As lifelong Saints fans, this is totally uncharted territory for us: the team we’ve rooted for is finally playing in the biggest football game there is!  We’re lightheaded with excitement and one of our bakers, Brandi Gayneaux, came up this confectionary delight in honor of New Orleans playing in the big game in Miami.

It’s one of our Pain’ Fais’ Bless King Cakes twisted into a Fleur Des Lis.  We’ll be making them all week next week … as well as mailing one to a bakery in Indiana!

J.P.’s uncle is a philosophy and ethics professor at University of Southern Maine.  He writes poetry "on the side" as he puts it.  A few years back he decided he needed to learn Spanish and started going to Mexico on a regular basis... especially in the winters to escape the biting cold of Maine.  He recently sent J.P. this poem and we had to share it with you.  "Pan" is bread in Spanish, in case you haven't watched Dora the Explorer lately.

 

“Hey pan!”
In the early evening of the winter dark
Under the stars the secular culture’s muzzin
Welcomes the faithful home
With the ancient call of bread
“Hey pan!”
The call of home in Cuernavaca
Outside
Huddled neighbors with flashlights
Bow before the trunk of the old Chevvy
We thrive on a simple display of peddler’s bread
Pretty feast of baked air
There I perform my daily rite
Greet Roderigo
Ask for the children
Laugh with friends
Choose my bread
Pay the few pesos
Say good night
Buenas noches
Gracias…hasta mañana…
“Hey pan!”
“Hey pan!”
The day is ending in its usual peace
“Hey pan!”
Life goes on
Buy our bread
We’ll come back again tomorrow
“Hey pan!”
Flour and yeast and salt and water mixed
Punched down
Rising living dough
Ovened to a crisp golden brown
For you for me
“Hey pan!”
May you
May all of you taste the quiet beauty
The sustaining peace of this bread
“Hey pan!”
May it nurture you

I receive a shipment from a company based in New Orleans every Thursday.  We always talk Saints football.  We talk about whether Reggie Bush should be traded (No!  Every game in which he has over 100 all-purpose yards, the Saints win.  Just stop thinking of him as a Running Back.), why all the secondary players keep getting hurt, etc.  We talk passionately and I can tell from the surprise in the delivery guys’ eyes that they can’t believe Cajuns are just as passionate about the New Orleans Saints as people on that side of the Atchafalaya Basin are.

Actually, we might have them beat.

This is our latest creation.  It doesn’t have a name —mainly because we don’t want NFL lawyers sending us Cease and Desist letters— but you know why it has those colors just as much as we do.  It put a smile on the delivery crew’s faces when they saw it and we’ll be making it every weekend that New Orleans is in the playoffs!

G. Harvest was a man who experienced more in one month than most men experience in one decade.  His adventures inspire the breads that we make.  Here’s the story behind our Harvest King Cake.

---

On my first trip around the world I took an extended stay in China at the Beijing City Central International Youth Hotel.  It is a mouthful to say and the name is longer than the rooms are wide but the price was low.  China is so different from America and I was determined to stay in Beijing long enough to understand what made these wonderful people tick. 

In order to fund my stay I took a job in a Western bar in the trendy Chao Yang district.  My Chinese coworkers hated me.  They gave me a Chinese name which I later learned was a great insult –“turtle egg” – but because the American owner liked me they had to put up with me.  I cooked, tended bar, washed dishes, and waited tables… often all on the same night.

Things were slow on nights that we didn’t have foreign bands coming in but on the nights that we did have them, I made enough money to cover my hostel bed with just enough left over to go out drinking with the bands after we all got done for the evening.  I heard more EuroPop than I care to ever hear again.  I listened to punk bands from America that sang with fake British accents until the thought of ripping my ears off of my head to stop listening seemed logical.  Occasionally the music was great.  Once, it made me cry.

There was one night, near Chinese New Year, that I showed up for work and saw an accordion and fiddle on stage alongside the usual bass, drums, and guitar.  I expected some kind of Neo-Polish rock band or maybe some Romanian gypsies.  Two hours later I was pouring drinks at the bar when the show started.  The singer said “Bonjour!  We’re Tico Comeaux and the Sheetrock Floaters from Louisiana!”  I stood there as the first song started, a classic Louisiana Two Step, and wept.  It was the first time I’d heard a Cajun accent in months.  Until that moment I didn’t realize how much I missed home.  They played all the songs I’d danced to at wedding receptions and High School parties. 

After the show ended I went back to Tico’s hotel and we passed a good time until the sun came up.  The conversation kept coming back to Mardi Gras, which was only two days away.  Tico’s band was playing at the bar again that night and I decided to do something special for them.  I made a decadent King Cake with cream cheese in the dough, fruit incorporated throughout, and a splash of nutmeg.  The icing was timelessly simple: water, powdered sugar, and vanilla.

When I presented them the King Cake, they held the platter as gently as I’ve seen mothers hold a newborn child.  Every bite we took was savored.  There wasn’t a word spoken in the green room until every slice eaten.  No King Cake has ever tasted that good before and I’m not sure than one ever will again.

---

Our Harvest King Cake is available every day we’re open until Mardi Gras.