Our local paper just published an interesting piece from the Associated Press about fast-food drive-through service, and how they are using technology to increase speed and improve service. It made me smile, since I am a drive-through operator’s worst nightmare.

For one thing, my van is too tall for most of the overhangs. I could do more damage to them they could do to me.

For another, my husband and I almost never go to a fast food restaurant. With no advance knowledge of the menu, we are unable to make the super-fast decision they expect. Besides, since we do it so rarely, we want to read every word of the menu, experience the gestalt, savor it. At least in the regular line, inside, we can step back and let people go in front of us.

The article did, however, make me think of some of my favorite drive-through stories. Like the time we were coming back from a pizza joint in New Orleans, and we decided to stop at a drive-through daiquiri shop. A week earlier, we had walked into one of these ubiquitous joints and discovered that we could order an alcoholic drink in a “go cup” and drive off with it. The driver isn’t supposed to actually drink it (wink, wink), but the passengers are free to imbibe.

We had that “I can’t believe we’re doing this” feeling as we pulled up to the window and asked what the specials were. Since gallons were on sale, we ordered a gallon of frozen “white Russian” daiquiri.

“How many cups?” the attendant asked us. Brian, the driver, looked puzzled. Isn’t a gallon 16 cups? We took the plastic jug, similar to a milk jug, back to the boat, where we had our own cups, and proceeded to get plastered.

When I lived in Ohio, I had another strange drive-through experience. I once took a whimsical overnight bicycle trip, packing nothing but a tent, a bathing suit, and a towel. I didn’t carry any food, figuring I’d just buy it as I went along. When I arrived at Alum Creek, the state park with the campground, I discovered that the only thing nearby was a drive-through beer store.

Ohio must have an interesting loophole in their beer sales law, because these places are always enclosed buildings, styled like garages with doors on both ends, rather than just drive-up windows. You drive in, roll down your window, and an attendant walks around the garage, picking up your case of beer, bag of chips, and Slim Jim and passing them in your window. I had three problems with the place: One, I was shopping for dinner, not beer; two, I was a vegetarian, so Slim Jims were out of the question; and three, I was on a bicycle. I grabbed a bag of cookies and got out of there fast, wondering how the attendants could tolerate that much exhaust.

I was an impressionable teen-ager when my brother Dave got married in Seymour, Indiana. His fiancé, Jeanie, dressed for the wedding in the motel room I was sharing with my sister, Julie. With Jeanie in the driver’s seat, we piled into her car to go to the wedding. On the way there, she suddenly decided to stop at Wendy’s. We pulled up to the microphone, and she place her order for a medium Frosty. “That will be $1.01,” said the disembodied voice. “Please pull up to the window.”

When Jeanie pulled up to the window, dressed in her wedding gown and veil, the attendant was completely flabbergasted. “Oh my god! That’s a wedding gown!” she said. When she heard Jeanie was on the way to her own wedding, she handed back the money, along with the Frosty. “I can’t charge you for this!” said the flustered Wendy’s employee.

Since I grew up with the concept of drive-through or drive-up windows, I’ve always had a soft spot for drive-in restaurants, the kind where the waitress brings a tray to your car and hangs it on the window. In the late 80′s, I drove along the shore of Lake Michigan with a couple of friends on a weekend trip. The Holland tulip festival was a bust, so the highlight of the trip was a stop in Ludington, where we ate supper at an A&W drive-in.

About seven years later, I was chatting on the phone with my sister Julie, who was driving cross-country from North Carolina to Oregon with her bicycle and camping gear. She’d was lamenting the expensive and major repairs she’d just had made to the bike, because she forgot it was on top of the car.

“What did you hit?” I asked, sympathetically.

“The roof of an A&W drive-in,” she admitted, “along the shore of Lake Michigan.”

Laughing, I admitted I knew exactly which one.

To this day, I don’t think she has the same soft spot for drive-ins that I do.

“Wow!” I said, “I should have ordered the French toast!” My gaze followed the waitress, who was walking by with three plates, each one loaded with thick pieces of French toast and garnished with nuts, bananas, and sultanas. I’d fallen in love with the cozy, colorful atmosphere at the Blue Fox in Victoria, British Columbia, and I was in love with the food before I had a bite.

