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.

Until I reached adulthood, New Year’s Eve was a lame holiday. If I was lucky, my parents would stay up with me to watch the ball drop on TV, otherwise, it was a dud. I’d sit in my room, watching the clock and feeling sorry for myself because I was the only person in the house who wasn’t sleeping at midnight.

When I was about 19, my parents not only stayed up, but they took me to a huge New Year’s bash at a South Carolina yacht club. I’d never partied with my parents as an adult, and it was a real eye-opener.

We started the evening with a fairly civilized sit-down dinner, in the restaurant overlooking the docks. Then we moved upstairs for live music and dancing, and folks started drinking heavily. One guy was running around with a lampshade on his head, and everyone was tooting on noisemakers and cutting loose. It was a side of my parents, and their 60-something friends, that I’d never seen, and I was shocked, amazed, and a little appalled.

In the wee hours of the morning, all the party-goers staggered back down to the restaurant, where our admission included a huge southern breakfast. Now, my mother always told me, “If you eat just one black-eyed pea on New Year’s day, you’ll have good luck all year.” And there, in a place of honor among the eggs and bacon and biscuits and gravy, was a steaming bowl of black-eyed peas with collard greens.

I’ve seen a couple of explanations why black-eyed peas are considered lucky food to eat on New Year’s Day. One website attributes it to the siege of Vicksburg, when folks had nothing to eat but “cowpeas.” Sure beats cowpies! Some folks say it’s because the little spot on the black-eyed pea makes it look like a coin. Sorry, I’m not fooled by that one. If you can’t tell your coins from black-eyed peas, you’ve got a real financial crisis.

I always dig into the black-eyed peas on New Year’s day for two simple reasons. One, I like ‘em. And two, my Momma told me to!

Here’s the way I like ‘em best, in Cowboy Caviar.

Lucky black-eyed peas

Browsing our website, you might wonder where all these hundreds of recipes came from. I have always been an incorrigible recipe-clipper. Show me two or three recipes in the Sunday paper, and I’ll invariably need to clip one of them. Over the years, I had compiled hundreds of little clippings in a set of hanging file folders.

My mother-in-law, Sharon, is the same way. Her collection spans many more decades than mine and has a lot more little clippings.

As far back as 1988, I e-mailed her, asking for a particular recipe. When she e-mailed it back, I copied it into a file. That file grew…and grew… and grew. Somehow, I found time to type in many of my favorites from the hanging folders. I combed my Expeditors e-mail for messages from Betsy and Denise and Cecily. I got recipes from my sister, Julie, and from the Internet.

When people started asking for copies of the 300-page Word document I knew I was on to something. That’s when Barry put it all into a database, and here it is.

We haven’t tried every single one of these, but I’ve tried to identify the ones we have tried. I’ve also highlighted some favorites, and where some of these came from. You can click on a category, or browse the list, or search for a word. Happy cooking, and dirty a few pots and pans for me!

What to do with leftover canned pumpkin?
Store leftover canned pumpkin in airtight container in fridge up to 2 weeks, or freeze for 3 months.

How to achieve perfect pies?

• Bake in a preheated 425 oven for 15 min, then lower heat to 350 for 40 to 50 min.
• Bake a pumpkin pie in the lower third of the oven.
• Pumpkin is a custard based pie, so don’t freeze and don’t overbake.
• For a well-baked crust when using metal or foil pie pan, preheat a baking sheet with the oven and bake the pie on top of it. This isn’t necessary with glass pie pans.
• To prevent crust edge from too much browning, put strips of foil around the edge when it looks brown enough.