It's Acadiana: Out to Lunch

You might have heard of a recent study about chocolate milk. Although it sounds absolutely preposterous, this perfectly legitimate study found that 7 of the American public believes that chocolate milk comes from brown cows. 7 of the population is around 20 million people. Although it sounds laughable, the explanation offered for what seems like extraordinary ignorance is that so many of us live so far away from the source of our food, we no longer know what it looks like in its raw form. Take, for another example, salt. You go to the store, you buy salt, you use it with just about everything you eat especially in cooking but do you ever think about where it comes from Jeremy Conner does. Jeremy lives in Lafayette but he grew up in Pensacola Florida. Jeremy still goes back to Pensacola regularly. When he does, he fills up a specialized container with 275 gallons of sea water. Jeremy trucks that water back to Lafayette. Through a process of evaporation and dehydration, he turns Pensacola sea water into salt. He packages it and sells it under the name Cellar Salt. Phil Gremilion is a Lafayette native with an equally fascinating food product. Phil s company, Papa Jaebert s, is a spice company unlike any other in the world. Phil is the planet s only commercial farmer of a native Louisiana pepper called the Peter Pepper. It s an extraordinarily hot pepper. By some estimates it s ten times hotter than a jalapeno, and literally too hot to handle. When Phil harvests and processes the peppers he has to wear gloves and a gas mask. But even this sci fi image of harvesting peppers in a hazmat suit isn t what sets Phil s Peter Peppers apart from other peppers in the world. The most significant trait of these peppers are their shape. They re called a Peter Pepper because they look like a penis. If all that doesn t make Phil Gremillion interesting enough, he s also the inventor of the Cajun Cooker a contraption that replaces the Cajun Drunk Chicken beer can technique and a similar cooking tool for turkeys. There s very little that s more fundamental than salt and pepper, or, in this case, salt and Peter Pepper. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.

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We all reach conclusions because of sound. We say a person "sounds nice." A song "sounds romantic." Or an idea "sounds good." When we reach these conclusions, what we re doing is attributing feelings and emotions to sounds. Giving sounds feeling and emotion is the province of Peter s guests on this edition of Out to Lunch. Jason Harrington designs and builds hand crafted amplifiers for music and voice. Jason s company, Lullaby Sound Design, marries modern acoustic science and old fashioned vacuum tube technology to create unique, high end sound equipment that s custom built for musicians. Jason s business is right here in Lafayette. Larry G. Miller who everybody calls Larry G also creates wooden boxes that make sounds. Cajun accordions. Larry G s been making accordions under the name Bon Tee for 37 years. He s built and sold over 1,200 accordions. Larry G is also one of very few people who can make traditional triangles for Cajun music, out of the tines of pitchforks, and among his many other accomplishments, Larry G is one of the founders of the C.F.M.A. the Cajun French Music Association. In an Out to Lunch first, Larry G fires up an accordion he just finished making 60 minutes ago, Jason pulls out a guitar, and it s fais do do at lunchtime Photos at Social by Gwen Aucoin.

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Summer lasts a long time in this part of the world. We take advantage of it by doing stuff outside like crawfish boils and bike rides. Meg Arcenaux is an expert on both of these Summertime activities. Meg is the owner of the bike shop Hub City Cycles as well as a pop up crawfish boil business called Hawk s Boil Up. When you look back on your childhood, hot Summers seemed to stretch on forever. One of the quick and cheap ways we cooled down as kids was eating a popsicle. Nick Villaume grew up in the 1980 s and has combined the joy of popsicles with the music of the era by starting up a popsicle company called Pops and Rockets. Nick s popsicles have 80 s rock flavors like Sweet Child O Lime; Rice, Rice Baby; and Cran Halen. Peter Ricchiuti savors the flavors of crawfish, popsicles, and yes, possibly, by the end of this convesation, a crawfish popsicle on this edition of Out to Lunch. Photos at Social Southern Table and Bar by Gwen Aucoin.

