Stepping into a casino before noon comes with a particular kind of guilt, like staring into the blue light of a phone screen the moment you wake up. But on a recent Wednesday morning, it was necessary.
We had driven the coastal stretch from New Orleans to downtown Gulfport, Mississippi, where Loblolly Bakery, a Hattiesburg institution, was hosting a king cake pop-up at 10:30 a.m. The bakery’s cakes — wreaths of pillowy bread topped with buttercream icing — have become a Carnival staple across the Gulf Coast. The long line snaking toward a table stacked with 75 king cake boxes made that clear. Within 25 minutes, only 15 remained.
As one box after another disappeared into the arms of smiling customers, we were redirected east to the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Biloxi, where another delivery of Loblolly’s king cakes was en route…