I’m celebrating with coffee straight from the source, Cafe du Monde, which, I recall, kept its online store running even right after the hurricane. Order some chicory coffee now, along with the cafe’s legendary beignet mix. Yum!

Joining the recent cover flap, Louisiana’s Shreveport Times has reprinted artist William Joyce’s original story as well as his already reported indignant response (“Louisiana had received its share of coverage lately, I was told. They tried to find a place for it inside the magazine. Everyone said they were sympathetic. But nothing happened. So we’ve been shunted aside again”).

I, too, think a Mardi Gras cover would have been right for this week. Nevertheless, the magazine’s continuing coverage of Louisiana in general, and New Orleans in particular, has been in-depth and exemplary. Katrina’s environmental implications, the bars that stayed open, the pregnant girls who live in the heart of more than one kind of storm—it’ll be a long time before I forget these New Orleans stories in The New Yorker, because they were done so especially well, even for a magazine that does things well pretty often.