If one Louisiana parish commissioner has his way, comfort-lovers won’t be hanging out in their PJs at the mall. Caddo Parish Commissioner Michael Williams has proposed a ban on wearing pajamas — especially the pants — in public after he was appalled by the attire of his constitutents during a recent shopping trip, according to KTAL/NBC. Read full article > >

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Pajamas in public: Should they be banned?

The Broussards, a Cajun rancher’s heirs, claimed that Texaco contaminated their land. Then another Chevron subsidiary sued to condemn and take most of the disputed property.

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In Louisiana, Twist in Legal Fight Over Texaco Drilling Lease

For most veterans of the Korean War, “SOS” has nothing to do with saving a ship. I've heard the stories from my grandparents about eating “S*** On a Shingle” during their military service. I don't recall whether my Grandma Mouton, an Air Force veteran, ever made it for me as a kid. If she did, I've blocked it out with fond memories of snickerdoodles, fried egg sandwiches, and late-night french toast. I don't think my Grandpa Mouton can do the same. As a Korean War Army vet, SOS probably haunts him in his dreams. “Oh yeah, a lot of that. Chipped beef on toast with white gravy, made with the grind meat,” explains my grandpa – affectionately known as “Papa”. “There was not too many times they made it with roast beef – mostly the grind meat.” Makes your mouth water, doesn't it? He tells me he didn't mind. Sure, it probably tasted pretty good to an 18-year old infantryman on the front lines. But to a Major General? I'm guessing it didn't make the daily menu. And, ironically enough, that 18-year old infantryman was responsible for making sure it never did. From Baytown to Buson Bay My grandfather, Larry Mouton, graduated from high school in 1950 and spent the following summer looking for work in Baytown, Texas. With no job by the end of summer, he decided to join the military. He tried the Navy and Air Force, but neither was taking recruits. So he enlisted in the Army. He was sent off to basic training at Fort Ord in Monterey, California with the 7th Infantry Division. Shortly thereafter, he was on his way to the front lines in Korea as a machine gunner under the command of General Douglas MacArthur. “We started in Buson (also pronounced Puson) and went all the way to the top…clear up to the Manchurian border,” he tells me, “We fought all through the middle of Korea.” The weather was frigid and the troops lacked the proper winter clothing to stay warm. It was a long way from the steamy Houston summers in which he had been raised. And the food on the front lines? Not exactly what the Cajun kid was used to, either. My great-grandparents were from Lafayette, Louisiana and had moved to Texas for work in the oil business. “At the beginning it was rough because a lot of the equipment wasn’t there when we got started. We ate a lot of C-rations at the beginning. You would open a box and eat out of the box,” he says. “[The boxes] had crackers, beans and wieners, stews, some meat in the cans like potted meats. They had gum, candy and cigarettes for the smokers.” Eventually, the cooking equipment caught up with the infantry. The troops at the front now had breakfast oatmeal, stews, soups, and that tasty “SOS”. The North Korean Grenade That Changed Everything A year after landing in Buson, my grandfather and his division were still fighting the North Koreans and another cold winter. One chilly morning, while circling around a mountain, the Americans were ambushed by North Korean troops from higher ground. The division was bombarded by hand grenades. One exploded near my grandfather, shooting shrapnel into his back and foot. His days as a machine gunner on the front lines were over. While he was recovering from his injuries, the Army began looking for volunteers to drop their pistols and pick up paring knives. “They decided to open up a General's mess hall. It sounded like a good deal to work in the mess hall and serve the officers. I just volunteered to do something different, I guess,” he tells me. Soon after, my grandfather began waiting tables in the mess. He was “promoted” to can-opening in the kitchen, and eventually, started working with food. Could it be that it ran in the family? “I guess it was in me because my father cooked in