The Heathen have been eating at New Orleans’ famed Galatoire’s since the Carter administration, and the Heathen Family ate there for a couple generations before we did; it’s dining out writ large, in an old style rarely done anywhere but there anymore. There are fancier, more haute places to dine in the Big Easy, but if we’re only there one night, we eat at Galatoire’s.

It therefore comes as something of a surprise to us that Galatoire’s has been the victim of a bit of a scandal involving the firing of a popular waiter; a second, more pleasant surprise comes in the form of this book on the history of the century-old restaurant.

It’s about time to go back to 209 Bourbon, we think. You can’t get a decent sazerac in Houston — at least, not since our housekeeper stopped bringing us illegal absinthe — and the presence of a satellite Brennan’s does not render one humid, bayou city interchangable with the king-hell example on the Mississippi.