What Makes A Happy Mardi Gras
Happy Mardi Gras!
It seems we’ve just finished planning and shopping and cooking and giving for Valentine’s Day and now another big food day descends upon us, that of Mardi Gras!
Many people associate Mardi Gras with New Orleans Jazz bands, parade krewes, and overall hedonistic behavior. I’d say that’s about right.
Shrove Tuesday, Pancake Tuesday, Fat Tuesday, (or in French, it’s Mardi Gras), and Carnival. Whatever one calls it, it adds up to a day, for some, of pure debauchery. For most, it’s a day marked by parades, costumes, gatherings, dancing, and lots of feasting. (Coming from someone who while in college experienced Canal and Bourbon Streets and the French Quarter during this celebration that could be putting it mildly.)
It’s the day before the solidarity act of “giving up” as on Ash Wednesday the 40-day season of Lent begins. Christians, historically Catholic Christians, will attend Ash Wednesday …show more content…
They appreciate having a season to look inward, build new habits, simplify, and give more generously to others. And yet today, we mark our plans on how to spend our last day, Shrove Tuesday, before Ash Wednesday which is a day marked by fasting and launches the solemn period of Lent toward the most symbolic day in a Christian’s journey of faith, Easter. My current plan for today is to attend Southside Grille and Smokehouse in Landrum. I could don a mask of sequins and feathers, along with a dazzling black evening gown, and head off to Sarah McClure’s Mardi Gras Party designed to take us to the Bayou and laissez les bons temps rouler. There I will have a little of everything I’ll be swearing off for the next six weeks. Since we will also fast from meat on Fridays during Lent and focus on simpler meals and fewer nights out, I plan to indulge on Southside’s Cajun-creole buffet line of jambalaya and etouffee, king cakes and beignets, washing them down with a Sazerac or
It seems we’ve just finished planning and shopping and cooking and giving for Valentine’s Day and now another big food day descends upon us, that of Mardi Gras!
Many people associate Mardi Gras with New Orleans Jazz bands, parade krewes, and overall hedonistic behavior. I’d say that’s about right.
Shrove Tuesday, Pancake Tuesday, Fat Tuesday, (or in French, it’s Mardi Gras), and Carnival. Whatever one calls it, it adds up to a day, for some, of pure debauchery. For most, it’s a day marked by parades, costumes, gatherings, dancing, and lots of feasting. (Coming from someone who while in college experienced Canal and Bourbon Streets and the French Quarter during this celebration that could be putting it mildly.)
It’s the day before the solidarity act of “giving up” as on Ash Wednesday the 40-day season of Lent begins. Christians, historically Catholic Christians, will attend Ash Wednesday …show more content…
They appreciate having a season to look inward, build new habits, simplify, and give more generously to others. And yet today, we mark our plans on how to spend our last day, Shrove Tuesday, before Ash Wednesday which is a day marked by fasting and launches the solemn period of Lent toward the most symbolic day in a Christian’s journey of faith, Easter. My current plan for today is to attend Southside Grille and Smokehouse in Landrum. I could don a mask of sequins and feathers, along with a dazzling black evening gown, and head off to Sarah McClure’s Mardi Gras Party designed to take us to the Bayou and laissez les bons temps rouler. There I will have a little of everything I’ll be swearing off for the next six weeks. Since we will also fast from meat on Fridays during Lent and focus on simpler meals and fewer nights out, I plan to indulge on Southside’s Cajun-creole buffet line of jambalaya and etouffee, king cakes and beignets, washing them down with a Sazerac or