Chow’s “The Grinder,” is my favorite blog for culinary news, so I read it everyday. Yesterday, I was sad to read that Popeye’s Chicken founder, Al Copeland, died of cancer while undergoing treatment in Germany last Sunday. Born poor, Copeland was famous for his outsized personality and displays of opulence which included wedding firecracker shows and massive holiday lighting displays that became so popular they required local police to direct traffic.

The ostentatious decor in one of his restaurants offended author Anne Rice enough that she launched a public campaign against it. From Nola.com:

One such restaurant, Straya on St. Charles Avenue, triggered a noisy public feud in 1997 with novelist Anne Rice. She used her voice-mail message and a series of full-page advertisements in The Times-Picayune to attack the restaurant’s decor, which included tasseled black curtains and a pair of sleek black-leopard sculptures flanking the entrance to the rest-room area.

“The humblest flop house on this strip of St. Charles Avenue has more dignity than Mr. Copeland’s structure,” she said in her opening salvo.

The suit was thrown out of court. But that wasn’t Copeland’s only public feud. From The Grinder:

His public feuds and his excesses were nearly unrivaled, even in Louisiana. Copeland kept his 50-foot speedboats in a glass showroom along the interstate, when he wasn’t racing them on Lake Pontchartrain. His Christmas light display, which featured a three-story snowman, was so big that his neighbors sued, saying the traffic “held them hostage.” His weddings were infamous: At his third, to Luan Hunter, fireworks spelled out “Al I’ll love you forever Luan,” and the Popeyes helicopter, a.k.a. the chicken chopper, dropped rose petals. When the marriage dissolved into a custody fight 10 years later, the presiding judge ended up in jail, under Operation Wrinkled Robe, after pleading guilty to rigging the custody terms in Copeland’s favor in return for a seafood contract from him. Dude: Louisiana.”

I grew up in Southern California with Church’s Chicken, an acquisition that landed Copeland into bankruptcy. But I grew to love Popeye’s after moving to Virginia. In particular, I adore Popeye’s “Signature Sides” (the red beans and rice and mashed potatoes put other fast food chicken restaurants to shame). The creator of fast food that doesn’t taste like fast food should be honored.

There are some recipes out there claiming to be the official recipe for Popeye’s red beans and rice, but Chef2Chef has a pretty good recipe for Creole Red Beans and Rice.  You gotta have ham.