Bon Ton Roulet

Gambino's King Cake with Chocolate Cheese Filling

It's almost Mardi Gras time! Today, my friend and co-worker, Chuck Taggart, gave me a piece of King Cake flown in from Gambino's in New Orleans. Last year, I actually prepared my own King Cake. It's basically cinnamon coffee cake, sometimes with a cheese filling, topped with icing and sprinkled in the colors of New Orleans: Purple, Yellow and Green. You have to insert the plastic baby, a lucky bean or a penny inside the cake somewhere. You can read about the history and tradition of the King Cake here.

Last year's Entemann's Coffee Cake,

Doctored Up to Resemble King Cake

Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday (February 20th, this year) is a special day for us. Larry and I were married on Fat Tuesday, 1992....15 years ago the date was March 3rd. We got married on this special N.O. day, because that's where we met....at the Jazz Fest in New Orleans in 1990.

I don't know if Chuck realizes this, but he was indirectly responsible for Larry and I meeting. In 1990 I was the engineer and board operator at KCRW-FM for "Billy Vera's Rock ' Roll Party" radio show. Chuck hosted the show immediately following Billy's show. It was called "Gumbo Ya Ya" and featured all sorts of great music from Louisiana. We all became friends. Sometimes, when Chuck would go out of town, I would stay at the station and run his pre-recorded tape for his show. I grew to love all the types of music of Louisiana, including Cajun, Zydeco, Swamp Pop, late '50's and early '60's N.O. rock 'n roll, etc.

Chuck told me about the annual New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and the tour that Nancy Covey hosted. It sounded like a faboo time to me, but I didn't have any friends that wanted to go with me that spring. I called up Nancy at Festival Travel and she paired me up with another single chick, Joan. I met up with Joan in New Orleans and it turned out that I'd met her about a year before. That's another story, but we had lots of people and interests in common. Joan knew Larry through another group of friends and heard that he would be at Jazz Fest too. Eventually, Joan introduced me to Larry and the rest is history!

Next weekend (2/18-19) we'll all be down at the Original Farmers Market (for a change) to celebrate Mardi Gras. There are a lot of great bands performing, the Gumbo Pot Restaurant will be serving up specialties from N'awlins, EB's Bar will be serving Dixie Beer and there will be more special events planned. It really is a fun time. I hope you can all stop by!

Farmers Market Mardi Gras - 2006