My breakfast special that morning came with pan-fried red potatoes, thick-cut whole-grain toast, and homemade raspberry jam. Barry had the same, with the addition of two large sausages, not those tiny pinky-sized things you find in the freezer case. Most remarkable was that the menu said the eggs were free range. I’d almost forgotten that when my fork hit the yolk, and out came deep, satisfying orange, not yellow. Real eggs, from happy Canadian chickens.

For me, that breakfast was the best of all the meals we ate in restaurants during our recent 6-day visit to Vancouver Island. We were traveling in our van on a fairly tight budget — ferry fares alone were over $120. It was too cold, rainy, and windy to cook on our propane stove on a picnic table, so we planned to eat one meal each day at a restaurant and have sandwiches and snacks in the van the rest of the time.

One way we keep our restaurant budget down is by eating at small ethnic restaurants. They usually provide flavorful food at lower prices. During this trip, we used that tactic, trying Chinese, Middle Eastern, and Indian restaurants in Victoria. The results were mixed — the Indian and Middle Eastern places were forgettable.

The most memorable thing about Ocean Garden, the Chinese restaurant on the corner of Fisgard and Government streets, was the waitress. She knew just enough English to place an item in front of the customer and say, “Enjoy-your-meal!” And she didn’t just say it once: When she placed the soup, she said, “Enjoy-your-meal!” This was followed by the rice — “Enjoy-your-meal!” and each entree — “Enjoy-your-meal!” and even the tea and water. She did, however, know not to say it when she gave us the check with its ubiquitous fortune cookies. Sadly, I did not enjoy my meal as much as I would have liked, because the Kung Po Scallops turned out to be Kung Po Celery (my least favorite vegetable), and I had to search for both the scallops and the peanuts.

Giving up on our usual ethnic choices, we turned to Canadian restaurants and had some wonderful meals, including the Blue Fox breakfast and a dinner at Suzy’s, on Gabriola Island.

The folks at these two restaurants know how to serve tea. They bring you a small pot, a cup or mug, some milk or cream, sugar, and, most importantly, a spoon for stirring it. It adds a gentle ritual to the meal, or it can be an event in itself. It’s a far cry from the U.S., where you often get a stained coffee mug with a tea bag dangling over the side, and if you ask for sugar or milk, they never think to give you a spoon. Canadians are civilized tea-drinkers, although they also have their share of Starbucks.

Of course, Starbucks cannot compete with that Canadian favorite, Tim Horton’s. One evening, in Nanaimo, we were cold and needed something warm to drink. We walked to Tim’s, hoping for a Nanaimo bar and a warm place to hang out. Evidently, everyone else in Nanaimo had the same idea.

I couldn’t believe how busy a donut shop could be at 9 pm on a Tuesday evening. We sat in the corner, sipping our hot chocolate, surrounded by tables full of people sharing conversations in mellow Canadian accents. Everyone seemed laid-back, relaxed, just enjoying the company of their friends. It was hard to believe it was a fast-food restaurant.

When in Rome, do as the Romans do. When in Nanaimo, head to Tim Horton’s for a Nanaimo bar. It’s what the Nanaimans do.
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Since I missed out on the French toast at the Blue Fox, I did the next best thing. I came home and invented a gourmet French toast recipe, with bananas and nuts and dried fruit. Now, if I could only reproduce that wonderful Canadian atmosphere!

After posting my latest essay about zucchini and world peace, I decided to search for recipes from Iraq. Does their cuisine use zucchini? What about squash?

But there are almost no recipes on the Internet from Iraq. Not that I’d expect a lot of creative cooking to be coming from Baghdad these days, but I’d hoped that some of the expats from Iraq living around the world might share their cuisine with us.

From the looks of it, Iraqi cuisine is similar to many other Middle Eastern foods, which often use eggplant as an ingredient. I found a recipe for eggplant-wrapped meat, where you could probably substitute zucchini for eggplant. Eggplant has a stronger, more distinctive flavor than zucchini, so the result would be milder. Or you could travel the other way, to northern Africa, where the Moroccans use zucchini in their rich and wonderful cous cous dishes.

Curious George — the one in my family, not the one in the movie — wrote to me again last week. I usually get four or five e-mails a day from this brother, but the goofy questions he writes in his “curious George” persona are my favorites.

“I found bananas for cheap yesterday…got some…what do they do for you?? many calories?? how many a day is enough??”

A few days later, I brought home a bunch of bananas from the store. In addition to the usual Dole sticker, there was another sticker, a little brown monkey labeled “Curious George.” What are a funny coincidence! So today, I am compelled to write about bananas.

