Mardi Gras King Cakes. Exploring some rare favorites this Carnival season!

Jan 24, 2017

A tasty tradition ever-growing in Louisiana.

As the weather weaves from cold to warm, sun to rain, a burst of wind among the stillness of the crescent city, tourist begin to arrive and pack the streets of the quarter. The cake shops pick up business. Purple, green and yellow lights illuminate houses all over the city, and we begin to choose our parades and mardi gras parties. Carnival time in Louisiana is right around the corner.

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The first installment of my Mardi Gras articles will focus on one involving the sweet tooth, a tradition every year, king Cakes.

" King Cakes are a vibrant part of the Mardi Gras tradition in New Orleans. As part of New Orleans's Christian faith, the coming of the wise men bearing gifts to the Christ Child is celebrated twelve days after Christmas. We refer to this as the Feast of the Epiphany, or Little Christmas on the Twelfth Night. "

http://www.mardigrasneworleans.com/kingcakes.html

The king cake has its roots in medieval France and Spain. In colonial Louisiana, Creoles celebrated this time of year with the bal du roi (king's ball), where they served a fancy cake with a bean placed inside. The person who found the bean in his or her piece of cake became the king or queen of the next ball, creating a series of balls that would culminate with the final grand event on Mardi Gras evening. Today the bean is replaced with a plastic baby.

Trying to pinpoint the best or most unique king cake is an impossible feat, as taste and memories are specific to each individual, ask five people and you will most certainly get five different answers. Here are a few local favorites as well as some king cakes that I indulge in yearly.

Where to Find Them

Randazzos: is  a New Orleans staple for King Cakes, shipping out tons of their unique and delicious cakes nationwide. Since 1965 they have been one of the most sought after cakes.

Ambrosia Bakery: located in Baton Rouge, this bakery offers a unique and coconut flavored delight, The Zulu King Cake. Inspired by the Mardi Gras Krewe the Zulu Social Aid & Pleasure Club, this king cake is sure to be a hit at any party.

La Louisiane Bakery: a delivery company only as of yet, provide the very best traditional brioche or cinnamon, plain or filled king cakes.

Cake Cafe:  located on Chartres street , aside from traditional king cakes, here is some exclusive choices. Signature Apple Goat cheese. Raspberry Cream Cheese and Pecan Cream Cheese.

And don't forget the Oschner 2017 King Cake Festival. Jan. 29th at the Mercadez Benz Superdome. Admission is free. Bon a petit' and I'll see you all very soon. Let the Mardi Gras Indians Music start off our 2017 Carnival.

  

Interview with the creator of Channel Zero: Candle Cove

It was a lonely fall night looking for new and frightening content on the television, alas to no avail and about to resort to some horror classics, my on demand channel sprung up with the caption " recommended for you", and for the first time ever, I witnessed the Syfy channel original TV show poster for Channel Zero: Candle Cove. My reaction, like many, was that of curiosity, puzzlement and sense of darkness. Depicting the image of the tooth child full center, this looked like something mysterious and terrifying that I needed to check out. I was luck enough to jump on the pirate ship episode 1 and veer into the dreaded bravery cave with all my fears brought to cinematic life. Season 2 of Channel Zero titled: No End House, will debut this year, to no doubt deliver a spine- chilling dose of nightmare euphoric insanity. Season 1 is available for streaming on most cable networks, and syfy.com, please watch and enjoy. I recently sat down with show creator Nick Antosca to talk about the creation of candle cove, the creepypasta lore, actors, set and more.

The interview is as follows.. turn down the lights, and venture with me to the dreaded seas of Candle Cove.

First off I want to thank you for taking the time to answer some of my questions, I am a huge fan of the show, this is without a doubt my favorite TV show ever next to the original Twilight Zone and Twin Peaks. I spread the word of your work any chance I get, i hope there will be some cool merchandise coming out soon so I can rep this brilliant series even further.

RM: This is some brilliant work and it is my mission to let the people know just how amazing this project is. Being a writer myself, i am drawn to this beautiful dark majestic nightmare art.The cast in this series is simply amazing. Every performance is done pure, raw, and on point to fit the tone of the scripts. With leading role played by Paul Schneider, and not to mention the fantastic and erie performance given by Marina Stephenson Kerr as Mrs. Booth, how involved were you in the casting process and did you get to work with the cast to relay any tones or specific emotions that you wanted to see in the show? Was any improv captured by the actors that really captured the feel of the episodes that was used in the final cut?

NA: We were fortunate with our cast. Paul and Fiona just responded to the script, and I've loved Paul's work since I saw Assassination of Jesse James. They were both such a pleasure to work with and they did get involved in creating their characters. They're super meticulous and prepared and full of ideas, and they always brought something extra to the characters. They would suggest lines that often ended up onscreen.

