Mardi Gras! (With Visual Aids)

You will find more pictures than you could ever want to see over here. For now, let's talk King Cake and beads. Two vitally important parts of Carnival/Mardi Gras. We had them both in spades. 

Oh my goodness, do I love King Cake.

Rouses is our local (AH-may-zing) grocery store. While their King Cake is not the best, it is damn good. Plus, it's less than half the price of the other least expensive place and it's in walking distance. How does this suck? It doesn't. That's how.

The colors of Mardi Gras are purple (for justice), green (for faith), and gold (for power), thus King Cakes ~ and everything else in town ~ are decorated as they are. Can you see in the hole in the middle of the cake there is...a something? That something is a plastic baby. Usually, after baking, but before glazing, a plastic baby is shoved down into the cake. Then, the whole thing is colored and glazed so you can't see where the baby was buried. Whoever gets the plastic baby buys the next King Cake.

The King Cake baby, rescued from the hole

I have three thoughts on the plastic baby phenomenon. Thought the first ~ Why doesn't Rouses put their babies in the cake? Why throw them in the hole, leaving it for the host or hostess to implant the baby, thus showing where the baby is so everyone can avoid that piece of cake? I don't know. Maybe this is why they are less than half of the cost of other King Cakes. 

Thought the second ~ Most articles you will read about the history of King Cake read something along the lines of "A baby, usually a plastic one these days, is..." Surely I am not the only one whose brain works faster than her ability to read. The rest of the sentence inevitably talks about how the baby used to be porcelain or clay, but dear God, every time I read one of these articles, I think "did they use real ones before the invention of plastic babies???????"

Thought the third ~ Every King Cake box I've seen is emblazoned with "WARNING: Inedible Baby Inside." Which makes me wonder: Is there any other kind? I'm just asking. 

King Cakes have gotten fancy and they fill them with...fillings now. Lithus and I got daring and went for the praline pecan. Wow. My teeth ache at the thought of it. I had no idea there could be such a thing as too much praline pecan filling. But see???!!!!???

Just one slice

This year, we decided to get a wee bit creative with our beads.

But we rapidly (as in not even one parade-worth) ran out of room in our pretty apothecary jar. So we went with the hanging technique. 

Please note, best parade bling EVER

And then finally resorted to the puddle look.

Even Bear and Snorlax got into the act.

Bear in his Rex bracelet and Snorlax with his beads...

And now that it's over, I just may have time to blog again. Happy Mardi Gras, everyone!

Those are Pobble Thoughts. That and a buck fifty will get you coffee.