When I was in high school, I did my first long-distance bike ride. It was the first MS-150 fundraiser for Central Ohio, and besides my sister and myself, there were only 6 other riders, all of them “serious” cyclists. We loaded our luggage into the “sag wagon” so we could ride unencumbered. That is, except for the mountains of bananas the other guys carried on their bikes. It was my first encounter with the bicyclists’ cult of bananas.

Bananas are the main reason why bicyclists have pockets in the back of their shirts. They eat them by the dozen. Some bicyclists can peel a banana one-handed. If they don’t eat enough bananas, they lose energy, which they call “bonking.”

Bananas are loaded with potassium, and they have more calories per unit than most other easily available fruits. Nature’s packaging is almost unbeatable, unless you put one in the bottom of your backpack and then throw some books on top. The resulting bruised banana mush is unappetizing.

I admit, I get bored with plain old bananas. I have to dress them up.

One trick is to eat a banana with a little tub of yogurt. Peel the banana, and dip the end into the yogurt. This is a little embarrassing in public, but it’s a good way to get a park bench all to yourself.

Another trick is to cook bananas. I’ve always been a fan of plantains, which look like huge bananas that must be cooked. I love a side of fried plantains in a Cuban restaurant — you can make your own by just peeling, slicing, and pan-frying them. Serve them with salt and lime wedges. I also turned up a Puerto Rican recipe where mashed plantains are used to make a sort of pie crust: Ripe plantain pie with meat.

Recently, I’ve discovered that regular bananas, slightly green ones, can be used like plantains. In some countries, both fruits are used the way we use potatoes. You can boil them, fry them, or add them to soups and stews. Last week, I tried a new tomato soup recipe that Barry says is the best he ever ate. It’s pretty simple, mostly just tomatoes, bananas, and onions.

Bananas are wonderful with coconut milk. You can cook the two of them with rice, or just poach bananas in coconut milk.

Here in the U.S. we’re more likely to think of bananas in baked goods, like banana bread, banana pancakes, banana cream pie. Or made into a healthy smoothie.

The weirdest recipe I’ve run across for bananas was this one, for a banana nut salad. I’ve never tried it, only because I’ve never had any Miracle Whip (TM) in my fridge. It sure sounds interesting, but one thing is certain: You’ll never find me dipping my bananas in Miracle Whip. At least, not in public.

I have an innate distrust of stores like Trader Joe’s and Publix, where produce is shrink-wrapped onto a styrofoam tray. Often, the pieces hidden on the bottom are blemished or rotten. If I only want to buy one bell pepper, instead of three, I can’t do it.

That’s what I love about a farmer’s market or a good grocery store. I can walk in and grab exactly the amount of produce I need to make one batch of minestrone, or wilted asparagus and apple salad. A half pound of asparagus, one apple, and a small head of lettuce cost a couple of dollars, and the leftovers don’t go to waste.

Being able to do that is a real luxury. On the other hand, a garden provides a different kind of luxury. If you love asparagus, you can have six pounds at a go. We ate ripe juicy pears until they came out our ears this year, then juiced dozens with lime juice. Speaking of ears, there is nothing like fresh corn — you run to the stove after you pick it, and it’s as sweet as candy.

Somewhere in between these two forms of luxury is my sister’s choice, the farm box.

Julie and Ed sign up for a farm box every year. During the summer and into the fall, a local farm provides them with a weekly box of random fruits and vegetables. They have all the benefits of fresh, organic, local produce without doing the work.

Opening the box is like having your birthday every week — you never know what will be in there. One week might have strawberries, lettuce, and tomatoes. Another week there are apples and beets and broccoli. When fall comes, it’s time to learn the difference between turnips, rutabagas, and parsnips.

I love the idea of the farm box and the local produce. I love the fact that the food doesn’t travel all the way from Argentina or Chile in a refrigerated container. Everything is dull, with a little dirt on it. There’s no wax.

The challenge is what to do with the stuff. Like the person with their own garden, you don’t just get one of each item. You might have to eat cucumbers or rutabagas three times this week.

That’s where the Internet comes in. The food may be local, but the recipes you use can come from anywhere in the world. This week, Stephen, at Stephencooks.com wrote about jerusalem artichokes. He’s over in Maine someplace. I recently unearthed a Pacific Islands site with lots of information about preparing seafood. Their fruits and vegetables may be very different from ours, but fish is fish. I’ve even started trying to decipher recipes in Portuguese, since Brazilian foods are among my favorites.

