By Mary Richardson
Mid-nineteenth century New Orleans was a thriving commercial gateway to foreign trades. The city's port activity, combined with indigenous ingredients of the old French Market, is very much exemplified in a Creole bouillabaisse. This celebrated dish combines such exotic foreign herbs as saffron and fennel, perfectly stewed and blended with the fresh products of local fishermen and farmers, complementing and enhancing each other.

The bouillabaisse, like New Orleans, is a simmering soup of foreign and local flavors. Unaccustomed palettes cannot differentiate the individual elements of the soup, just like the visitor cannot explain the mystique of the city's blend of cultures and ethnicities. They have been stewed into each other, simmering, blending and becoming homogeneous in our bowl-shaped city. The recently reopened Bar and Bistro at La Louisiane, located at 725 Iberville (the original address of the legendary La Louisiane), has re-established this connection in its Bouillabaisse Thackery.

James Waters Zacharie built the property at 725 Iberville St. in 1837 as his private family mansion, but Zacharie was an entertainer at heart. His parties set the stage for a 150-year saga of indulgent dining, lavish décor and illustrious crowds of society's movers and shakers. In 1881 it became The Hotel and Restaurant de la Louisiane and ever since, through various ownerships, it has remained a restaurant and lounge, always contained the phrase "La Louisiane" in its name, and has retained its notoriety as a place for fine food and an elite social scene.

A new chapter in its legacy began this past April when the doors to the old Zacharie Mansion were reopened as The Bar and Bistro at La Louisiane. However swanky and modern the crowd is today, history has undeniably resurfaced in one of its signature dishes, Bouillabaisse Thackery. Owners Brett and Jaye B. Smith, along with chefs Chip Flanagan and Agnes Bellet, use a traditional recipe similar to what Zacharie served at his dinner table. Its namesake, one of many celebrated guests of the mansion, is the famous English writer William Makepeace Thackeray. After having Zacharie's Creole bouillabaisse, Thackeray wrote:

This bouillabaisse a noble dish is, A sort of soup or broth or brew, Or hotch-potch of all sorts of fishes That Greenwich never could outdo. Green herbs, red peppers, mussels, saffron, Soles, garlic, trout and dace, All these you eat at Derre's tavern In that one dish of bouillabaisse.

The beauty of having this bouillabaisse at La Louisiane is the idea that that it still remains a celebrated, ceremonious dish which has been relatively unchanged since it inspired Thackery to write this passage. Like the soup and like New Orleans, the only thing that has changed at La Louisiane is who is holding the spoon.

Bouillabaisse Thackery
Serves 4

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By Mary Ann Kauchak
"The Virginia wine industry is gaining prestige, it is also becoming a more important component of our economy, accounting for nearly $100 million of overall economic activity," said Virginia Gov. Mark R. Warner in a September 2004 letter.

His quote sums up the burgeoning wine industry in Virginia.

Occasionally labeled the "new Napa", Virginia is the fastest growing wine region in the United States. Growing from merely six wineries in the mid-1970s to over 80 today, Virginia wines are beginning to win national titles and international recognition. North, south, east, or west, including the Shenandoah Valley region, the state of Virginia is peppered with wineries to explore.

Thomas Jefferson -- statesman, architect, inventor, and naturalist -- has often been hailed as America's first wine connoisseur. Mr. Jefferson spent hours learning the craft of winemaking while serving as Ambassador to France. In 1773, Jefferson engaged an Italian viticulturalist named Filippo Mazzei to plant European varietals at Monticello. These vines, that had been transported from France, fell victim to disease and drought. They were also easy prey for the phylloxera aphid to which native American varietals were immune. It wasn't until years later that a process of grafting European vines onto American roots overcame the problem. Although Thomas Jefferson dreamed of making Virginia into a wine-producing state, he never lived to see his vision come to fruition.

Virginia's first estate bottling of French hybrids occurred in the early 1970s at Farfelu Vineyards in Flint Hill. In 1976, the Zonin wine family of Gambellara, Italy took a renewed interest in Virginia wine production and sent Gabriele Rausse of Vicenza to develop a vineyard and winery at Mr. Zonin's Virginia estate at Barboursville. Located in the Charlottesville area, this region has become a hub of prominent Virginia wineries. Mr. Rausse is presently Monticello's winemaker and serves as director of gardens and grounds. He is responsible for replanting many of the vines that Jefferson had planted beginning in1774 in exactly the same locations.

Monticello wines have become one of America's most sought after cult wines and Gabriele Rausse is still revered as the contemporary "father" of the Virginia wine industry.

It is quite evident that certain Vitis Vinifera -- the grapes of the classic wine varieties of Europe such as Chardonnay, Viognier, Cabernet Franc -- can be successfully grown and processed in Virginia. One must also consider Virginia's native grape, Norton., named after Dr. D.N. Norton of Richmond, a physician and backyard plant hybridist. A map of his gardens with Norton plantings clearly marked has recently been revealed in the Richmond area. Among the two dozen or so grape species native to North America, the Norton grape is the only one that has proven itself capable of a good Cabernet-style wine embraced by oenophiles.