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There s a pretty good chance that you listen to podcasts in your car. There s a one hundred percent chance that at some point you re going to have to stop for gas. When you do, there s a ninety percent chance you won t go into the gas station. Nine out of ten people get gas, pay at the pump, and drive off. Which is something of a tragedy. Because they don t know what they re missing. Inside the most unassuming looking gas stations across America are some fascinating people and believe it or not some gourmet food. I m sure you find that hard to believe but we have it on the authority of none other than Al Hebert, who lives near the Vermilion River just outside of Abbeville. Al is a nationwide expert on gas station food. He s known as The Gas Station Gourmet. Al has one of the most eccentric business backgrounds, not just in Acadiana but anywhere. He started out in the sheriff s office. Became a detective. Then a hostage negotiator. Then, looking to do something a little more low key, he somehow ended up as a TV personality, hosting a cooking segment on the news. One day on assignment he did a story about a gas station in Crowley and was so amazed by the awesome food they were making there that he decided to turn gas station food into a lifetime s work. And so the persona and the business of Gas Station Gourmet was born. This is a fascinating tale of one man s passion, as inspiring as it is eccentric. Photos at Social by Gwen Aucoin.

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To the rest of the United States, the symbol of Louisiana is the alligator. Gators slither across T shirts, baseball caps, and posters in every souvenir shop in the state. You can find the cute critters doing everything from smoking a cigarette leaning up against a gas lamp in New Orleans French Quarter, to playing the accordion in a pirogue in the shade of a cypress tree on a sleepy bayou. Here in Acadiana, the alligator is far from a cuddly toy with a cute toothy grin. It s a crop. An industry. And in some communities a danger to life and limb. If you find a gator on your front lawn depending on where you live, the law might let you take care of it yourself. If it doesn t and if you have a lick of sense you can call on a professional to get rid of your gator. Like Ronnie Guy. Ronnie has been a nuisance alligator hunter for the State of Louisiana for twelve years. He s a member of the Louisiana Alligator Advisory Council and serves on the board of directors for the Louisiana Trapping and Alligator Hunting Association. If you prefer your alligator in a different form perhaps in the shape of a belt, purse or wallet you can purchase all of these products and more from Lafayette s Mark Staton Company. The company started out in 1992 as simply Mark Staton. Today a dozen employees design, manufacture and retail alligator skin products to individual customers and retail stores across the country. The owner of Mark Staton Company is still, Mark Staton. What to do if a gator shows up at your elementary school, how to get one to end up on your feet as high end boots, or on your table in sauce piquant, this episode of Out to Lunch will substantially increase your gator IQ. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.

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Apparently, back in the dim distant past, people used to get sick, go to a doctor, get cured, and go home. We d pay the doctor for his or her services, and everybody would walk away happy. That was a long time ago. Now you go to a doctor, you get a battery of tests, you get referred to another doctor who specializes in what may or may not be wrong with you, your insurance company refuses to cover the tests the doctor wants, your prescription plan doesn t cover the medications you need, your doctor s large office staff spends weeks sorting out what your insurance company owes the doctor and what you owe, and you end up with a gigantic bill and a worse headache than whatever it was that drove you to the doctor in the first place. And everybody you know has a worse story than you about their own medical misadventures. In the face of this, there are truly good people in the medical field who are working to deliver better outcomes for both doctors and patients. And to change the nature of healthcare system itself. Blaine Lindsey is the Executive Director and Southeast Division Head of a company called Aledade Louisiana. Aledade is a new type of care company, called an ACO an Accountable Care Organization. Aledade s function is to move healthcare from a user pays model where you pay the doctor for treating you each time you are sick to an outcome based model where the doctor gets paid for keeping you healthy and not having to visit the clinic. Most of us have very little idea about how the business side of medical institutions work. Many doctors themselves don t understand how the complex mechanics of the healthcare delivery system work. Dr. Andy Blalock is not one of them. Andy is a nephrologist a kidney specialist and also the Chief Medical Officer at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital. Our Lady of Lourdes has been in Lafayette since 1949 and maintains a dual purpose to provide the best in cutting edge medical care, and to provide for those who may least be able to afford it. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.