The easiest thing to do is just Google for the ingredients you have on hand. Green beans, bacon, and onions combine to bring back plenty of hits. Banana, strawberry, and kiwi go together to make a tart. Even lemon, apple, and tuna can be combined in a search that returns some tasty salad recipes.

I recently ran some searches for herbed roasted turnips, but I didn’t find much. I had to modify a potato recipe. Now, if you search for “herbed roasted turnips” (in quotes), guess what you find? My recipe!

Once upon a time, someone offered me a garlic pill.

“Pssssst, little girl, wanna garlic pill?”

No offense, but you gotta be kidding me. Garlic is one of my favorite foods, right up there with chocolate and steak. If I’m going to consume garlic, I want to taste it!

The trick with garlic is to buy a nice big bulb and a nice big garlic press. Peel off enough of the bulb to detach a clove, and cut off a sliver at the root end. Put it on a cutting board and whack it with the side of your knife, and the papery stuff will crack and come right off. Stuff that in your garlic press and give it a mighty squeeze, and heaven will come out the little holes.

As an alternative, you can buy a Microplane grater, and grate it. Be careful you don’t grate your fingers!

Many recipes say to saute onions and garlic together, but I disagree. Onions must cook for a lot longer, so I put the garlic in at the end of the onion-cooking time. The same goes for soups or stewed foods. Garlic is very spicy when eaten raw, but you also don’t want to overcook it and lose the flavor.

Some foods just cry out for garlic, like pasta, bread, and potatoes. My all-time favorite is Caesar salad, with fresh garlic and lemon juice, instead of the bottled dressing to which most restaurants have descended (everybody has to be on the Caesar-salad-bandwagon).

Here are a few recipes to try, the next time you’re in a garlic mood. Just remember, if you and your sweetie share the garlic, you won’t notice it when you smooch!

• Complicated original Caesar salad (great reading, even if you’re not going to make it)
• Simplified Caesar salad
• Olive oil bread dip with fresh herbs
• Chicago-style deep dish pizza

I grew up in the 1970′s, when Dannon’s advertising campaigns convinced Americans that yogurt was good for us to eat. My parents never actually bought the stuff, only my older sisters, leading me to think that yogurt was some sort of adult treat, like beer.

Once I grew up, I not only got to eat as much yogurt as I liked, I actually learned how to make the stuff. I still labor under the possible misconception that the active cultures in yogurt can help repopulate your intestinal tract after you take antibiotics. Maybe the acid in my stomach kills the little guys off before they make it down there, but I like yogurt enough to look for any excuse to eat it.

A couple of weeks ago, after a bout with flu, cold, and antibiotics, my mother-in-law, Sharon, brought home the largest bucket of Nancy’s plain, non-fat yogurt I’ve ever seen. I hated the thought that it might go off and grow mold (no preservatives! yay!) in her spic-and-span refrigerator, so I came up with a plan to eat at least a half cup every day.

I originally did what most Americans do: I ate it with a spoon, mixing in healthy and tasty additives like honey, brown sugar, nuts, and dried cherries. Unlike Sharon, I do not add cinnamon, turmeric, cocoa powder, and wheat germ — she insists that her bowl of yogurt tastes heavenly, but it looks like unappetizing mud.

I know that in other countries, yogurt is something you drink, not eat, and this practice is starting to catch on in the U.S. In my quest to consume enough yogurt every day, I rediscovered a old favorite — the Indian drink called a “lassi.”

My Indian cooking reference gives a recipe for a salt lassi, mixing plain yogurt, ice water, salt, and pepper. Doesn’t appeal to me — I’m more a fan of the sweet lassi, which replaces the salt and pepper with sugar and lemon juice. We used to make these with our blender, but I’ve discovered a simpler way.

First thing in the morning, I put the various ingredients in a well-sealed jar or a cocktail shaker, give it a good hearty shake, and pour it into a mug or glass. The shaking wakes me up as well as any caffienated beverage, and I can take my drinkable breakfast with me on the road or down to my computer to write.

Interesting links:

Recipe for a sweet lassi

Recipe for my latest invention, a pink lassi

Recipes using Nancy’s products, from the Springfield Creamery in Eugene, Oregon.

