What you see above is the remains of a maple bacon king cake, a speciality of the Baton Rouge bakery Tiger Deauxnuts. These things have become legendary among Baton Rouge foodies since the shop opened a couple of years ago. I had never tasted one before this morning. As I’m on a low-carb diet, I only had one (okay, two), small bites.

It nearly knocked me flat! I will be thinking about that taste all week. It’s king cake season in south Louisiana, which means, in our variation of the Epiphany tradition, we eat these cakes until Mardi Gras. You can get them in various flavors, but I’m a king cake purist, and prefer traditional. But this maple bacon variation is something exalted, and exalting. I don’t know if Tiger Deauxnuts ships these things, but if they do, YOU HAVE TO HAVE ONE! Follow the link to their Facebook page, and give it a shot. It may actually be a crime to sell pastries this rich and delicious and bacony.

If you’re unlucky, the New Orleans Pelicans basketball team will have King Cake Baby, it’s terrifying mascot, deliver it to your door. This is a thing:

When KCB shows up at your house in an @Uber_NOLA with a special delivery! #PelicansKCB pic.twitter.com/yCeJBUxn17

— New Orleans Pelicans (@PelicansNBA) January 6, 2017

Hey, I have a ton of VFYTs from the past two weeks to put up. I apologize for being a slacker. I’m on it…