Food history geeks will devour New Orleans Cuisine:  14 Signature Dishes & Their Histories, the latest work from Susan Tucker & the New Orleans Culinary History study group, affiliated with the Newcomb Women’s Center.  The Culinary History group meets regularly; members are working on oral histories of New Orleans cuisine and a bibliography of NOLA cookbooks.

If you like the idea of really old-fashioned cooking, the Hermann-Grima House holds cooking demonstrations on Thursdays in the French Quarter mansion’s period, 19th-century kitchen outbuilding.  Volunteers cook in an open fireplace, over a coal stove, in a reflecting oven,  on a rotisserie, while using a variety of antique implements and techniques.  The cooking demos are part of the $10 house tour.