Reflections FROM THE PUBLISHER
S
itting down to write this column, it is late January: a time when the kaleidoscopic machinery of Mardi Gras would normally well-andtruly have started turning. This year, deprived of the chance to do most of the inadvisable things we normally do during Mardi Gras season, as a family we are choosing to double—or possibly triple—our king cake intake, instead. So, when the recent press release from Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser’s office appeared in my inbox with the breaking news— “Cannata’s has invented a new flavor of king cake!”—I pulled out my growing list. Apparently, the wizards at this old-line Houma bakery have conspired with the great-grandson of a Bayou Terrebonne moonshiner to produce a booze-inflected king cake made with local corn whiskey and filled with whiskey-soaked pecans. “There goes dry January,” I thought. Writing down “Cannata’s Ti Can Pecan whiskey cake,” I reconsidered the colorful, half-eaten, cream-cheese-
flavored number from Chalmette’s Nonna Randazzo’s bakery currently sitting on the kitchen counter. I like this king cake: plump, moist, and glazed with layers of cream cheese and some kind of sweet, lemony stuff, this was our family’s first Randazzo’s experiment, and it got high marks from all sides of the dinner table last night. We agreed that piling the cream cheese and other flavorings on top as a glaze was an effective substitute for squirting them inside the cake, and also enjoyed the fact that the baby was actually buried inside in traditional, chokinghazard fashion, as opposed to being perched abominably on top in some kind of concession to legal liability. In the absence of any other Mardi Gras distractions, I predict that the king cake bakers of Louisiana will have a banner year in 2021. We’re certainly planning to do our part. Other favorite king cakes we’ve tried so far include Gambino’s (Baton Rouge, Metairie, Lafayette) strawberry and cream-cheese-filled Danish pastry king cake; a luscious Galette des
Rois, a traditional French-style king cake made by Poupart’s in Lafayette; and from La Boulangerie bakery in New Orleans, a demented “Elvis” king cake filled with bananas and peanut butter and topped with toasted marshmallows and bacon bits, with a little pig inside instead of a baby. Others on the to-try list include Haydel’s pecan-praline king cake, Ambrosia Bakery’s Zulu king cake (coconut, cream cheese, chocolate icing), and Calandro’s new Royale Cookies king cake, with cookies & cream liquor and vodka in the drizzle to boot. And I’ve heard so many people speaking in hushed tones about the
two-filling king cakes from Meche’s Donut King in Lafayette that I am placing an order for a raspberry-creamcheese-and-lemon-filled number through their website at this very moment. I’m sure there are plenty more that we have yet to get acquainted with. Got a favorite? Let me know so we can add it to the list. In the meantime, I’ll be working out how to lay hands on one of those Ti Can Pecan whiskey king cakes from Cannata’s. In a year when the stark realities of a viral contagion have overwhelmed not only Mardi Gras, but all the festivals that bring people together the world over, preserving the spirit of celebration by letting ourselves eat cake seems the only reasonable thing to do. Dry January never stood much of a chance this year. Never mind; this time next month it’ll be Lent. On that note, I’m going find myself another slice of Nonna Randazzo’s. Happy Mardi Gras. —James Fox-Smith, publisher james@countryroadsmag.com
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