New Orleans is a madhouse between preparations for the Super
Bowl tomorrow, and the upcoming Mardi Gras.
For whatever reason it’s king cake season in New Orleans, but since
there does not seem to be any particular seasonal ingredient I’m unsure as to
why they’re not made year-round if people as crazy about them as they seem to
be. My neighbor’s birthday involved a
tasting of a variety of admittedly nontraditional king cakes, he and I both
preferred a version from breads on oak, though this was not unanimous as his
girlfriend and others preferred others.
Given New Orleans’s French heritage I was under the impression that a
king cake was going to be a galette de roi, but the given the humidity in
general, laminated dough seem to be a relatively weak link in the city’s
culinary repitoire. A classmate and I
made some sous vide (constant temperature water circulation to prevent relative
hotspots and undesirable egg protein coagulation) crème brulee which was
fun. Several of us went to assist a classmate’s
fiancé at a food bank sorting operation.
While this sounds wonderful, and throwing around boxes was tremendous
fun, there was something awkward about packaging hundreds if not thousands of
pounds of excess Halloween and Christmas candies for consumption in a
“diabesity” prone demographic.