Article on Juan Metzger, the man behind the 1970′s Dannon ads

January is a dark and dreary month, when you’d expect to hole up like a gopher after the Christmas party season. But wait, the party season isn’t over! As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, there’s Carnival, an excuse for nonstop parties from Epiphany to Mardi Gras. And last year, I wrote about Burns Night, January 25th. This unique Scottish holiday gives us an excuse to perfect our haggis recipes, clean the old turnips out of the fridge, and feed our friends enough Scotch that they don’t notice they’re eating haggis and turnips.

Then there’s football season. Last week in Seattle, the Seahawks had their first playoff win in 21 years. Even people like me, who normally don’t pay any attention to football, are starting to get excited. It’s a great excuse to host a Sunday afternoon party.

If you’re finding yourself inspired to invite a few friends in the next few weeks, here are some ideas for party food that won’t keep you in the kitchen for hours.

We have a friend in New Orleans who cooks dinner for about 20 friends every single Monday after work. You can read about Dave’s weekly dinner, or just check out his red beans and rice recipe.

I once did something similar with minestrone, which can serve a lot of people in a hurry. A loaf of nice bread and a bowl of fruit is all you need for a simple meal.

Football gatherings generally call for snack foods. If you’re tired of tortilla chips and salsa, try making up a batch of Chex Mix or Helen’s Caramel Corn. Tortilla Pinwheels are easy and elegant, and you can vary the filling.

Everybody seems to love a nice warm artichoke dip. It’s one of those super-high-calorie dishes that you can only have at a party, when there will be lots of people to share the guilt.

Here’s one last tip, a trick to feed maximum people with minimum work: Cake. A huge cake can serve 20 people without much bother. My favorite recipes start with cake mixes, but as you can see, they don’t end there. Try lemonade cake or rum cake, or even pineapple upside-down cake.
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For thoughts about entertaining, see The Life of the Party, under Meps and Barry’s Adventures.

I’m not a big fan of restaurant Sunday brunches. The ones in my price range usually involve a buffet, with rubbery scrambled eggs, overcooked bacon, limp French toast, pale and colorless fruit, and, occasionally, a bored chef in a tall hat serving prime rib.

Given a choice, I’d much rather stay seated for my meal and have hot, fresh, interesting choices brought directly to me. Here in Seattle, that means one thing: Dim sum.

Dim sum, served in Chinese restaurants, translates to something like “heart’s delight.” When your party is seated, a paper check is left on the table. Waitresses with carts move about the room, and when one comes by, you select small plates of dumplings, noodles, vegetables, seafood, and meat by pointing at them (there’s usually a language barrier involved). The waitress marks the check with your selections and moves on, and a few minutes later, another cart rolls by with different choices.

Years ago, we were introduced to Dim sum by our friend Phyllis, who took us to Noble Court, on the east side. The timing was tricky: We’d go early to avoid waiting for a table. After stuffing ourselves completely, we’d watch helplessly as later carts glided by with tantalizing items that hadn’t been available at eleven a.m.

Under Phyllis’ tutelage, we discovered char shu bao, steamed buns filled with barbecued beef. I fell in love with congee, a chicken soup where the rice is cooked until it disintegrates to a thick porridge-like consistency. We always ordered sticky rice, where rice and seasoned meat are steamed inside a taro leaf, shrimp dumplings (har gao), and bird’s nests. Many of the plates held three of each item, making it the perfect shared meal for the three of us.

Then we branched out and started exploring the International District, Seattle’s version of Chinatown. We started going to dim sum with larger groups of friends, and at House of Hong, we sat at a large table with a lazy susan in the center. I laughed myself silly, watching Barry try to grab a slippery dumpling from a plate with chopsticks, while someone on the other side of the table was spinning it out his reach, because they wanted the teapot.

My going-away luncheon at Expeditors was a special treat: We all took the bus down to House of Hong for an extravagant two-hour break. We had all my original favorites, plus shu mai dumplings and prawns with candied walnuts. One Chinese friend went into rapture over the chicken feet, but couldn’t talk anyone into sharing a plate of them. As a matter of fact, several people threatened to leave the table if she ordered them!

Over Christmas, we met my sister and her husband at Jade Garden. As we sat down, Barry asked Ed, “Do you want to ‘drive’?” Ed looked puzzled, until the first cart came by and Barry started selecting items to put on the table. Then he realized what Barry meant — the person who sits closest to the aisle is the one who has to do the pointing and choosing, a position of great responsibility.

