing vegetables onsite, and without dirt

"The most efficient way to enjoy The St. John’s ethos is the beef tenderloin salad. The house-grown cucumbers and tomatoes are sliced and layered next to juicy cubes of steak with a crisp bed of lettuce beneath. Lettuce is an upcoming addition to the greenhouse. 'The goal is to eventually have everything in that dish come from here,' said The St. John’s new farm-to-table director, Luke Dugas. The twenty-five-year-old St. Martinville native graduated from LSU in environmental engineering before moving to Denver, where his work designing and installing indoor farming systems took him all over."

By Lucie Monk Carter

18. 6 New Louisiana Documentaries

Coming soon to the screen are stories of Black cowboys, the Pointe-au-Chien Indian tribe, a line dance, faith healers, and more.

"Documentary filmmakers in Louisiana have no shortage of cultural phenomena to draw inspiration from. This year, they’ve been intently gathering footage about faith healers, Creole cowboys, indigenous communities fighting to save their home, nostalgic line dances, and so much more. Documentary filmmaking is often a slow process—many of these films have been in production for years already—but local audiences will soon be rewarded with opportunities to watch them, either online or on the big screen at upcoming film festivals. Below are six films in production or premiering this year that we’re especially looking forward to, each exploring a unique cross section of Louisiana culture; collectively presenting a vibrant and complex picture of our state."

By Alexandra Kennon

17. There’s Something in the Water

A foodie’s guide to the Mississippi Gulf Coast

"The fact is, it's hard to go wrong when eating in "America's Riviera". This storied strip of coast is soaked in a legacy of indulgence, which is built largely upon the riches of its waters and its soils—a bounty that has inspired artists, entrepreneurs, and chefs for hundreds of years, and received interpretations by its Native, French, Spanish, and Southern American residents. As indicated by the last three years of Country Roads' Small Town Chefs' Awards—which have each featured a different Gulf Coast chef—and an onslaught of new concepts opening up from Bay St. Louis to Pascagoula, we've long had an inkling that there's something delicious in the water. I recommend leaving Waffle House as the ultimate last resort. If you do things right, you'll never land there."

By Jordan LaHaye Fontenot

16. Strange True Stories of My Louisiana Ancestors

Retracing the steps of Alix de Morainville

"Few Planchards knew that 'our countess' was also immortalized in George W. Cable’s Strange True Stories of Louisiana, published in 1888. Cable (1844 –1925), a distinguished writer who chronicled the lives of Creoles in his native New Orleans, is often required reading in Southern literature courses. I read some of his work in English class at LSU in the mid-‘70s, though not Strange True Stories. In 2003, I ran across a tattered copy in a French Quarter vintage bookstore during Jazz Fest weekend. Flipping pages, I came across a passage about a countess who fled the French Revolution and ended up in Louisiana.

Could this be her?

Breathless, I bought the book and shepherded it through the Quarter like it was uranium, vowing to discern if this was my relative and to track down what became of her."

By Nina Flournoy

[Listen to Flournoy discuss her journey through her family's history with New Orleans genealogist Jari Honora in this episode from our podcast, DETOURS.]

15. Return to Paradise

A new era at Folsom's Global Wildlife Center

"In addition to the data such herds can provide to the fields of animal science, they also offer a vital education about different species and the importance of their conservation to visitors and families who visit Global. Guests leave with ample information about giraffes and zebras and rare deer—and they also might get to experience the surge of serotonin that comes from being face-to-face with a giraffe, feeling the rare sense of connection as the remarkable animal snakes her long, purple tongue into a cup of food held in their hand. The animals provide entertainment, but also an awareness about endangered species that’s especially powerful for hands-on learners."

By Alexandra Kennon

14. Whooping Crane Love Stories

Conservationists play matchmaker to one of the world's rarest birds

"As Eva Szyszkoski and her colleagues track the birds via transmitters attached to their legs, they keep detailed records of pairings, whereabouts, journeys, disappearances, and about a million other measurements—much of which then gets shared with the public. Because whooping cranes develop intense, territorial bonds for each other, and they often mate for life—the narrative of reintroduction can often look like a whole lot of complicated love stories.

'I’ve always said it’s sort of like a soap opera,' said Szyszkoski."

By Chris Staudinger

[Learn more about LDWF's efforts to reintroduce a population of whooping cranes in Louisiana in this conversation with wildlife technician Eva Szyszkoski, featured on our DETOURS podcast.]