WWI. He was a cook.” Bringing Cajun to Korea There wasn't much creativity to be had in a war-time kitchen. Although the mess hall menu was determined by the general's desires, the cooks didn't have much leeway in how they made the meals. My grandfather said the general, Major General Claude Birkett Ferenbaugh at that time, would request certain food, and then an order for ingredients would be made. A day or two later the rations would arrive from Japan and the cooks would start putting together the meals, as detailed in a cookbook issued to the kitchen staff by the Army. “They would tell you what page to look on to see what to cook and how to cook it. They kind of expected you to follow the cookbook. That’s the way most of it was run. You stayed close to the cookbook,” he recalls. And while he mostly stuck to the Army's recipes, a little bit of his Cajun heritage came trickling out. “We couldn’t make gumbo or anything like that because we didn’t have the stuff to make it. But when I started cooking in the States as a kid, I used a lot of the French roux, gravy. Roux is basically butter and flour. I could make it like they did in Louisiana,” he explains. “If you cooked steak, you could make a brown gravy or make a meatball with brown gravy. I made a fricassee. It was a change and they all really liked it.” His brown gravy became a hot item. It ended up on steaks, meatballs, meatloaf, hot rolls, mashed potatoes, rice, and roasts. It was popular amongst the commanding officers, the medical staff, and even the likes of Jack Benny and Debbie Reynolds, when they visited the troops as part of the USO. “We fed them all.” Nothing was left to waste in the kitchen. Whatever vegetables, meat, and canned goods initially went unused would eventually end up in a stew. There was never any waste. The Army wouldn't allow it. The kitchen ran smooth among the four cooks. Three would cook, while the fourth would rest or help wait tables. My grandfather says they also had help from locals. For a couple of apples or candy bars, a young Korean boy would take the kitchen laundry out to be washed by an old woman on the side of the river. “They brought the laundry back all folded and pressed. He really took care of us.” A Future Chef? After two years in Korea, my grandfather returned to the California coast to wait for his next assignment. He was headed to San Antonio for cooking/baking school. “One day, though, I was walking on the base and a colonel walked by,” he remembers. “We saluted [one another]. He turned around and said, 'I think I know you.' We started talking and I told him that, 'Yes, I served you in Korea. I used to work in the general’s mess.' He said yes. He asked me why I was here. I told him I was reporting to baking school, but I wanted to go to California.' Why did he want to stay in the Golden State? Well, during the war, he wrote letters on behalf of an illiterate Army buddy, to a woman the man fancied in the Air Force. Eventually, my grandfather asked that woman for a “lady friend” to correspond with himself. When my grandfather returned from Korea, the “lady friend” with whom he'd been connected had been transferred to California, and he wanted to be near her. “When they called roll the next Monday, I fell out and they gave the next assignments. Everybody had a place to go but me,” he recalls. “They told me to go back to the barracks and wait to find out where I was going. Evidently, [the colonel] changed my orders from baking school and sent me to the mess hall in San Luis Obispo, California.” I wish I could go back in time and thank that colonel. By changing those orders, my grandfather was able to stay close to that woman – the woman who became my grandmother. My grandfather spent another year in the San Luis Obispo mess hall until he finished his service with the Army. My grandparents moved back to Texas and he eventually joined the oil business, just as his father before him had done. Eventually, my grandmother learned most of the family recipes and assumed the cooking duties. Her pork chop and brown gravy dish cannot be topped. She is the absolute best cook in our family (even including my younger brother, an executive chef in California). But my grandfather sure knows his way around the kitchen, too. “I had a master sergeant who came to me and said, “Sergeant, they didn’t pin those stripes on you for nothing.” The brown gravy must have been that good.

