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Potato pancakes are traditionally served during Chanukah celebrations. This dish is often referred to as “latkes,” a Yiddish word that loosely translates to “little oily thing.”
Potato pancakes are not exclusive to Jewish celebrations and cuisine. Many potato pancake recipes are quite similar. They involve only a few ingredients and fry up in a flash.
LATKES
3 large potatoes, peeled and shredded
1 small onion, shredded
3 large eggs
1 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. all-purpose flour, or as needed
½ cup vegetable oil
1. Place potatoes and onion into a bowl, and stir in eggs, salt and flour as needed to make the mixture hold together. With wet hands, scoop up about 1/3 cup of the mixture per patty, and form into flat round or oval shapes.
2. Heat vegetable oil in a large skillet over medium heat until it shimmers, and gently place the patties into the hot oil. Fry until the bottoms are golden brown and crisp, 5 to 8 minutes, then flip with a spatula and fry the other side until golden.
3. Line a colander or strainer with two paper towels, and drain the cooked latkes in the colander. Serve hot.
Recipe by AllRecipes.com.

The Church of the Assumption in Franklin and the St. Mary Parish Sheriff’s Office have partnered for nearly 25 years to deliver gifts to the children of inmates in the St. Mary Parish Jail.
The Advent Giving was completed Thursday with the delivery of the gifts to local children by Sheriff’s Office personnel, including Sheriff Blaise Smith.
Elaine Theriot, who coordinates the project, said that through the Sheriff’s Office, the names of inmates’ children — ages 0-12 — are gathered as well as an idea of what they would like for Christmas.
Then, parishioners of the Church of the Assumption step in.
“Right after Thanksgiving, we hand those names out, and the people buy the gifts for the children,” Theriot said.
The gifts are returned in the first or second week of December where they are organized and bagged before being delivered by the sheriff’s department.
Theriot described it as a great feeling participating in this project, explaining it is helping those who may not receive something for Christmas otherwise.
“It’s a very touching experience, I find, and the congregation must think the same because they’ve been doing it for so many years,” Theriot said, noting that nearly the same families have been participating through the years.
In a Facebook post about the project, the St. Mary Parish Sheriff’s Office said that in as difficult a year as this has been, it can be even more challenging to give gifts with a loved one incarcerated.
“This ministry of the Church of the Assumption is a heartwarming way to reach out to people and let them know that they are loved,” the Sheriff’s Office Facebook post said.

Over the half-century-plus that I have been writing about Acadiana, I’ve driven down practically every road in south Louisiana, visited (or at least passed through) every named community, and met and been befriended by some of the most extraordinary “ordinary” people on the globe.
Sometimes I visited a place for a reason; there was a specific person or story to be found there. Just as often it was my natural instinct to meander that made me turn onto a road I’d never driven before, just to see where it went and what it passed along the way.
I’ve spent considerable time looking for places that aren’t here anymore, trying to find the histories of places that are now only names on old railroad maps and that have been passed by or swallowed up as the world changed.
I found a good many of those places by knocking on a stranger’s door to ask, “Have you ever heard of Such-and-Such?” As often as not I’d get a wonderful reminiscence about growing up in a community that is now only memory, usually accompanied by a search through an armoire or old desk for a picture of “daddy’s old store,” or something similar. There was always a good cup of coffee to go with the conversation.
Over the decades I’ve worn out a seemingly indestructible Olivetti manual typewriter, two fancy electrics, and several computer keyboards to tell the stories of Acadiana and its people. I figured once that over my working life at least a million of my words have been put into print in one form or another – some of it decent writing, some of it only a step above typing exercises, but almost all of it in a quest to tell the story of this remarkable place.
The story of south Louisiana is full of colorful people and ways and traditions found no place else. My map put out by the state highway department marks off Acadiana by coloring it beige while the rest of the state is in a darker color. That’s a sure sign that the map was made by somebody from Shreveport. Anyone who’s been here for a night of eating and dancing and story-telling over a cold beer knows that the color for south Louisiana is definitely not bland beige. We run more to purple, I think. Especially during Carnival season, which begins January 6, and in parts of south Louisiana runs for practically the whole year.
Ours is also a story about an idea, an essence, as well as about a geographical place and its people.
Whether we are Cajun or Creole or Anglo or Whatever, we share a set of connections here — to family, to each other, to the seasons, to the land and sea, to church and community, to a set of values that perhaps require simpler times to survive. I hope we can hold onto those things. A lot of what I write comes from my belief that we need to keep that connectedness, or to try to catch it again if we can.
I am not against progress. But I am for reasoned progress, and firmly believe that half of what we call “progress” is more steam and froth than reality. I believe that our old culture and new concrete can live side-by-side, if we think about what we want to keep from one before we spread the other willy-nilly.
One of the ways we may be able to do that is to remind ourselves of the wonderful things that we share, and to remember that these are things that are important because they set us apart from people from other places and bind us together at home.
It is important that we keep alive experiences and places and circumstances that we can easily overlook because we think them commonplace. Many of these things are in fact our glue.
At New Year’s we look forward to what is to come. But it can also be a good time to look back at who and where we have come from – and to resolve to make sure that we do not lose touch with the things and places and customs and attitudes that make us distinctively who and what we are.
A collection of Jim Bradshaw’s columns, "Cajuns and Other Characters," is now available from Pelican Publishing. You can contact him at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.

June 18, 1948 — December 20, 2020
Vernice Ann Theriot, 72, a resident of Franklin, passed away on Sunday, December 20, 2020 at Franklin Healthcare Center.
Vernice was born on June 18, 1948 in Houma, the daughter of Wallace Theriot and Ismay Bergeron Theriot.
She will be sadly missed and lovingly remembered by three sisters, Verna Ponvelle and husband Carroll of Thibodaux, Diane Theriot of Houma, and Darlene Savoy and husband Calvin of Centerville; and numerous nieces and nephews.
Vernice was preceded in death by her parents, Wallace and Ismay Bergeron Theriot.
Inurnment services will be held at a later date in Terrebonne Memorial Park Cemetery.