13. Satire: Meet The American Girl® Acadian Collection

C'est ici! Louisiana girls have finally got their own doll

"For almost forty years, we at American Girl® have created powerful stories with smart, curious, and courageous heroines that have helped shape an entire generation of women—but left out Acadians. Whoops! Sorry about that! (In our defense, we thought “Cajun” was a type of chicken until last year’s sales conference in New Orleans.)

This holiday season, celebrate the magic of Cajun culture by taking home three new friends from families responsible for giving our nation spicy salt blends, French last names ending in 'x', and some of the scariest mythical bayou creatures cryptologists have ever 'seen'."

By Megan Broussard

12. "A New Orleanian, Born in Morocco"

Mahmoud Chouki traveled the world with his music, but he found its home in Louisiana

"As he gears up for his second Jazz & Heritage Festival performance in May of 2023, prepares his upcoming album with the Jazz Museum’s label, and continues his regular jobs teaching music to New Orleans kids and playing New Orleans venues, Chouki recalls a conversation he had with a local cab driver when he first arrived, before he spoke much English at all. He told the driver he was Moroccan, moving to New Orleans, and the driver told him, 'Everyone in the world is born a New Orleanian, and the luckiest ones come here.'"

By Alexandra Kennon

11. Krewe da Bhan Gras

Introducing Bollywood dance to New Orleans Carnival

"And as for finishing her thesis, Rathour agrees that a Bollywood-inspired celebration wrapped into a Mardi Gras parade couldn’t be a more fitting conclusion. 'This is like, the best way to graduate,' she laughed. 'And I can’t imagine a better culture than New Orleans and a better place than New Orleans to do a Bollywood kind of a fusion dance … I think just, you know, the city is absolutely perfect for like a melting pot of cultures and people just coming and having a good time.'"

By Alexandra Kennon

10. Restoring the Pink Palace

The past and future converge in a careful renovation plan for one of A. Hays Town’s most iconic works.

"The magnitude of modifying a project as significant as Town’s might intimidate architects without Gossen’s keen eye for detail or drive for authenticity.  He faces the great challenge of restoring while simultaneously modernizing the iconic architectural work. Incorporating new functional technology in a way that conceals modern building systems without compromising the exquisite architecture is priority one. Ironically, the more building technology advances, the more tools are available to camouflage it, with ventilation and lighting becoming smaller and more effective, without sacrificing performance. This is Gossen’s specialty.  As a renowned specialist in preservation, Gossen aims to ensure the architecture is respected and preserved, acting as a revival of Town’s original vision for the building."

By Caroline Alberstadt

9. Sweet, Sweet Escape

From East to West, 5 French bakeries in Louisiana worth the drive

"Much is made of Louisiana’s French culinary influences, its locally owned restaurants, and the chefs who shape their communities. Inspired by the spirit of the road trip, we’ve shifted that enthusiasm to its sweetest center: Louisiana’s locally-owned French bakeries. From New Orleans to Lake Charles, here are five pastry hubs worth exiting I-10 for."

By Chris Turner-Neal, April Hamilton, Sam Irwin, Jordan LaHaye Fontenot, and Alexandra Kennon

8. Southern Gothic, but Cajun

Cory St. Ewart's cinematic retelling of Evangeline emphasizes the value of Louisiana stories told by Louisianans

"Such a commitment to authenticity was central to St. Ewart’s vision for his film from the very beginning. An artist and filmmaker who got his start in Lafayette, he is currently completing an MFA at Columbia University; his darker, surrealist version of Evangeline was conceived to fulfill his summer short film assignment. 'We had so much freedom to do anything we wanted,' he said, 'as long as it was within five to twelve minutes, and under a certain budget cap. So, of course, I challenged myself in the most sense—doing a period piece in a language I don’t fully understand, shot in the middle of the Louisiana summer.'"

By Jordan LaHaye Fontenot 

7. A Farewell to Grandmother's Buttons

After almost forty years, one of Louisiana's most beloved brands says goodbye

"A difficult decision made with their family’s needs in mind, the Davises’ closing of Grandmother’s Buttons has fostered an overflowing of gratitude for a local business that has so enriched its community, and enchanted wearers all over the world. Reflecting on her thirty-seven years as a jewelry-maker, Susan acknowledged Buttons’ role in shaping her friendships, fostering incredible family memories, and feeding her own creative spirit."

By Jordan LaHaye Fontenot

[Listen to Susan Davis tell stories from her time as the "Button Queen" at Grandmother's Buttons in the final days leading up to the store's closing, in this conversation featured on our podcast DETOURS.]

