looka, <lʊ´-kə> dialect, v.
1. The imperative form of the verb “look,” in the spoken vernacular of New Orleans. It is usually employed when the speaker wishes to call one’s attention to something, or to what one is about to say.

2. –n. Chuck Taggart‘s weblog¹, with contributions by Wesly Moore, updated (almost) daily (except when it’s not), focusing on cocktails and spirits, food and other drink, music, New Orleans and Louisiana culture … and occasionally movies, books, sf, public radio, media and culture, travel, Macs, humor and amusements, reviews, news of the reality-based community, complaints, the author’s life and opinions, witty and/or smart-arsed comments and whatever else tickles the authors’ fancy.

These days the concentration is primarily cocktails, food and New Orleans, not necessarily in that order. But you never know. We generally tend to write only about things we like, rarely about things we don’t unless it’s very warranted, because it’s more fun to write about what we like. Gadflies, gossip sites and snarkblogs don’t interest us.

Chuck is pleased as a flowing bowl of Punch to be a member of the Cocktail and Spirits Online Writers Group (CSOWG).

Please feel free to contribute a link if you think I’ll find it interesting.   If you don’t want to read my opinions, feel free to go elsewhere.

If you like, you are welcome to send e-mail to the author(s) (if it’s for Wes, I’ll forward it to him). Your comments on each post are also welcome and encouraged; however, play nice. Think of yourself as a guest in our home, and we’re serving you drinks, although virtual ones in this case. You don’t get to barge into our house and pee on the rug. (“That rug really tied the room together, man …”) Trolls are wished into the cornfield.

This weblog was founded in July of 1999, is still going strong after more than 11 years (yeesh!). It’s a part of my larger website The Gumbo Pages, which was founded in 1994 … making me quite the dinosaur indeed.

Here are your authors, trying not to look too goofy. (Himself is on the right.)

Chuck

Wes

Follow us on Google Plus: Chuck, Wesly.

This weblog is dedicated with love to our dear friend Mary Herczog (1964-2010), for inspiring a lot of it (oh, how we both wallowed in food porn) and for being responsible for a lot of it being here for you to read — i.e., if five or six days went by and I had been too lazy or procrastinatory to post, I’d get a phone call. “Hey!” she’d holler. “Where’s my free content?!”

Oh, about that squiggly bit in the page header, underneath the “LOOKA!” logo? What’s that all about?

Looka! used to get a new title bar tag line every month, and I tried to make them witty, clever and/or culturally relevant. For March of 2004, since it was right after I returned from my first trip to Ireland since 1992, I chose a tagline line in Irish: “Bia agus deoch, ceol agus craic.” This, of course, prompted a near-immediate phone call from Mary, demanding “Okay, what’s that gibberish at the top of my free content?”

I explained to her that it was a saying in the Irish language I’d seen outside many traditional pubs, informing those who might wish to come inside that “food and drink, music and convivial good times” are to be had within. “Gee,” said Mary, “that sounds just like what your site’s all about.” She was right, of course … hey, that’s not a bad idea … and as of March 1, 2004, we’ve got a new, permanent tag line. (I’m still figuring out all this WordPressy stuff, and at the moment I’m unsure if I’ll be able to change the ones in the title bar every month, though.)

Our other tag line is the quote in the logo. One of our favorite restaurants is Café Adelaide in New Orleans, one of the Brennan family restaurants (along with Commander’s Palace and so many others) and is run by our friends Ti Adelaide Martin and Lally Brennan. Ti was named for her Aunt Adelaide and named the restaurant for her and her indomitable spirit for living well. Aunt Adelaide was a Fabulous Lady (you must pronounce the capitals), and one of her sayings about how she liked to live was “Eating, drinking and carrying on.” That’s what we like to do too, and although we never met Aunt Adelaide and couldn’t possibly keep up with her level of Fabulousness, her joie de vivre inspires us too — we quote her at the top of every post.

The Looka! WordPress theme was designed by Marleigh Riggins Miller, based upon a free WordPress template called Vesper by Derek Herman of Valen Designs LLC. Preliminary work on the Looka! redesign was graciously done by Jay Hepburn.

Standard disclaimer!: I occasionally write reviews of spirits on this weblog. Even more occasionally, I get complimentary samples of spirits sent to me by liquor companies. You may assume that any spirits review I write was sourced from a provided sample, although usually I’ll make a mention in the body of the review somewhere. There is absolutely no quid pro quo; I receive nothing from the spirits company other than a review sample, and they are by no means guaranteed a good review just because they sent me some booze. I evaluate each product to the best of my ability and only write about my honest reactions.

¹ – or, “blog,” if you must. Gawd, I still don’t like that word.