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This Week's Edition
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The New Orleans Wine & Food Experience (NOWFE) returns June 10-14 for its 34th year as one of America's Best Wine Festivals. Wine tastings, masterclasses, food pairings, and the legendary champagne-soaked burlesque brunch make this the week Louisiana becomes a culinary destination. Pride Weekend also celebrates June 12-14, bringing community and culture across the city.
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Wine and Food Take Over New Orleans
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| This is the week wine and food collide in New Orleans. | | The [New Orleans Wine & Food Experience (NOWFE)](https://www.nowfe.com) runs June 10-14 for its 34th year as one of America's Best Wine Festivals. Over the week, participate in wine dinners, labs, tastings, burlesque brunch, and experiences unique to the festival. Go from sampling sweet indulgent dessert wines to champagne workshops to checking out the French Quarter's most impressive wine cellars. The Grand Tasting on Saturday, June 13 packs hundreds of global wines alongside bites from New Orleans' top chefs. USA Today named it one of America's Best Wine Festivals. | | Pride Weekend also celebrates June 12-14 with events and community celebration across the city. Meanwhile, Some Enchanted Evening concert returns Sunday, June 14 in Slidell. Donaldsonville celebrates Juneteenth June 13. Baton Rouge hosts food trucks and Juneteenth events. Lake Charles brings Downtown at Sundown concert series. Shreveport's Cross Lake Floatilla floats on June 20. | | Perfect spring weather turning summer. Festival season rolling on. And from New Orleans to Shreveport to Lake Charles, Louisiana is celebrating the food, wine, music, and traditions that make this state like nowhere else on earth. Here is what is happening across the state—June 9 through 15. |
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What's Happening in Your Area Code
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🎭 New Orleans / Kenner / Metairie - 504
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| New Orleans Wine & Food Experience (NOWFE) |
| Ernest N. Morial Convention Center & Venues Citywide, New Orleans · June 10-14, 2026 |
| In its 34th year, NOWFE is a smorgasbord of food and wine tastings, tours, master classes, and the annual champagne-soaked burlesque brunch. The flagship Grand Tasting on Saturday, June 13 packs hundreds of global wines alongside bites from New Orleans' top chefs. USA Today named it one of America's Best Wine Festivals. [Learn more](https://www.nowfe.com) |
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| New Orleans Pride Weekend |
| French Quarter & Citywide, New Orleans · June 12-14, 2026 |
| Celebrated as one of the most LGBTQ+ friendly cities in the U.S., New Orleans Pride Weekend runs June 12-14 with the Pride Parade falling on Saturday — a full weekend of events, live music, and community celebration. [Learn more](https://www.neworleans.com/plan/june-in-new-orleans/) |
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| Food Truck Round-Up at the Rowe |
| Town Square, Baton Rouge · Friday, June 5 (energy bleeds into this week) |
| This free, open-to-the-public event lines up 17 local food trucks plus live music in Town Square, from local favorites like Capitol Seafood and Elisa's Cuban Coffee to Ninja Snowballs and Marble Slab Creamery. [Learn more](https://www.visitbatonrouge.com/blog/things-to-do-in-baton-rouge-this-month/)
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🎶 Lafayette / Acadiana Area - 337
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| Donaldsonville Juneteenth Music Festival |
| Louisiana Square, 300 Railroad Ave., Donaldsonville · Saturday, June 13, 2026 |
| Donaldsonville's 31st Juneteenth Music Festival kicks off with a jazz-forward performance by George Bell and Friends, celebrating freedom, culture, and sound from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Over 30 vendors, free admission, and a community gathering that has shown up for three decades straight. [Learn more](https://www.louisianalife.com/june-festivals-in-louisiana/)
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🚤 Houma / Thibodaux / Bayou Country - 985
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| Some Enchanted Evening Concert |
| Slidell Municipal Auditorium, Slidell · Sunday, June 14, 2026 |
| The 24th annual Some Enchanted Evening concert returns to the Northshore, a beloved community tradition celebrating music and culture in historic Slidell. [Learn more](https://www.visitslidell.com)
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🌲 Shreveport / North Louisiana - 318
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| Cross Lake Floatilla |
| Cross Lake, Shreveport · Saturday, June 20, 2026 (coming up — start the hype now) |
| Cross Lake Floatilla 2026 is a single, unified charitable event held at Cross Lake in Shreveport — enjoy the lake while floating on the water with food, live music, games, and community fun, one of North Louisiana's most beloved summer traditions and a perfect excuse to get out on the water before the summer heat peaks. [Learn more](https://www.ktalnews.com/news/local-news/shreveport-louisiana-events/)
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| When Louisiana Rewrote Its Constitution |
| When Louisiana Rewrote Its Constitution and Created the Longest Legal Document in State History |
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| June 18, 1921, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. |
| Governor John M. Parker called yet another constitutional convention to pull the state from its constitutional quagmire. Louisiana had a problem: too many constitutions in too short a time. Since becoming a state in 1812, Louisiana had adopted nine different constitutions in just 109 years. Each one tried to fix problems the previous one created, but none lasted long. The state was in constitutional chaos.