And we were able to find great local cast in Winnipeg like Marina and Abbie Pniowsky and Luca Villacis. The show depended so heavily on them -- we would've been totally screwed without them. Marina Stephenson Kerr was the very first audition I saw for any role. I was amazed because I was more worried about casting that role than any other. I didn't think we'd be able to find someone that good locally. But she just came in and blew us away.

I was involved in every step of casting, as was Craig. Frankly it was one of the most challenging parts of process, because you enter a kind of labyrinthine bureaucracy where you're suddenly dealing with all these departments and executives who aren't

involved in any other aspect of your show and don't necessarily understand the characters or the style of the show. And sometimes they try to cast your strange art horror show like it's a blue sky USA show from 2005. But ultimately Syfy was very supportive and let us do things like cast Luca to play both twins.

RM: Speaking on the cast once more, I can not believe how talented the kids were in this series, I have not seen such outstanding performances from younger children in horror in many years. Abigail Pniowsky deserves a award for her performance, how did you end up finding her for the role, and will she as well as any of the other cast members be returning for season 2?

NA: Abbie does appear briefly in season 2, playing the young version of our main character played by Amy Forsyth. She's a local Winnipeg kid who auditioned, but she's already on her way to bigger things. She's in Arrival playing Amy Adams's daughter, and she's got a bunch of other cool stuff coming up. A few other local actors will reappear in season 2, but it's mostly a whole new cast.
RM: The sets in this show are another ingredient that I feel adds to the tone, and scares, the cinematography and colors really bring you into this world of Candle Cove that you have created. What studios was the sets designed on? and how much input did you have with how these sets would look on set? And how amazing was that skin taker room aka the bacon room? was there any spooky incidents that happened on these sets that frightened the cast and crew?
NA: Ha, the bacon church. Yeah, we didn't have a lot of money for sets and production design, so we had to plan. Our production designer Elisabeth Williams and art director Rejean Labrie deserve the credit for that -- as well as Robb Mills and his team, who designed the Candle Cove puppet worlds and sets. Craig and Noah and Elisabeth came up with a color palette for the show to make everything cohere. The look was something that Craig and I spent months talking about and planning.The thing that freaked people out on set was Olivier de Sagazan. If you see the puppets or Tooth Child on set in real life, they look charming and silly. It's only on camera and in editing that they look scary. But Olivier with his clay nightmare makeup on always looks disturbing. And the night he set himself on fire was genuinely tense and awe-inspiring. There's no CGI or camera tricks there, he's really setting his head on fire and he's a few inches away from Paul and it's one take.RM: As the series and mystery progresses, I felt there was a sort of puzzle involved within the story and cut scenes, almost reminded me of a hitchcock or David Lynch type of story telling, both of those directors / writers I adore, can you share some of your influences writing and visually for candle cove, and as a writer in general?
NA: Peter Straub, Thomas Ligotti, Shirley Jackson, Brian Evenson, Stephen King -- all of these writers influenced me. And for sure David Lynch.
RM: Is there any additional puppet footage that was shot for the Candle Cove television scenes? I did see a short puppet scene on bloodydisgusting.com, but was there anything additional that was not used that we as fans might see in the future? It must have been a interesting experiencing writing for those shots based on the creepypasta stories, and figuring out how to adapt those to actual puppetry scenes and fleshed out characters.
NA: We spent a day shooting footage, so there is definitely some that's on the cutting room floor and the Avid bins. Maybe it'll show up on a Blu ray? There isn't a lot, though

-- we mostly shot what we knew we needed.

