Posts tagged ‘NOLA’
To Connect People Through Lending To Entrepreneurs Across the Globe
“To Connect People Through Lending to Entrepreneurs Across the Globe” is one of Kiva’s best tag lines. Indeed, “Connecting” is key to Kiva, to microfinance loans and to repayment, especially in this high tech world of Twitter, Facebook, Groupon and the Worldwide Web. All of the Kiva borrowers in New Orleans are online, from the youngest in her twenties to the oldsters in their 60s. A lot have smart phones to check their email and Facebook pages. Unlike the Kiva borrowers in developing nations, there is no need to explain “the internet.” When I meet with a prospective client I walk them through the Kiva website. I go to Kiva.org and explain “crowd sourcing,” i.e. that their loan will actually be funded by around 250 people from different parts the world who want to loan and connect with them after reading their Kiva profile. The response is always positive and many of the borrowers want to make a connection to the lenders. One borrower, Renee, specifically asked me to write all of her lenders a thank you note and a progress report on her loan. The Kiva site is built so that the borrowers cannot directly write to the lenders. This is what I wrote on Renee’s behalf:
Continue Reading 2 February 2012 at 12:26 charlottemakoff Leave a comment
Celebrating the Epiphany in New Orleans
I expected Christmas to be different in New Orleans and I was right. The people of New Orleans celebrate everything with flourish and style and of course Christmas is no different. So what’s so different about Christmas? Well, it’s the King Cake tradition. It involves a special cake, a tiny baby and a party. The tradition of having King Cake Parties has evolved through time, but no one in New Orleans ever remembers a time when there weren’t King Cake parties after Christmas. The tradition started in New Orleans, no doubt, with the French Catholics. It celebrates the twelfth night after Christmas, January 6th, the Day of the epiphany. The Epiphany is the revelation that the baby Jesus Christ is the son of God who was born as a human being.
Originally, King Cakes were a simple ring of pastry dough (brioche to be exact) with a small amount of colored sugar as decoration. Inside the original King Cakes was a tiny porcelain or gold baby, representing Jesus. If a person received a piece of cake with the baby they were declared King for the day. Over time, people were choking or breaking teeth on the baby, so the baby has become a little larger and plastic, and instead of being baked inside, the baby is is inserted into the cake after baking. The top of the cake is then covered with sugar icing in traditional Mardi Gras colors: Green, purple and gold. In recent years, bakeries have been improvising and making different cream cheese flavors and fruit filled King Cakes. There’s one bakery in New Orleans, Antoine’s, that makes up to 3,500 cakes per day running their bakery 24 hours and hiring additional employees, during what they term as King Cake season. .
If you go to a King Cake party and get the piece of cake with the baby, beware! You are not just the King for the day, you are now required to bring the next King Cake to the next party. Because of this tradition, some offices and schools have King Cakes every day until Mardi Gras season ends. I first heard about King Cakes at an office meeting at Kiva’s Community partner, Good Work Network. Since I first heard I have been carefully watching the bakery section at Rouse’s and Winn Dixie. I have also been eyeing the cases at the local bakeries. I couldn’t wait until after Christmas to buy my first piece of King Cake, so I went to Antoine’s on Carrollton where they sell King Cakes all year round. They actually had pieces of King Cake for sale, so I dove in head first.
Okay, it tastes and smells like a really good cinnamon roll. In fact, the whole experience reminded me of the chain restaurant, Cinnabon. Am I wrong? Would someone from N’Awlins disagree with my assessment? I googled cinnamon rolls and King Cake and got a multiplicity of hits all of which indicated that somewhere along the way, the original brioche style King Cakes have morphed into a coffee cake similar to a Cinnamon roll. In fact, some easy recipes suggest using ready made cinnamon roll dough to make a King Cake.
