Poet, novelist, essayist and contributor to NPR’s All Things Considered, Andrei Codrescu is both prolific and celebrated. A professor of English at Louisiana State University, he is also the editor of the literary journal Exquisite Corpse. Romanian by birth, Codrescu has lived in and around New Orleans for more than 20 years, and his latest book, New Orleans, Mon Amour, is a collection of essays detailing his decades-long love affair with the city. The volume is particularly meaningful in light of the city’s devastation, and a percentage of the book’s proceeds will be donated to hurricane relief. Codrescu recently answered questions from BookPage about his adopted hometown and its uneasy future.

BookPage: Did this book grow out of the recent events in New Orleans or was it one you had in the back of your mind? Did you feel compelled to write it? Andrei Codrescu: I’ve been writing about New Orleans for 20 years, but it never occurred to me that the city I knew, loved and criticized, would one day cease to exist. I had no idea that I might one day not take it for granted that the character, poignancy and peculiarities of New Orleans would be unavailable to my blithe pen. After Katrina, my writings suddenly had a shape, sadly, the shape of history.

BP: In the book, you describe just how many writers live and work in New Orleans. What has been happening in that community since the hurricane? AC: Well, some of them took refuge in my Baton Rouge house. James Nolan, Jose Torres-Tama, Claudia Copeland, Jed Horne escaped from New Orleans in various dramatic ways and came to Baton Rouge. There was camaraderie, and Jimmy Nolan, a true New Orleanian, cooked five-star meals. That’s a constant of the New Orleans character: protect civilization and keep your exquisite manners even as the ship goes down. Catastrophes happen suddenly, but manners and cuisine are acquired over time, they are about permanence. Many other New Orleans writers were scattered all over the U.S., to places where they imported our story-telling, joie-de-vivre, and, possibly, drove their hosts insane with some of the local bad habits (like the occasional cigarette and the story-lubricating rum). Right now, the hardiest souls are returning: there are regular poetry readings at the Gold Mine Saloon in the French Quarter, bookstores are re-opening, books about New Orleans are feverishly written and re-issued. Every writer I know is possessed by fury and inspiration. Sadly, this time is going to be known as a golden age for New Orleans letters. I want to collect every book and scrap of paper being published now; it will all be extremely valuable to our successors. Catastrophes are always great sources of inspiration for artists because they provide seriousness, gravitas, plus endless stories.

BP: You say charm can never be used exactly the way it’s found. With that in mind, do you worry about the future of New Orleans, especially its rebuilding? AC: I worry about corporate entities like casinos and entertainment conglomerates bottling fake charm and faux-history to create a bigger tourist trap than we can imagine now. A guy in California actually wants to recreate Storyville, an ancient prostitution district without prostitutes. Now, how exactly do you do that? The charm of New Orleans was that it was never virtual, it was always a hands-on experience.

BP: You were born about as far away from the American South as one can get, and yet you have articulated exactly the feel, nature and attitude of the region and of course, of New Orleans specifically. Do you have any thoughts on how this is? AC: When I first moved to Louisiana, people asked me where I was from. When I said, Transylvania, there was a sigh of relief. At least you’re not a Yankee. I was born in Sibiu, a small town in Transylvania, Romania, that was remote and provincial, but full of magic. I knew liars, storytellers and vagabonds where I grew up. I found them again in New Orleans. The politics of Louisiana was corrupt, just like home. Everyone knew what a cop or a judge cost. When the casinos came, the scale changed. The city started on the path that I fear Katrina hastened greatly. About a decade ago, all of Transylvania moved to New Orleans thanks to Anne Rice’s vampires and the city’s Goths, which proves that you don’t need to go home again; if you’re patient, your home will come to you, fangs and all.

There have been few sign-offs in television history more famous, or more frequently parodied, than the emphatic, "This is Julia Child: bon appetit!" And it was thoroughly characteristic straightforward, enthusiastic, convincing and delivered with the gusto that pervaded her life. It was that frank If I can do it, you can do it approach, says her great-nephew Alex Prud'homme, that so swiftly made Julia a friend, confidant and coach to millions of amateur cooks.

