Jamaican me hungry!

touching down in New Orleans with a restaurant feature ahead of Super Bowl LIX 🏈

Hello! It’s been a minute.

First things first, I would like to extend a warm welcome to the 29 new subscribers that have joined since my last post. Many of you found me through other awesome publications like

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Boswell’s Jamaican Grill

Since visiting New Orleans for the first time last April (and twice more since, including for Tales of the Cocktail), I have been enamored with the Big Easy. It is probably one of the most significant food & beverage cities in the US, and is certainly one of my personal favorites.

So I was delighted to learn that Pepsi Dig In was partnering with EatOkra, a platform connecting eaters with Black-owned restaurants, to highlight Black-owned eateries in NOLA ahead of the Super Bowl. They tapped me to profile Boswell’s Jamaican Grill, which is one of the oldest Jamaican restaurants in the city. Here’s a snippet from the article, edited by the brilliant

Brianne Garrett

:

The team at Boswell’s Jamaican Grill is ready for Super Bowl LIX to touch down in New Orleans. 📸: Kaala Lawla.

New Orleans is home to an incredibly diverse food scene, a melting pot of global culinary influences. Along Tulane Avenue, a multitude of Caribbean restaurants cast a light on the important role that West Indian cuisine has played in shaping the city’s gastronomy.

And among these, Boswell’s Jamaican Grill stands out as a pillar in the community.

Immigrating to America from Jamaica in 1988, Mr. Boswell Atkinson was a man on a mission. An engineer by trade, he owned a janitorial business before deciding to pursue his love for food by opening a restaurant. When Boswell’s first opened on NOLA’s Broad Street in 1998, it was one of the first Jamaican restaurants in the entire city. Atkinson made a name for himself serving Jamaican staples such as jerk chicken and patty with coco bread. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina forced him to relocate his restaurant to its current location on Tulane Avenue, where it has been successfully operating for the past 20 years.

Meanwhile in Kingston, Jamaica in 2005, a young woman by the name of Kaala Lawla took a high school course in food and nutrition and absolutely fell in love with the subject. She fostered her passion for cooking by taking culinary courses at the local community college. After completing her bachelor’s degree in hotel and resort management, and a master’s degree in hospitality business management at the University of Delaware on a full-ride scholarship, Lawla was ready to take on the culinary world.

One of Lawla’s dreams was to open a Jamaican restaurant that paid homage to her roots. She fondly recalls large parties surrounded by aunts and uncles: “In Jamaica, we say ‘kill a goat and run a boat’. It’s about the fun of family being together, how we get our own meals together. Jamaica is a country [where] you grow your own food, you eat from your backyard” To this day, a hearty serving of curry goat can instantly transport Lawla back to her father’s backyard in Kingston, to the aromas of cooking a large meal made from scratch on a wood fire and the joy of family commensality…

Read on to see how Kaala and Mr. Atkinson’s paths intersect in the full article here. Kaala’s story will inspire you while her thoughtful fusion of Jamaican and Cajun/Creole flavors will leave your mouth watering 🤤

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