The New Orleans Diaspora Gift Guide

Every New Orleanian who has ever left the city has a version of the same story. You're in a coffee shop in Denver, or a hardware store in Brooklyn, or an airport gate in Chicago, and you spot it across the room: a Fleur de Lis. A Saints cap on a stranger. A faded shirt with a phrase only locals would get. You catch eyes. They nod. You nod back. And without a word being said, you both know — yeah you right.

The New Orleans diaspora is bigger than people realize. Katrina sent hundreds of thousands of us scattering across the country. Cost of living, jobs, love, school, in-laws have done the rest of the work since. Wherever the road went, we took the city with us — in our cooking, our music, our slang, the way we talk about food at breakfast. We are a portable kind of people.

This is a gift guide for the ones out there. The sister who lives in Austin now. The college kid up in Athens. The old roommate who swears she's coming home one day but her kids are in school in Portland and it's been a minute. If you love someone from New Orleans who's out there in the wider world, here's how to send them a little piece of home. We've mixed in our own stuff with a few things from other folks too, because there are some New Orleans things you can only get from the people who've been making them for a hundred years, and we'd be doing you wrong not to point you toward them. Be A New Orleanian Wherever You Are is the brand's north star, and that's what every gift in this guide is built to honor.

1. For The One Who Wears Their City

There's a reason transplanted New Orleanians can spot each other in the wild: the shirts do most of the talking. A good Dirty Coast tee is a quiet flag. It says, I'm from there. I'm still from there. Ask me about it if you want. These are the ones to start with for someone in the diaspora.

• The classic for any expat: Be A New Orleanian Wherever You Are Tee — the shirt that started this whole conversation. Originally drawn for the post-Katrina diaspora, still the truest thing we've ever printed.
• Listen To Your City Tee — a love letter to WWOZ and to anyone whose first move in a new town is finding the local public radio station.
• If You Can Read This You Are Local Tee — perfect for the homesick local who wants to broadcast their credentials in a city that doesn't know any better.
• Periodic Table of New Orleans Tee — the entire city in chemistry-class form. Conversation starter at every airport bar in America.
• Neighborhood Tees — send the right one. Bywater, Mid-City, Marigny, Uptown, Irish Channel, even the West Bank. People miss their block more than they miss the city as a whole.

Tip: Most diaspora folks own one Dirty Coast shirt and wear it into a soft, holy rag. Buying them a second one is the move.

2. For The One Who Cooks Their Way Home

Ask any expatriated New Orleanian what they miss most and food will be in the top three. Ask them what they cook to feel like themselves again, and you'll get a real answer. The fastest way to fix homesickness is to fill the kitchen with the right smell. These are the things you can't reliably find at a grocery store outside the Gulf South, so send a care package and you'll be remembered for it.

The Pantry Care Package

• Crystal Hot Sauce — the only acceptable hot sauce on toast, gumbo, eggs, or anything else. Order direct from Crystal Hot Sauce.
• Camellia Red Beans — the only red beans that count for Monday. Available from Camellia Brand and from most decent grocery stores once you tell them.
• Tony Chachere's Original Creole Seasoning — the green can. There is no kitchen in Louisiana without it, and it should not be optional in a kitchen anywhere else either. From Tony Chachere's.
• Zatarain's Crab Boil and Jambalaya Mix — the cheat code for anyone trying to recreate Sunday afternoon a thousand miles from home. Available everywhere or directly from Zatarain's.
• Steen's Pure Cane Syrup — for biscuits, pecan pie, and the secret ingredient in any sauce that needs to taste like Louisiana. Direct from Steen's.
• Café du Monde Coffee with Chicory — the orange can. Send it. They will thank you every morning. From Café du Monde.
• Blue Plate Mayonnaise — the correct mayonnaise. There is no debate. From Blue Plate.

The Dirty Coast Add-On

Pair the pantry with our PoBoy Patent Tee or Pick Pinch Pull Suck Repeat Crawfish Tee so they've got something to wear while they cook. Wrap it all in newsprint, throw in a hand-written recipe card, call it a day.

3. For The One Decorating Their Away-From-Home Home

Diaspora apartments and houses tend to develop a quiet pattern: a little altar of New Orleans somewhere in the room. A streetcar print over the couch. A Mardi Gras flag in the window in February. A Make Wetlands Not War poster in the hallway. The right print on the wall is a daily, low-grade hug.

• New Orleans Art Prints — our growing collection of locally designed prints. Frame one and you've got the centerpiece of any room.
• Fleur de Lis Designs — the universal symbol. Tasteful, never tacky, always understood.
• Carnival Flag — hangs all year if you're really committed. We support that.
• Shotgun House Print — architecture from home, pinned somewhere in the new place. Quiet but it does a lot of work.

4. For The One Who Misses The Music

Music is the part of the city that travels worst. You can pack a po-boy in dry ice and ship it overnight, but you can't mail a Tuesday night at the Maple Leaf or a Thursday at d.b.a. The next best thing is to keep them plugged in to the music we keep making.

• A WWOZ Membership — honestly, the gift. Sign them up at wwoz.org and they get the city in their headphones every morning, plus the warm feeling of supporting the only station that matters.
• A Louisiana Music Factory gift card — a vinyl rabbit hole of zydeco, jazz, brass band, R&B and Mardi Gras Indians. From Louisiana Music Factory.
• WWOZ Tee — the universal handshake of people who know what good radio sounds like.
• Do Watcha Wanna Tee — a permission slip in shirt form, named after the Rebirth Brass Band anthem.
• Secondline Till Ya Drop Tee — for the cousin who used to know the route of every Sunday parade.

5. Lagniappe — The Little Things That Make All The Difference

Lagniappe is the New Orleans word for a little something extra, the bonus you weren't expecting but really wanted. Every diaspora care package needs a layer of small, dumb, wonderful things stuck in around the big stuff. These are our favorites.

• Dirty Coast Stickers — cheap, mailable, and they end up on every laptop and water bottle in their orbit. Free advertising for home.
• Mardi Gras Beads from the Trunk — if you're here, grab a handful from the box you've been meaning to clean out. They mean more than you think when they show up in a Brooklyn mailbox.
• Hubig's Pies — now that they're back, a sleeve of these in the freezer is a passport to 1995. Find them at Hubig's Pies and most NOLA grocery stores.
• Dirty Coast Coffee Mug — because the chicory coffee tastes better in a mug from home. Pair with the Café du Monde can above.
• A copy of I Know What It Means: 20 Years of Dirty Coast — our coffee table book. Twenty years of designs, stories, and the people behind them. The gift that quietly makes the recipient feel like they're still part of the conversation.

The Card You Should Write With It

You don't have to be flowery. The best note that ever came with a New Orleans care package was four words long, and it said exactly what every diaspora kid needs to hear:

"We're still your city."

That's really the whole gift. The shirt is the wrapper. The hot sauce is the wrapper. The book and the prints and the beads are all the wrapper. The thing inside is: you are not forgotten, you are still one of us, the door is open whenever you want to come back. That's what Dirty Coast was built to say in the first place, a brand that started in 2005, weeks before Katrina scattered everybody, and ended up being the shirt people wore in airports and grocery stores in twelve different states just to find each other.

Twenty years later, the diaspora is still out there, still wearing the shirts, still cooking the beans on Mondays, still lighting up when they hear a brass band over a stranger's speakers. Send them a little piece of home this year. They'll know exactly what you meant. Be A New Orleanian Wherever You Are.