In New Orleans, the great meals of the past aren’t always confined to the past. Sometimes they’re the next thing you eat.

I would like to address a false rumor circulating in the news. Multiple sources are claiming that summer is almost over. For evidence, they present back-to-school stories and ads full of men’s sweaters and ladies’ boots. They even track the countdown to Labor Day weekend, as if that settles it.

When it comes to dining around New Orleans, it’s possible that the worst of times can also be the best of times. No, this is not a tale of two cities. It’s the story of one hot city, our own, going through its all-too-predictable slow summer season.

In the middle of summer, could anything be better than a good old scoop of ice cream? But what if it isn’t a scoop? What if it’s a cluster of wafer thin ice cream rolls made before your eyes and bundled under various sauces, candies and breakfast cereals.

In the world before Hurricane Katrina, Barrow’s Shady Inn was on the map for great New Orleans food, though it still took a little doing to get to its door, tucked away down Hollygrove side streets. But Barrow’s Shady Inn was the kind of place that people remembered. It was acclaimed for its fried catfish, in the way that other Creole soul restaurants are known for their chicken or their gumbo. Catfish, in fact, was all it served, washed down with lemonade, hazy yellow and sweet tart. Dating

Earlier this year, when the hot weather was just revving up, I ate a meal that qualified simultaneously as the healthiest and trendiest I’d had in a long time. It was a poke bowl, chopped raw fish over sushi rice and under a quasar of colorful toppings. It was prepared before my eyes, assembly line style, faster than a fast food burger. It set me back a lot more. But it was quick, tasty, protein-packed and satisfying. Still, something about it made me just a little uneasy.

For cocktail connoisseurs, New Orleans has always had a place on the map. Tales of the Cocktail gave this connection a spot on the calendar too, right when it’s needed most.

When we talk about diversity in New Orleans restaurants, it usually means minority representation, or to put it plainly, with black-owned restaurants.

New Orleans food legends never die. Now, the legend of Al Copeland is helping people live.

How do you make a historic, nine-story building disappear? In the case of the Pythian Building in downtown New Orleans, the trick was to encase the grand structure in bland paneling for half a century and keep it empty all the years after Hurricane Katrina.