Carnival items

• So far, this is the year of high-falutin' King Cake elaboration. Unsatisfied with the standard slate of 50 or so possible flavors, local bakers are pushing the King Cake to whole new dimensions of unnecessary variety.
  
  La Dolce Nola and La Divina have improbably each added a Nutella and an apple-goat cheese flavor although I am told they did this without having coordinated. According to this NOLA Def article, Maple Street Patisserie has a chocolate marzipan king cake available.
  
  But it's not just the specialty bakeries pushing these baroque ideas on the public. On a recent stop at Rouses we found a "triple chocolate" king cake, a "Black Forest" king cake, and, yes, many many "red velvet" king cakes.
  
  
  
  That snapshot doesn't do justice to the horrifying bright red of the actual item. Stop in and gawk for yourself sometime. Meanwhile, that King Cake vodka we were promised is still mysteriously unavailable... although suddenly it doesn't seem so weird anymore.
  
  Anyway, I'm thinking I might pick up one of these this weekend just to get into the spirit and whatnot.
  
  
  



• Quote of the Day: Gambit's Alex Woodward previews this weekend's Krewe Du Vieux
  
  

  The impending 2012 apocalypse was an obvious thematic choice for members of Krewe du Vieux — humorous doom and gloom, puns and portmanteaus involving death and anything else are right up the krewe's alley. Instead, it opted for a different theme, one that draws attention to a local women's rights organization — but the krewe isn't skimping on its gratuitous sex jokes and paper mache penises. Krewe captain Lee Mullikin notes, however, "There's not so many penises this year."

  
  
  So that's good to know. On a more serious note, Mullikin worries about whether or not KDV is in danger of getting too big for its... often prominently displayed... britches.

  And as the krewe ages and grows, it also fears becoming what it hated: a "bead-throwing krewe" it set out to mock in the first place. So far it's kept as quiet as possible (the krewe is tight-lipped about its membership and float themes), and tried to avoid crowd sizes that would jeopardize its route through the French Quarter. But the Polo Club Lounge at the Windsor Court named a drink after the krewe, and Mullikin remembers the fine-dining crowds asking waiters to hold their tables while they caught the parade.
  
  "We don't want to blow our own horn too much. We don't want our crowds to get so big they won't let us march anymore. But we don't want to pretend like we don't exist," says Mullikin, who hopes the krewe "educates people to dance with us, laugh, look at what we're doing."
  

  Maybe they should have thought about that before they agreed to appear on Treme. Oh well. Can't be helped. Just keep changing the route every year (yes, there's a new one this year again) and everything should be fine.



• Finally, this afternoon we learn that the Lakeview women's marching club, Krewe of Brid won't be parading this year due to "money problems." The short article doesn't elaborate but I'm curious as to just what it was such a small operation couldn't afford. If they had trouble putting the money together for a parade permit, I can't imagine the ladies of Lakeview would have to worry too much about being pepper sprayed if they just decided to march anyway. That's not the sort of thing that's done in their neighborhood.