Adapting the puppet show was exciting. We tried to stick close to Kris Straub's description from the story.RM: Are you a fan of the creepypasta Candle Cove?, who chose candle cove to be the story for the first season of Channel Zero, and was it important to stick to the lore as much as possible while adapting this to a full six episode series?
NA: I'm a huge fan of Kris's story. Max Landis had optioned the story, and I was approached to see if I could figure out how to adapt it for TV. It's sort of impossible to stick exclusively to the short story if you're turning it into multiple episodes just because of the nature of the story. So I had to expand it and build out the world. It's not meant to be Candle Cove "canon." It's large-scale fanfiction -- like Hannibal the show was a kind of Thomas Harris fanfiction. I wanted to stay true to the tone and mood of Kris's story while being inspired by it to bring new elements and create fleshed out characters.
RM: Can we look forward to a Channel Zero: Candle Cove DVD and Blu-ray? Do you know if it will feature deleted scenes, extra content etc.?
NA: I certainly hope so.
RM: How long did it take to create the tooth child? I heard from a previous interview this character was played by a 19 year old, do you know if the costume was easy to remove between scenes?
NA: I am not sure where the outdoors scenes were filmed, but I could imagine the actor may have got hot in that suit.The suit is not comfortable. Cassandra Consiglio, the actress, could wear the body for an hour or two, but could only wear the head for about twenty minutes at a time. It's pretty claustrophobic and constricting, and basically leaves you blind. The suit took months to make!RM: Did the creepypasta author for Candle CoveKris Straub have any creative input for the televised adaptation?
NA: I sent Kris the pilot to get his approval before we moved forward. He wasn't too involved during the process but I stayed in touch with him. I invited him to visit the writers room but he doesn't live in LA and never came. He's a mysterious figure to me -- I've never met him in person!
RM: Did producer Max Landis get involved in the writing ? Will you or Max Return for Season 2: No End House?
NA: Max has been pretty busy producing his movie Bright and running his show Dirk Gently, so he wasn't involved in the writing or production. I haven't seen him in almost a year. Steven Piet (our season two director) and I spent most of the fall in Winnipeg shooting No-End House and we're literally sitting in the editing room at this moment working on it. Candle Cove and No-End House were written at the same time and produced back to back so I was doing both at once.
RM: In season 2, and I am not sure how much you can or want to reveal this early in the beginning stages, but will there be 6 episodes in the next season also, ? The preview for No End House stated there will be 6 rooms, I thought perhaps it was made to be 6 instead of the original 9 in the story due to the series being 6 episodes.
NA: Yes, it's also six episodes. There are six rooms in the No-End House of our story just because going through nine rooms onscreen would start to seem repetitive. It's not one room per episode though. It's more about exploring what happens when you think

you've left the house but start to suspect that the world around you is no longer the same.
RM: After completing the series ( spoiler alert) It struck me as a tale of parenting and the influence it has on children, specifically the tale of two mothers made to make a choice, one sacrificing one for their own purpose. Mrs. Booths purpose was to give her son to grow eddies powers that in her mind gave her purpose and was in fact helping everyone as opposed to assisting in horrible murders. And miss Pier suffocates Mike as he requested which in turn she sacrificed her son to prevent the evil and that would be her and mikes purpose.I could be totally off the wall in this theory, but I would be curious to hear what your thoughts on the overall ark and ending of the show was.NA: Yes, absolutely -- there is very much a mother versus mother story in Candle Cove and the character of Mrs. Booth is a nightmare version of a "good mother" in contrast to Marla Painter's flawed, damaged, complicated mother figure. In a way Marla's story is about how she has a chance to redeem herself as a mother by saving her son, which ironically means doing the hardest thing a parent could do.
RM: Any additional projects you would like to plug?
NA: I'm pretty focused on Channel Zero: No-End House right now! Look out for it in 2017.
RM: Thank you again sir, its a honor and the highlight of my writing career to speak with you, I can not wait to see what projects you have in the future, and I appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions and for doing this interview.
NA: Thank you, I appreciate it!
RM: Thank you.Sincerely,

Ryan McKern ⚜

Please check out Channel Zero: No End House on the syfy network in 2017, stream season 1 on sufy.com and follow nick on Twitter @Nickantosca.Happy Haunts 

Smothered Pork Chops & Spicy Andouille Sausage feat. Louisians Hot Sauce

Cajun Spicey Meal for your Holidays

Mckern's spicy smothered pork chops with Louisiana Hot Sauce

Bonjour en bienevue to Kernal's Kitchen. Today I have a spicy Cajun style hearty meal to bring joy and love to this Winter Solstice, as always, please share this recipe online with those you feel would like a little heat in their cuisine this holiday season.

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Merci beacoup.

Serves 4 - 8

PREP 20 min

COOK 1 hr 40 min

Ingredients:

• 8 thinly cut (about 1/2-inch thick) pork chops, about 3 pounds

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• 2 tablespoons cajun seasoning

• 1/2 cup olive oil

• 1 cup tablespoons all-purpose flour

• 4 cups thinly sliced onions

• 1/2 teaspoon celery salt

• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

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• 1 tablespoon chopped garlic

• 3 bay leaves

• 1/2 teaspoons salt

• 2 teaspoons basil

• 2 tablespoons worcestire sauce

• 2 cups chicken broth

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• 1 1/2 cups water


• 1 tablespoons louisiana hot sauce

• 1 pound andouille, or Chorizo cut into 1-inch slices.

• 1 pound russet potatoes, peeled, and cut into medium sized cubes. 

• Season both sides of pork chops with cajun seasoning . And 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 2 teaspoons of basil. Add worcestire sauce. 


• Heat the oil in a large pot over high heat. Add the chops and lightly brown, about 2 minutes per side. Remove the pork chops and transfer to a platter. Set aside.