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The 1921 convention met for three and one-half months with 146 delegates—mostly white male legislators, local politicians, judges, and lawyers, plus two white women. They represented a large number of factions within the Democratic Party, each with its own political agenda and vision for Louisiana's future. There was no clear direction from Governor Parker or anyone else, so debates were heated and chaotic as different groups pushed their own interests.
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| The result was unique. The Constitution of 1921 emerged as the longest of all Louisiana's ten constitutions—so long that critics called it "a legal monstrosity." It was complicated, detailed, and often confusing. But despite its flaws, something unexpected happened: it worked. While state leaders expected it to be replaced within a few years, the Constitution of 1921 lasted longer than any other Louisiana constitution—over 50 years. For five decades, attempts to repeal it came to nothing, and the state actually underwent more fundamental change under this constitution than had occurred in all the preceding years of statehood.
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| The 1921 Constitution was eventually replaced in 1974 by Louisiana's 11th constitution. But for half a century, this longest and most criticized document turned out to be Louisiana's most successful, proving that sometimes the messiest process creates the most lasting result. |
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| Can You Name This Louisiana Town? |
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| This Louisiana town was founded in 1834 on land known as the Hache Grant in Terrebonne Parish.
| | The parish itself was established in 1822, carved out of neighboring Lafourche Parish. The name "Terrebonne" comes from French words meaning "good earth," a fitting description for the fertile bayou lands of South Louisiana. In 1834, settlers wanted to move their parish seat further down the bayou to a more central location that would provide better access for commerce and development.
| | The new parish seat was founded at the convergence of six bayous—the perfect location for a growing port city. Richard H. Grinage and Hubert M. Belanger donated land along Bayou Terrebonne on March 18, 1834, to establish the government seat. The town was named after the Houma people, a Native American tribe that had settled in the area in the mid- to late 18th century after being pushed south by European settlement.
| | The native word "houma" means red, and the tribe's war emblem was the crawfish—a fitting symbol for a town that would become the heart of Louisiana's seafood and bayou culture. The Houma Indians were related to the Muskogean-speaking Choctaw and had migrated into the area from present-day Mississippi and Alabama. They established a camp on the high ground northwest of what later developed as downtown, but were eventually pushed to the coastal regions by European settlement.
| | Today, this town is called the "Venice of America" due to the numerous bayous and bays in the immediate area, and its strategic location on the Intracoastal Waterway and the Houma Navigation Channel. It is the parish seat of Terrebonne Parish, home to 33,000 residents, and a center of Cajun culture where more than 10% of residents speak French at home. The town remains deeply connected to the bayou traditions of fishing, hunting, and seafood that define Louisiana's coast.
