Sadly, I must go

My time in New Orleans was much too short. Two and a half months is not nearly long enough to get to know a city, although I feel like I came close with New Orleans. My first impression was…unexpected. I must admit, that when I first got to New Orleans, I didn’t really like it. It seemed dirty, disorganized, chaotic, and dangerous. But the longer I stayed the more it grew on me, and the less these observations became true. Fact: New Orleans is disorganized and chaotic, but once you get used to it, that doesn’t seem to matter any more. Another fact: New Orleans may seem dirty, but it is nothing compared to St. Charles street after Mardi Gras. The character of New Orleans is so strong that all of the blemishes seemed to disappear, or at least become insignificant while I was there, and I slowly fell in love with it.

The Big Easy wasn’t like any other city in the US I had been to, and really confused me at first. One part typical American but also one part different. It was really hard to put my finger on it when I first got here, and I don’t even think I’ve managed to do it yet. But now that I’m not there, I’m nostalgic for it. For the potholes, for getting lost after taking a wrong turn on the one-way streets. When I got to New Orleans, I didn’t think that I would say it, but I miss the place. I miss the laissez-faire feeling of the Garden District and the chaos of the Quarter, the hipsters in Marigny and Bywater (and the amazingly colored houses!). I miss the giant trees of Audubon Park. I miss the glorious houses that line St. Charles, and dare I say it, I might even miss Decatur and Bourbon streets.

Yes, New Orleans has its trials and tribulations, but it has a resilience that you can’t find anywhere else. In what other city do total strangers greet each other on the streets? And where else can you find second lines or people dressed up as the “Chilean Winers” on Mardi Gras day? The answer is nowhere. The is nowhere else like New Orleans. As I often heard while I was there, “In New Orleans, we don’t need a slogan like “Keep New Orleans Weird.” We don’t have to try, that’s just the way we are!” And that is why I love New Orleans.

The Making of a King Cake

For those of you who don't know, the King Cake is, besides beads, the lifeblood of Mardi Gras. It is the fuel that feeds the fire, so to speak, of the revelers. No parade party is complete without a King Cake, and no Mardi Gras is complete without having devoured the equivalent of a whole King Cake all to yourself. The idea of a king cake takes many different forms, and isn't specifically from New Orleans, pre se, and is popular in France and many other countries with a strong Catholic heritage.

King Cake, however, is different than king cake. King cakes (notice the capitalization) are far inferior to King Cakes in just about every way. King Cake is that sinfully sweet, moist, delicious bread-pastry concoction, that only sweet-obsessed Americans could have created, that appears between the days of January 12 and Mardi Gras (whatever day that is). This is strictly enforced, especially days preceding January 12 (although, according to wikipedia, they've started using King Cakes at other holidays as well, so I'll amend this to say that King Cakes with green, purple, and gold frosting are off limits before or after Mardi Gras season). This year, since Mardi Gras was super late, King Cake season lasted even longer than normal. That means that for the better part of two months every time we went to the grocery store, we had to pass the hundreds (literally) of King Cakes stacked high at the entrance.

So, you ask, what's the point of a King Cake? Well, King Cakes are an excuse for people to eat sweets. As my mother would probably say, "it's a sugar delivery system." Like pie at Christmas, or jelly beans at Easter. An important part of every King Cake is the baby stuffed inside. The baby acts as a unique form of social obligation: if you get it, you are responsible for the next King Cake. This ensures, at least to those who enforce that rule, that there will never be a King Cake-less party.

Most of the time people buy their King Cakes from the store. These King Cakes are good, but I decided that I wanted to try my hand at making my own King Cake. My friend responded by saying "Make a King Cake?! Nobody makes King Cakes!" That is false, because I made not one, but two, King Cakes, and they were both GLORIOUS.

The recipe I used was from Emeril. I recommend it, because they both turned out very yummy (if I do say so myself). The first time I made it, I realized that I only had whole wheat flower (the healthy alternative!!), so I made it anyway. If you do that, you may want to put more sugar in to counter-act the more bitter whole wheat flower. You also need to add more milk to the mixture after you've kneaded the dough, because there will be extra flower floating around in the bottom of the bowl. I also left out the candied citron and lemon rind. That's just good old Ems being pretentious.

Now we come to the major flaw in Ems' recipe: there's no filling. A crime against humanity, if you ask me, because the filling is the best part. I decided to get creative with this, and I made up my own filling, which everybody seemed to like, so here it is. I mixed together cinnamon, regular sugar, powdered sugar, and one stick unsalted butter. I never actually measured the sugar, but I did it to taste. In the end, it probably ended up being this:

2 cups regular sugar

1/2 cup powdered sugar

2 tablespoons cinnamon (this is my favorite spice of all time, so I like a lot of it. Add or subtract depending on your own taste).

1 stick unsalted butter (melted).

After I had rolled out the dough into a giant rectangle, I spread this mixture over the whole surface of it, and starting with the long side, I rolled the dough up and formed it into an oval-esque shape and put it in a greased baking pan.

Now we come to the question of the baby. When I made my first cake, we didn't have a baby, so I used a penny. I don't recommend that because some people thought that was unsanitary (even after I reassured them that I had washed it before putting it in). You can pretty much use anything you want. The second time I used an almond, and that worked pretty well. I suggest that you role it up with the filling, that way it's baked inside (they don't do that anymore with the store-bought King Cakes because of the choking hazard and potential lawsuits).

For frosting, I recommend not using Emeril's recipe (sorry Ems!), and instead using my own recipe: half a stick soft butter, milk, and a lot of powdered sugar. I always do this by sight and taste, so once you get it to your desired consistency, you're done. I like my to be slightly thicker than syrup, and not overtly sugary (if that means more butter, BRING IT ON. Paula Deen would be proud). I don't do the whole sprinkle thing, but that's just me. Instead I like to put food coloring into my frosting to make yellow, green, and purple colors. Wait until the King Cake is cold to the touch (several hours) after taking it out of the oven to put the frosting on, otherwise it will just melt and slide off the top.

Next step: enjoy. Try not to think about your arteries in the process.