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• Reduce the heat to medium. Add the flour and stir constantly to produce a roux. about 4 minutes. Add onions, salt, pepper, Louisiana hot sauce and Cook, stirring, about 5 minutes. Next Add the garlic, bay leaves, chicken broth, and water. Bring to a boil. Add the pork chops to the pot. Reduce the heat to medium and cover, simmering for 45 minutes. Next add the sausage and the potatoes. Bring to a boil. reduce heat to medium once the pot is boiling, leave cover off and periodically stir for 30 minutes.


• Remove and enjoy a New Orleans style classic dinner or lunch meal with those you love. I enjoy mac n' cheese, and dirty rice for sides. Bon Appetit', happy holidays to you all and a blessed new year. Au Revior. 


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Ryan McKern

Writer, Musician, Photographer, Podcaster, Chef. All things Southern Louisiana.

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Night: sleepwalking Journal, ARG Webseries

The shock will leave you speechless.

Bonjour, and welcome my dear friends.

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Today we are going to begin this week with a new segment in my works here at Odyssey. 

Aside from culinary art, poetry and music, another beloved art form of mine is horror and ARG (alternate reality gaming) web series. 

Arg's, used in mediums such as YouTube, reddit, Discord, tumblir, and various blogs and online platforms, might have first started widespread online with the Slenderman stories and photos, first posted on something awful, spawning beautiful independent content shows such as: Marble Hornets, Tribe Twelve, EverymanHYBRID, Keratin Garden, My Dark Journal, The November Project, Darkharvest00 , A whispered Faith, Stan Frederick, tja projects, Caughtnotsleeping, and many many more. 

The ARG platform provides a interactive experience between the content creators and the viewing audience, as they periodically post short video clips and puzzles, clues, binary, and other forms of visual mystery for the viewer to solve, which can help the protagonists in the show (or in some instants, the antagonist or proxies) and can determine which way the future episodes will veer and conclude.

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I might do a more thorough review of the origin and culture of ARG history in the future, but for now let's turn down the lights, embrace our nightmares, and focus on the content at hand.

Night: Sleepwalking Journal. A YouTube web series arg created by film maker/creator and writer, Andrew Muto.

Andrew Muto is a writer, actor, director and much more for many outlets and genres, including Comedy Central, and his short horror film "Blood Runs Black" is by far in my top five films.

Night: Sleepwalking Journal begins with our character Mark Miller who we can gather from the first few uploads is having troubles with sleep walking. A ominous glowing red lite sideways shot opens the scene of episode 1, a woman is asleep head down besides the camera. A rustling light sound of a blanket and head movement follows as we now see from a 1st person video view and the ceiling above. Another soft rustle and movement gives us a view of the bedroom, its dark, with only the red light, just barely giving us a illuminated perspective to show a haunting reflection is seen as the door is wide open leading to pitch black hysteria. A clue can be gathered now that this camera is attached to Mark and activates when movement begins, thus to documenting his activity when this sleepwalking occurs. Eerie silence fills as we watch step by step, he walks through his house.

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Pitch black with only the small red light ahead, we see stairs, a baby's crib and the red glow of a sleeping child, the unsettling nature of this is that we have no idea what is going on. Why is he having these very sleepwalking occurrences, is he liable to hurt himself on the long dark staircase, or even more alarming, is this a illness or possession which will cause harm to his family?

For myself, dark houses, roaming into the frightening unknown. 

This is the perfect set up for a multitude of mysterious and on edge results, leaving our own psychosis to build the fears ahead. Amplifying each audio small creek and tv static projection sound to its full frightening potential.

This is not the document of a regular sleep study. As each episode progresses, you can see something is wrong with our main character and something not right is going on in this house.

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I will not spoil any of this story, its a remarkable journey, and is free on YouTube. The writing, acting and cinematography is to good to leak the first reveal, the exciting thing is...the series is still going! Some episodes are but only a few minutes, so take a night to grab some popcorn and experience twists and shocks that will delight and slither into your worst nightmares.

Even as we speak his new series, Kill The Devil, is being filmed.

I love seeing independent artists doing such great work like this. I want to make more articles covering brilliant content like this in the future, because with allot of main stream releases trying to do their best to satisfy horror / sci-fi / paranormal fans, the independent ARG community is really delivering. And the beautiful thing about Night: Sleepwalking Journal, is you do not have to feel intimidated to join the game, solve puzzles, codes etc. the show itself works on its own and its a fun experience for any viewer looking to get immersed into this tapestry of psychological insanity.

Please follow the links below for viewing, Thank you all for reading and.....happy haunts. 

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Night: Sleepwalking Journal

@andrewmuto

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Ryan McKern

Writer, Musician, Photographer, Podcaster, Chef. All things Southern Louisiana.

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