But what her viewers and readers also recognized was her very real passion for food, particularly French, of course, but also for any honest, fresh, imaginative and generous approach to cooking. In fact, Julia Child was a great romantic, and her new memoir, completed with Prud'homme's help after her death, is first and foremost a love story.

"This is a book about some of the things I have loved most in life," she writes in the introduction to My Life in France. "My husband, Paul Child; la belle France; and the many pleasures of cooking and eating." And it is impossible not to feel Julia's excitement at her progressive discoveries of French cuisine, culture, cookware, cooking and ultimately teaching throughout this lively reconstruction of the Childs' first posting to Paris, from 1948-1954, and later in their second home in Provence.

It's also clear how much she adored her husband, a self-taught gourmet and bon vivant, a painter and photographer despite having lost one eye as a boy and her greatest fan. Both the dedication, "To Paul Child," and the cover make this clear. The jacket photograph shows P & J, as they sometimes signed themselves, with red paper hearts pinned to their shirts. It was their habit to send out Valentine's Day cards instead of Christmas cards, Prud'homme says, and he includes photos of several in the book.

For Prud'homme, who had not known his great-uncle in his prime, getting to know Paul through his letters was part of the fun; "it was sort of like doing archaeological exploration of my own family. We were fairly close Paul and [my grandfather] Charlie were twins, and we were always together for Thanksgiving and so on but they seemed kind of exotic, always flying off to Paris or California or something." Fortunately, Paul Child was a great correspondent.

"He was such a vibrant person as a young man," says Prud'homme. "He sent letters to his brother every week, long, handwritten letters, funny, acerbic, very lively." Prud'homme, a successful freelance journalist, uses many of these old letters, as well as photographs and mementos ("she had them stuffed everywhere ") to set off his great-aunt's often irreverent reminiscences.

"She had always talked about writing a book like this, and every year I used to go and visit and offer to help. But she was very much of a life moves forward' person, and it would have made her lonely to pore over old letters. So I would just get her talking and take notes." The stories are frequently hilarious—post-World War II Paris was not always an easy place for a six-foot-two and rather gawky American naif—often with her sense of wonder and delight still tangible. It's especially vivid when discussing her determination to learn French techniques, and her unhappy sense that the great school Le Cordon Bleu was in decline, even as she subjected her husband and friends to endless batches of homemade mayonnaise.

That she and two of her friends, Simone Simca Beck Fischbacker and Louisette Bertholle, dared to call their fledgling school L'Ecole des Gourmettes was a sort of declaration of culinary independence. They were determined to teach not haute cuisine but honest cuisine bourgeoisie—an attitude that led to the publication of the landmark Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Prud'homme says, "She patterned her teaching technique on Chef Max Bugnard, her mentor at Cordon Bleu. He taught her not only how to cook like the French but how to shop like the French take your time, ask the vendors about their wares and they'll open up to you. He used to say, Goutez! Goutez! (Taste! Taste!)" There are fascinating cameos and sidelights throughout the book: the wild-haired grande dame of literature Colette at her favorite cafe; James Beard in a vast billowing Japanese kimono strolling across the fields to breakfast with the Childs; a series of eccentric maids, including one who flushed a beer can down the toilet, and so on. There's a cheery Calamity Julia tone to these adventures. It's somehow not at all surprising that just before she was to tape the first episode of "The French Chef," the studios at WGBH, the Boston public television station that produced the show, burned down.

"What you see in 'The French Chef' is what you got with Julia, maybe a little amp-ed up for television, but not much," says Prud'homme. " But what I didn't really get as a kid was what a great impact she had on so many people. And I also didn't realize how hard she worked at it. She had tremendous discipline, despite the funny stuff."

Julia Child died in her sleep on Aug. 13, 2004, two days short of her 92nd birthday. She was so indelible a part of American culture that the kitchen where much of " The French Chef" was filmed has been reconstructed in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.

Her last words in the book refer to her first meal on French soil, in 1948. "In all the years since that succulent meal, I have yet to lose the feelings of wonder and excitement that it inspired in me. I can still almost taste it. And thinking back on it now reminds me that the pleasures of the table, and of life, are infinite—toujours bon appetit!"

Eve Zibart is a restaurant critic for the Washington Post and the author of nine books, including The Ethnic Food Lover's Companion.