I miss King Cake!!!!
I've never been to New Orleans, the closest I ever got to any sort of Mardi Gras celebration was when I took Jen and Becca to Universal in Florida one year -- and that was a child-friendly celebration. Floats and beads, but no alcohol or raunchy behavior.
The other day I saw all the Mardi Gras party stuff in Party City the other day, when I was buying things for Valentine's Day.
Before I changed jobs last spring, I was employed in the environmental claims department of a major insurance company. In the 12 years I spent at that company, I handled all sorts of environmental disasters, from ruptured pipelines and Superfund sites to oil spills resulting from misdelivery at a residential site. A huge chunk of our workload originated in Louisiana. We had a working relationship with several large law firms in New Orleans and Baton Rouge.
And so every February the law firms would send us...King Cake. A long, flat box would arrive, and inside you'd find a coffee cake with purple, green and yellow icing, or with white icing and purple, green and yellow sugar. There would be beads, coins, mini goblets, maybe some masks. And, of course, a plastic baby buried in the cake. We'd have enough King Cake to enjoy ourselves for well over a week.
In 2006 we had more than just the cake. We threw ourselves an entire Mardi Gras party, and encouraged everyone to donate to charity -- Hurricane Katrina relief.
But times change, I've moved on. And there's no King Cake around here. Sigh.
The other day I saw all the Mardi Gras party stuff in Party City the other day, when I was buying things for Valentine's Day.
Before I changed jobs last spring, I was employed in the environmental claims department of a major insurance company. In the 12 years I spent at that company, I handled all sorts of environmental disasters, from ruptured pipelines and Superfund sites to oil spills resulting from misdelivery at a residential site. A huge chunk of our workload originated in Louisiana. We had a working relationship with several large law firms in New Orleans and Baton Rouge.
And so every February the law firms would send us...King Cake. A long, flat box would arrive, and inside you'd find a coffee cake with purple, green and yellow icing, or with white icing and purple, green and yellow sugar. There would be beads, coins, mini goblets, maybe some masks. And, of course, a plastic baby buried in the cake. We'd have enough King Cake to enjoy ourselves for well over a week.
In 2006 we had more than just the cake. We threw ourselves an entire Mardi Gras party, and encouraged everyone to donate to charity -- Hurricane Katrina relief.
But times change, I've moved on. And there's no King Cake around here. Sigh.
The last few years, a local supermarket chain where I live in upstate New York sold (and sampled) King Cake. One year they even had a Mardi Gras buffet. This year - nada. Zero. Maybe it was because Mardi Gras was squished between Valentine's Day and Chinese New Year, but maybe it was because (perhaps) it didn't result in a lot of sales. As for me, I miss (from years ago) See's Candy I got at one job.
ReplyDeleteHi bookworm. I think there's a souther BBQ restaurant around here that has the cakes, maybe next year ...
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