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One of the things we re proudest of in Acadiana is our culture. A big part of it is music and dance. Cajun and Zydeco. There are similarities and notable differences between Cajun music and dance, and Zydeco music and dance. Leaving aside for the moment the intertwined Acadian and African influences, one major musical difference, obvious even to people from outside, is an instrument you hear in Zydeco only. And that s the frottoir, or rubboard. The rubboard didn t start out as a musical instrument. It started out as, well, a rubboard. You used it to wash clothes. And then if you put thimbles on your fingers you could make a scratching sound by strumming it. It was Clifton Chenier and his brother Cleveland who came up with the idea of making a metal or stainless steel rubboard. The guy they turned to to make it was their friend and fellow worker at the Texaco Refinery in Port Arthur, Texas. He was a master welder, metal fabricator, and fellow Louisiana native by the name of Willie Landry. Willie s son, Tee Don Landry, has spent a lifetime making rubboards under the name Key of Z. He s made around 3,000 of them. They re in the hands of regular folks and famous musicians like Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top and Rihanna. There s even a Tee Don Landry rubboard in the Smithsonian. The intertwined Acadian and African cultures that have given us Cajun and Zydeco music and dance have led to the relationship between the styles of music and the people who play them and dance to them being referred to as "first cousins." "First Cousins" is the name of a film about this very subject. The film was written, produced and directed by two sisters, Moriah and Elista Istre. Both Istre sisters have a Ph.D and are professional cultural historians. Moriah is a folklorist and festival programmer as well as being the Director of the movie First Cousins. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.

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In Acadiana there are a number of Holy Trinities. There s the original, Christian, one. There s the roux onions, peppers and celery. And there s the Acadian Agricultural trinity Sugarcane, crawfish, and rice. In the rice capital of the world, Crowley Louisiana, The Falcon Rice Mill has been a family business since 1950. It s the only family run rice mill in the country. And it s the home of Country Cajun Rice. Today the third generation of the Trahan family Christine Fulton and Robbie Trahan own and run the Falcon Rice Mill. Robbie Trahan makes the trek from Crowley to Cafe Vermilionville for this edition of Out to Lunch. Rice and crawfish might not seem to have a lot in common other than when they re served on a plate but agriculturally, they re cousins. They grow in the same field. In Branch Louisiana, the Fruge family raise more than one million pounds of crawfish, and grow nine million pounds of rice a year. Mike Fruge is the owner of Fruge Aquafarms, incorporating Fruge Seafood and CajunCrawfish.com. To complete our trinity, meet Eddie Lewis III. Eddie is arguably the most uniquely over qualified sugarcane farmer in Acadiana, if not the world. In 2007 Eddie was Chase Bank s number one personal banker, nationwide. Eddie sold more bank products than anyone in the country working out of a branch office in the Albertson s grocery on Ambassador Caffrey. He went on to become a successful stockbroker at Morgan Stanley until 2011 when his father died unexpectedly and Eddie came home to Youngsville to join his brothers on the farm. This slightly less than holy trinity of agricultural entrepreneurs has a lot in common. Not the last of which is they all work with their families. This is a fun, lively, and informative conversation about life on and off the farm. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.

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We generally talk about heroes in a time of crisis. When we re in some kind of life threatening danger, a hero is an ordinary person who does something extraordinary. In the normal course of events, in a small town, a hero can be almost the opposite. A hero can be an extraordinary person who does something ordinary. Like growing vegetables. Or making soap. In the hands of hometown heroes, these otherwise ordinary events can have a remarkable effect on the economy and life of the town itself. Louis Lancon served in the US Army for 20 years. He fought in Somalia in 1993, in Baghdad in 2003, and was company commander in the pitched battles to retake Ramadi in 2005. Today, Louis is President and CEO of the Sugar City Growers Co op a forward looking hydroponic fruit and vegetable production in Jeanerette, Louisiana. While he was away fighting for his country, Patty Lancon stayed home and raised kids. When Louis returned and retired form the military and relocated to Jeanerette, Patty decided to go into business. She opened Bayou Bath Company, at first making soap in the family kitchen and today selling a wide range of local products and incorporating an in store florist. The entrepreneurial Lancons have contributed a soldier s lifetime of service to the United States and continue to contribute the next phase of their life to the life of Jeanerette. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.

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We often hear people lamenting mostly politicians that manufacturing in America has hit an all time low. The catch cry you hear frequently repeated is, "we don t make anything here anymore." Here in Acadiana we know that s not true. We make pretty much everything. On this edition of Out to Lunch Aileen Bennett sits in for Peter Ricchiuti and introduces two people who make things Alison Bohl Dehart and her husband, Peter. Alison and Peter makes things individually and together, through their company, Makemade. The wide range of stuff they make includes websites, photographs, movies and children s toys. Makemade is 5 years old. Alison and Peter have been working together every day. And they re still married. This conversation was recorded over lunch at Cafe Vermilionville.

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