domingo, febrero 9

Outside of New Orleans, the King Cake Drive-Thru has you covered for Mardi Gras

A tire store parking lot has become a popular destination for those in the mood for a treat. The only problem: which variety to choose?

Reporting from Metairie, Louisiana, and the kitchen of Joyce’s Sweets in Ponchatoula, where he enjoyed a freshly baked praline-filled cake.

Of course, Mardi Gras is synonymous with limitless festivities: the weeks of balls and parades that flood the streets of New Orleans with beads. But beyond all that, it is also a period of metamorphosis.

A winter Tuesday transforms from the most mundane day into a festival of frivolity and vice. People shed the cocoons of their usual lives and emerge covered in feathers and glitter.

And this year, just outside New Orleans, a tire store that for as long as anyone can remember sold only auto parts has become a bustling market selling king cakes, the delicacy of the Carnival season, in just about every flavor imaginable.

All you have to do is get in the car.

“Do you have any idea what you want?” » asked Tiffany Langlinais of a customer who stopped by on a Friday afternoon.

It’s a daunting question at the King Cake Drive-Thru. Flaky or soft? Filled with cream cheese? What about strawberries, ice cream and even crawfish – or nothing more than the traditional plastic baby? Cakes from more than a dozen bakeries are offered.

Others have had the idea of ​​selling king cakes from various local bakeries, all in one location, like King Cake Hub in New Orleans’ Mid-City neighborhood. But the innovation of King Cake Drive-Thru, which Ms. Langlinais opened in January with her fiancé, Mike Graves, is the added convenience of accessing this multitude of options without even having to get out of the car.

The drive-thru has attracted nurses heading to the hospital in the morning, parents with cars full of children, traveling tourists, and people with limited mobility or compromised immune systems that prevent them from easily visiting in bakeries. Even the food editor of the city’s main newspaper, The Times-Picayune, has been there.

“I’m surprised no one thought of this before you, Mike,” David Scripter said to Mr. Graves as he dropped off an order for dozens of cakes at Bittersweet Confections, a bakery started by his wife.

“Sometimes,” Mr. Graves said, “the best ideas are right in front of you.” »

The drive-thru, which occupies the Duckworth Tires parking lot in suburban Metairie three days a week, often has a line of cars waiting when it opens at 7 a.m. and has sold out of its inventory well before its 7 p.m. closing time indicated.

King cakes have always been a staple of Carnival season on the Gulf Coast, a crowning pastry served in a burst of indulgence and good times before the austerity and fish fries of Lent. (King cake season begins on January 6 – known as Twelfth Night, Epiphany or Three Kings Day – and ends with Mardi Gras, or February 13 this year.)

A king cake, in what many consider its purest form, is a ring of brioche dough with a sprinkle of vanilla, a crunchy layer of purple, green and gold sugar and a small trinket known as a bean – usually a plastic baby – cooked inside.

«It’s almost blasphemous to put cream cheese in it,» Pam Carr said the other day as she placed an order a staunch traditionalist would never make: a pair of chocolate cream cheesecakes to share with colleagues in a warehouse store. “These are the ones I love!”

King cakes are another front in a familiar division in New Orleans. There are those who believe that adhering to tradition means refusing to deviate from the way things have always been done, and those who argue that experimentation and interpretation are not an insult to the past, but a tribute.

“Anyone can put anything in a king cake now,” Bridgett Saylor Meinke said as she surveyed the drive-thru selection.

She grew up with old-fashioned king cake, but was cautiously open to trying new varieties, like Brennan’s Banana Foster («Absolutely delicious,» was her opinion) and Joe’s Cafe Strawberry Cream Cheese.

“That’s the one I’m looking for today,” she said.

The drive-thru menu varies from week to week, written on a whiteboard by Ms. Langlinais. The couple buys the cakes from bakeries at wholesale prices and resells them at a markup, with prices ranging from $17 to about $50 per cake. (They also come in a range of sizes.)

On a recent weekend, there were plenty of traditional options, as well as Bavarian cream from Caluda’s, almond cake from District Donuts, boudin or crawfish varieties from Clesi’s Seafood, and lemon and lemon cakes. vanilla from Paw Paw’s Donuts.

The Vietnamese coffee-filled one from Dough Nguyener’s Bakery sold out quickly, as did Tartine’s cinnamon cream cheese option.

Ms. Langlinais wanted to attract customers with their favorite offerings from well-known places, but also push them toward cakes they may not be familiar with. Those from Joyce’s Sweets, a bakery in Ponchatoula, located almost an hour’s drive away, are a perfect example.

Joyce Galmon is known for her pralines, but she has been making king cakes for 25 years, filling them with a filling made from broken pralines that she couldn’t sell.

“Miss Joyce doesn’t have social media,” Ms. Langlinais said. “You can only call him. She does not have a website.

In years past, Ms. Galmon sold up to 90 cakes per season. With the King Cake Drive-Thru, she sold more than that in a single weekend.

Its process is labor-intensive: it involves unmolding the dough, foaming the praline filling, then letting the cakes sit and rise for several hours. The result: a gooey, crunchy eruption of cinnamon and sugar.

“It put me on guard,” Ms. Galmon said after delivering a new batch to the tire yard. “It was a hobby for me, but they made it bigger.”

For all the excitement about the drive, it’s a simple operation. From the street, it almost looks like a Covid testing site.

“No frills, as you can see,” Ms. Langlinais said, “with our tent, our tables and Mike’s van. » She was referring to a tattered but reliable 2007 Kia Sedona, missing its center seat.

Jimmy Duckworth, the owner of Duckworth Tires, offered them a pretty good rent: one king cake per week. Last week he had his favorite, cinnamon cream cheese from Tartine.

“I’ve been very lucky in life,” he said. “Give them a break, why not?” »

He nodded to Mr. Graves, who was busy helping customers.

“Look at him,” said Mr. Duckworth. “He’s very happy.”

A few years ago, Mr. Graves, 35, was a lawyer in Manhattan and worked in the financial industry. Then he moved to New Orleans and started a fancy ice cream company called Bof Bars. He had no ties to New Orleans — he grew up in Chicago — but now he can’t imagine leaving. He and Ms. Langlinais plan to get married in March.

Ms. Langlinais, who also owns a marketing company, grew up in a shrimp fishing family in Biloxi, Miss., immersed in the elaborate world of Mardi Gras.

She has become something of a king cake connoisseur. She has tried more than 100 varieties. She keeps a spreadsheet with detailed notes. («I enjoyed the light fill but would like x3 for me to be truly happy,» she wrote of one encounter.)

“I know it’s not a very fancy operation,” said Ms. Langlinais, 33, “but we want it to feel like us.”

There have been setbacks. One day last month, Mr Graves woke up at 3am to find someone had smashed a window of the minivan and stolen 100 cakes.

The whole endeavor has been exhausting: the excruciatingly early mornings scrambling to collect cakes from bakeries or meeting points in random parking lots. The 12-hour days of standing at the drive-in. And there have been urgent calls and texts outside of business hours.

“My child didn’t tell me she had the baby!” » said a friend desperate for a last-minute cake. (According to tradition, whoever finds the baby is responsible for providing the next cake.)

The drive-thru is usually open Friday through Sunday, but customers have asked if the couple will sell cakes on Mardi Gras.

No chance.

Duckworth Tires will once again be a tire store.

“I’m going to party,” Mr. Graves said.