The REAL holiday season has begun!

Happy Twelfth Night! We started out with the kingcakes at work, yesterday. OMG I love kingcake. If they weren't charging 40+bucks to ship them, I'd send one to everybody. I got a great big New Orleans style with praline and cream cheese filling, and the family has mostly eaten it (both siblings' SOs were over last night to help). No one's gotten the baby yet! Whenever my turn comes around again, I'm going to hit a French bakery near here for a gâteau des Rois, which I also love, and I might make a banitsa, which is mmmomg. 

There is a REALLY good kingcake recipe here, and even if you don't want to make one, Chef Folse has a brief history of the tradition up. (Chef Johm Folse is kind of a local institution. He's a bit like Louisiana's Food Ambassador, and he's got a radio show you can listen to online). The glaze should be thin enough to be drizzled over the cake, not spread on. To make the colored sugar, put a drop of gel food coloring on your hand and rub about a quarter cup of white granulated sugar between your palms, washing & drying your hands between colors (green, gold, and purple). If you don't have gel food coloring handy for the sugar, DON'T USE LIQUID - you're better off dividing your glaze in thirds and tinting that. Also, braiding your dough is pretty but unneccessarily hard (it's a very soft dough), and not even terribly traditional. it's much easier to just roll the dough like a jelly roll, which will give you a pretty swirl when it's cut. 

Mardi Gras is early this year (February 5). It moves because the date is tied to Easter (being the day before Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent - which is why we celebrate it, because you have to get all your partying in before it is time for atonement). 

If and when I find my Fats Domino and other cds (I think my mother ran off with them), I will be sharing some Mardi Gras music. 

Remember, you have to cram all your sinning in before February 6th, so get crackin!