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Grenades and gravy – cooking in the Korean War

NEW ORLEANS — Chaka Khan is more than angry. Instead of getting to rest before her show at the Louisiana Superdome, the R&B star has been booked for two speaking engagements. She’s holed up in her hotel suite, fuming. Outside, her assistants are waiting for her to open the door. Her makeup artist, Derrick Rutledge , is waiting, too. He just flew in to do her after working on Michelle Obama in the East Wing. After New Orleans, he’s scheduled to fly out to do Oprah Winfrey before returning home to Washington. Read full article > >

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Makeup artist Derrick Rutledge makes over Michelle Obama, Oprah — and himself

It figures a guy called “Chief” would be in charge, and coordinator John Chavis definitely sets the tone for Louisiana State’s defense. The nickname stuck because of Chavis’s Native American heritage — but it’s fitting for other reasons. The leader of one of the nation’s strongest defenses, Chavis is among the best in his line of work, and he has been for a long time as an assistant at two successful programs in the second-to-none Southeastern Conference. Chavis has played a part in some of college football’s biggest moments the past 20 years, and he’ll be at it again Saturday night as Alabama , No. 2 in the Bowl Championship Series standings , hosts top-ranked LSU . Read full article > >

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LSU coordinator John Chavis is chief reason for Tigers’ defensive resurgence

The Commerce Department revoked a $80.6 million grant to bring broadband Internet connections to Louisiana, saying that the state fell behind schedule and changed its original plan for the stimulus funds . The vast majority of funds will be returned to the U.S. Treasury, except for $594,000 that has been delivered to the state already, according to the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration. Read full article > >

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Commerce Department revokes $80M Internet stimulus grant

Unless you are a huge political junkie, you likely missed the news on Saturday night that Louisiana Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal won a second term . It was a marked changed from this time four years ago when Jindal’s victory — he was the first Indian American to win a governorship — drew national headlines and installed him as a major rising star within the GOP. Read full article > >

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Why Bobby Jindal (still) matters

People in Louisiana still come out to cheer for Edwin Edwards, the dryly humorous, unapologetically corrupt former governor, but they are electing a different sort of politician.

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Edwin Edwards Is Still Famous, but Louisiana Politics Has Moved On

For second term as Louisiana governor.

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Bobby Jindal Wins Reelection

Say what you will about the birthers, but don’t call them partisan. The people who brought you the Barack Obama birth-certificate hullabaloo now have a new target: Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, a man often speculated to be the next Republican vice presidential nominee. While they’re at it, they also have Bobby Jindal, the Republican governor of Louisiana and perhaps a future presidential candidate, in their sights. Read full article > >

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The birthers eat their own

Fishermen in Louisiana say the harvest could be the worst in memory. Neither they nor researchers are sure why.

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Gulf Shrimp Are Scarce This Season

When Josh Tarr started his freshman year at the University of Maryland a few weeks ago, his younger sister found herself without a chauffeur and back on the school bus. And, suddenly, there was no one around to tease her in the cafeteria. “It’s been weird,” Kayla Tarr, 15, said of life at home in Louisiana since her big brother left. “A lot of times my brother would annoy me, but now I kind of miss him annoying me.” Read full article > >

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In college transition, life changes for siblings left behind

According to the suit, business owners would have to pay guest workers at crawfish and shrimp processors wage increases that range from 51 percent to 83 percent of current hourly rates.

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Louisiana Business Owners Sue Over New Wage Rules for a Guest-Worker Program

Actor Michael Showers, who made several appearances in the HBO series “Treme,” was found dead Wednesday in Louisiana, a Port of New Orleans official told CNN Thursday.

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‘Treme’ actor found dead in river

This is the latest in a regular Fix series that focuses on the decennial redistricting process in key states. We call it “Mapping the Future.” The series aims to look forward to how the maps in these states could be drawn and what the best and worst outcomes for each party might be. Today we take on Arizona. (And make sure to check out the previous installments: Texas , Indiana , Georgia , Illinois , Massachusetts , Ohio , California , Nevada , Virginia , Pennsylvania , Florida , Utah , North Carolina , Wisconsin , Maryland , Michigan , Louisiana , New Jersey , Colorado , Minnesota , South Carolina , Oregon , Tennessee and New York .) Read full article > >

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California-size overhaul not likely with Arizona redistricting commission