6. A Reckoning at the Big House

Regional historians, tour guides, and descendants of the enslaved weigh in on the future of plantation tourism in Louisiana

"The question of how to ethically make use of these sites going forward is not novel, but in these recent cultural shifts, it arises anew. Is a more honest, inclusive future for plantation tourism attainable?

Local historians seem to hope so, acknowledging that the already-in-place structure of the sites-as-tourist attractions might be put to use towards the presentation of more honest, complete histories, and as educational tools for filling in the gaps left gaping for so long."

By Jordan LaHaye Fontenot and Alexandra Kennon

5. A Home Gardener's Guide to Rewilding

The first steps to transforming your backyard garden into a native Louisiana oasis

"In recent years, local initiatives like the LNPS, NPI, and the Acadiana Native Plant Project (ANPP) have evolved from nonprofits heralded by groups of native plant enthusiasts to agents of a larger movement, with an increasingly urgent call to action: 'Go native, now.'

But, where to begin? For the average home-owner, transitioning to a native garden—or a mostly-native garden—can feel overwhelming. In this guide, Baumgarten and Dona Weifenbach, a landscape architect and active member of the Acadiana Native Plant Project, help to simplify the process."

By Jordan LaHaye Fontenot

4. Make Yourself at Home

Exploring the most Victorian town in Mississippi

"Stepping onto the twilight-lit streets of the city’s downtown district—which has blossomed with various revitalization projects over the last decade—Julien and I kept our gaze upward, studying the fascinating collection of historic warehouses and office buildings, a continuous string of lights connecting one to the next. At the center of everything was the iconic electric Brookhaven sign, announcing the town’s slogan, 'A HOME SEEKERS PARADISE'."

By Jordan LaHaye Fontenot

3. Hitachi

How the rice cooker became a staple of Acadiana food culture

"There is more than one origin story attempting to explain the Hitachi rice cooker’s arrival in Acadiana, all difficult to verify with certainty. But newspaper archives show that a Lafayette Asian market called Tomiko’s was placing advertisements for the product in the Daily Advertiser in 1970, selling it as a machine (priced at $26.50) that 'Cooks perfect rice every time—automatically—and STAYS HOT AS LONG AS YOU WANT!' At the same time, regular advertisements in the Alexandria Town Talk were promoting them in the classifieds at a price of $19.95, and with a choice of colors. 

It was around this time that two Evangeline Parish businessmen, totally independently, encountered the product that, in their hands, would come to revolutionize Cajun and Creole cooking."

By Jordan LaHaye Fontenot

[Listen to the "Well Read" episode of DETOURS Podcast featuring a reading of "Hitachi," here. 

2. Small Town, Big Dreams

From the same bohemian, entrepreneurial spirit that has captivated visitors to St. Francisville for generations rises a tide of new projects set to firmly establish the West Feliciana town as a luxurious, one-of-a-kind travel destination

"Perhaps this is another legacy of its port town origins, but for most of its existence, St. Francisville has attracted visitors. Tourism has long been important to the local economy, with travelers drawn by the prospect of visiting plantation houses, visiting the little cluster of shops in its fastidiously preserved Historic District (for which we have Libby Dart and the founding matriarchs of the West Feliciana Historical Society to thank), and perhaps spending the night at a bed and breakfast. But beyond that brief list of attractions, for a long time St. Francisville didn’t actually offer much to do. Sometimes over the years, upon hearing a visitor profess love for St. Francisville, I’ve asked what it is that keeps them coming back. After name-checking lunch at The Magnolia, a historic home or two, and a few shops along Ferdinand Street, it often seems that something about the friendly, small-town atmosphere and a certain sense of place created by the combination of historic architecture and a slightly bohemian spirit, are the community’s most enduring attractions. But all that is changing. St. Francisville’s openness to new people with new ideas is bearing fruit. This fall, no fewer than five ambitious projects have the potential to capitalize on the town’s enduring appeal to visitors, while also dramatically enriching what it offers to those of us fortunate to call it home."

By James Fox-Smith

1. A Part of Something That's a Part of Us

The new generation of Cajun music is woman

"Passing down the gift is a common aspiration between all five of these women, who have each engaged in teaching on some level. Powell hopes to someday spend her time performing and teaching music workshops across the country. Julie, with her degree from ULL’s Traditional Music Program, is actively working on getting her teaching certification—'I want to teach other young people to feel the way that I do about their culture.' And Reed and Miller are both currently teaching music classes at the Music Academy of Acadiana, where one of Miller’s students recently told her the lessons were showing her how to be 'a part of something that was a part of her.'"

By Jordan LaHaye Fontenot