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| The answer: Houma |
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| Louisiana Classics |
| Where Jean Brought French Tradition to Bourbon Street |
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| Galatoire's Restaurant — 121 Years of Unchanged Tradition on Bourbon Street
209 Bourbon Street, New Orleans | | Jean Galatoire was born in 1854 in Pardies, a small village in Southwestern France near the foothills of the Pyrenees Mountains. In 1880, he immigrated to America and worked his way through restaurants in Birmingham, Alabama and Chicago before finally settling in New Orleans in 1900 because of its large French population and reputation for fine food preparation.
| | Over the next few years, Jean worked at a local Canal Street bar and learned the trades from chefs in the area. He met Victor Bero, owner of Victor's Restaurant on 209 Bourbon Street, and through their mutual love of French style and recipes, developed experience in the business to the point of co-ownership. In 1905, Galatoire officially purchased the business and renamed it Galatoire's. He brought the recipes and traditions inspired by the familial dining style of his homeland in the Pyrenees, creating the menu and ambiance that would become world-renowned.
| | Jean cooked simple dishes without showmanship—classic French fare that morphed into the classics of Creole cuisine. The restaurant maintained strict traditions: no reservations, ever; jackets required for gentlemen after 5 p.m.; the menu never changed. For decades, luminaries and regular patrons stood in long lines on the Bourbon Street sidewalk waiting for tables. When then-President Ronald Reagan once called then-retired Senator J. Bennett Johnston while Johnston was waiting in line, the Senator graciously returned to his position—no exceptions to the no-reservation policy.
| | Today, Galatoire's remains family-owned and operated by fifth-generation descendants of Jean Galatoire. The restaurant has expanded with a second-floor dining room (opened in 1999) and [Galatoire's 33 Bar & Steak](https://www.galatoires.com) next door (opened 2013), but the ground floor maintains its original mid-19th century look with high ceilings, slow-moving paddle fans, and mirrored opposing walls. In 2004, the James Beard Foundation cited it as the "outstanding restaurant" in America.
| | Galatoire's remains a bastion of tradition where consistency has been the greatest asset for over a century. Regular patrons still have their own waiters and accounts. The menu remains largely unchanged. |
| Tradition defines every aspect of the experience, from the dress code to the service style to the classical French Creole cuisine that Jean brought from the Pyrenees over 120 years ago. |
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| Sponsored Feature |
BayouRoots |
Heritage Research |
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| Family History · Louisiana Heritage |
| What Does Your Surname Tell Us About Louisiana History? |
| A new heritage research tool traces every Louisiana surname back to its first recorded appearance in state history — and the story it carries. |
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| Fontenot. Thibodaux. Boudreaux. Hebert. LeBlanc. These names are Louisiana — woven into the parishes, the bayous, the cemeteries, the courthouse records stretching back centuries. |
| But what about your name? No matter where your family traces its origins — French Acadian, Spanish Colonial, Irish, African, German, or something else entirely — BayouRoots can tell you when and where your surname first touched Louisiana soil. |
| Every report is built from historical Louisiana records. Not guesses — documented arrivals, parish registers, and the layered immigration history of the most culturally complex state in the country. |
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This is the week wine and food collide in New Orleans while culture and community celebrations spread across Louisiana.
| The New Orleans Wine & Food Experience runs June 10-14 as one of America's Best Wine Festivals, with masterclasses, tastings, burlesque brunch, and bites from New Orleans' top chefs. Slidell hosts Some Enchanted Evening concert. Donaldsonville celebrates Juneteenth with jazz. Lake Charles brings Downtown at Sundown. Baton Rouge gathers for Juneteenth. Shreveport's Cross Lake Floatilla floats on June 20.
| From wine cellars in the French Quarter to jazz on Bayou Terrebonne to crawfish traditions in the bayous, Louisiana is celebrating the food, wine, music, and culture that make this state like nowhere else on earth. Perfect summer weather. Festival season rolling on. And the weekend celebrates the way Louisiana always does—with food, wine, community, and 121 years of tradition.
Until next time, |
| Michael C. |
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