Last weekend, we met some friends at Top Gun in Factoria, one of the best dim sum places in the area. Along with the usual suspects, we had fried calamari, Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce, and pot stickers. Will and Tina introduced us to bean curd sheets, which tasted a lot better than they looked. We had a hilarious time trying to eat mango pudding with chopsticks, since they didn’t give us quite enough spoons. Mango pudding has a consistency a lot like jello, and they douse it in condensed milk, which makes it even more slippery.

One of my favorite things about dim sum in Seattle is the price: It’s cheap. Although you never know how much it will be until you’re done and the mysterious bill is totaled, it’s always reasonable. The groups I’ve gone with have never spent more than $15 per person, and some large groups have been as low as $8.

For me, dim sum is the best use of my meager restaurant budget. The food is lovely, varied, and not too filling. I can meet a large or small group of friends for a lengthy, relaxing meal. And I can’t imagine better, cheaper entertainment than watching folks trying to eat jello with chopsticks.

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Some of Seattle’s best dim sum restaurants:

• Jade Garden, 424 7th Ave. South, Seattle
• Top Gun, Factoria
• House of Hong, 409 8th Ave. South, Seattle (not the best, but has the biggest dining room and free parking)

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Just curious about dim sum? Check out these links for more information:

• Photos of common dim sum menu items.
• Wikipedia overview of dim sum with photo of cart.
• Recipe for nor mei gai, also called sticky rice.
• The HG-120: Is this how they keep it so cheap?

On the feast of the Epiphany, January 6th, my husband’s mother baked a cake. Not just any cake, though — a king cake.

It came from a fancy mix we’d picked up a couple of years ago at the French Market in New Orleans. Essentially, it’s a glazed, praline-filled brioche with purple, gold, and green sugar sprinkles, and a plastic baby hidden inside.

I could eat the whole thing (except the plastic baby).

When I went down to New Orleans in 2003, I thought I knew a thing or two about food in that region. I’d eaten jambalaya and gumbo. I knew a po’ boy wasn’t a person and a beignet didn’t go on your head. I knew how to pronounce muffaletta (that’s muffle-ahtta, not etta) and étoufée. What took me by surprise was the king cake mania.

The grocery store next to our West Marine store advertised them in letters 3-feet high. There was an entire king cake industry in New Orleans, with some bakeries making nothing but the round cakes. To order one from the best bakery, you had to put your name on a waiting list. According to the cake mix box, “In New Orleans, a pot of steaming coffee and a king cake constitutes a party.” (I might add that daiquiris are also not optional.)

A king cake isn’t cake, as we think of it, but a sweet yeast bread. The shape is a circle or oval, and the filling can be chocolate, praline, cheese, or jam. The colorful topping always has the three Mardi Gras colors: Purple signifying justice, yellow signifying power, and green signifying faith. My husband was taken aback when I told him this. “I thought it signified nudity, alcohol, and money!” he said.

The tradition is to serve the first king cake on Epiphany, and the person who gets the piece with the baby has to host the next party (or, in the case of an office party, bring the next cake). Since there will be another baby in the next cake, this guarantees a whole string of parties throughout the Carnival season. After Fat Tuesday comes Lent, when you’re supposed to deprive yourself of goodies like king cake and parties. So the season ends, and there are no more king cakes until the next year.

Mardi Gras falls on February 28th this year. You now have about seven weeks to make yourself a king cake!

Try one of the recipes on these websites (and remember, you don’t bake the plastic baby inside — after the cake has cooled, you have to poke it in or just hide it underneath):

This site has both manual and bread machine versions, and lots of helpful photos:
http://www.fabulousfoods.com/recipes/dessert/cakes/kingcake.html

Chef Emeril’s cheese-filled king cake:
http://www.gumbopages.com/food/dessert/king-cake.html

Here’s a cheater’s version with 3 ingredients:
http://library.thinkquest.org/J002470/recipe.htm

Or you can order the same mix we used, Mam Papaul’s King Cake Mix with Praline Filling:
http://www.shop.com/op/~Mam_Papaul’s_King_Cake_Mix_with_Praline_Filling-prod-15963234

And for more thoughts on Mardi Gras and the Carnival season, see The OTHER Holiday Season on mepsnbarry.com’s Adventures page.