Happy Fat Tuesday, Y'all!

It's Fat Tuesday! And though Memphis is a few hours north of New Orleans, Memphians are party people. And we'll steal anyone's holiday for an excuse to indulge in revelry.

I'm not a practicing Catholic these days. But I was Catholic for a minute in high school. Went through confirmation classes and all that. And I always loved the idea of giving something up for Lent and, even better, the idea of going all out one last time before the Lenten season. And what better way to go out one last time than with sugar? Am I right?

I always make a vegan King Cake to take to the office so my co-workers can indulge with me.

For years, I've been using the same basic recipe by my darling vegan bud Kittee Berns, Cake Maker to the Stars. I use a tester recipe she emailed me, but you can find a very similar king cake recipe of Kittee's here.

Although the cake part is always the same, I go for different fruit fillings each year. Lately, I've been a fan of fruity pie fillings mixed with vegan cream cheese. This year, I used a Tart Cherry & White Peach fruit filling and Tofutti Cream Cheese sweetened with a little powdered sugar. Here's my slice, which made for a fine "second breakfast" at my desk.

A king cake isn't a king cake without a plastic baby! Whoever finds the baby has good luck for the year (and they have to bring the cake next year, but I won't hold them to it). My co-worker Toby was covering Memphis City Council today, so he emailed me to save him a slice. I cut a slice and sat it on his desk, and look what was sticking out! It's the baby!

Of course, I didn't tell him, and he almost choked on it. :-)

Fat Tuesday isn't over yet though! Paul and I plan to stop by the Bayou Bar & Grill (our fave New Orleans-themed bar) for a couple of Abitas and music by the Mighty Souls Brass Band.