Books We Love Insider Blog: #Mardi Gras

Showing posts with label #Mardi Gras. Show all posts

Thursday, March 13, 2025

Take Me to the Mardi Gras

Have you ever been to New Orleans for Mardi Gras?

Having just returned from my first, let me recommend it to you.

Here are some things to know:

1. It's not a day, it's a season! Mardi Gras in New Orleans is known as Carnival Season. It begins on Little Christmas--January 6th and lasts until Fat Tuesday...the day before the Easter Lenten Season begins. This date changes every year.

There are events, balls, parties, and parades galore uptown, downtown, the French Quarter and the suburbs of New Orleans. They get bigger and more frequent as the season goes on.

2. King Cake is served throughout...King Cake is a beautiful confection that comes in many forms--sweet and savory. Wow, it's delicious! Everywhere you visit to socialize during the season, bring a King Cake and you'll be most welcome. And yes, there is a baby in it.

King Cake...can you find the baby?

New Orleans food is fantastic. Have you ever had the delightful donut-like confection called beignets? If you go to the African American Museum in Treme you'll find the Calas Cafe, serving beignet's predecessors: calas..made with rice instead of wheat flour and first created by enslaved people on the 17th century streets of New Orleans. It's served with lemon curd.

With Chef Brendon at the Calas Cafe

Calas with lemon curd...yum!

3. Carnival Season is all about Family. You've probably seen some lurid images of Mardi Gras. (and yes, as my daughter tells most of her hotel guests..."nothing good happens after midnight, so get in by then.") But the season is all about family...from float participants making sure all the children get thrown beads and toys, to accomplished high school marching bands and cheering squads, to lesser known krewes (sponsors of parade marches and floats) like Krewe of Barkus ... dog lovers dressing up their pooches (many who need to be adopted by loving folks), and 'Tit Rex with its tiny wagon-pulled floats that imitate the gigantic ones, to the fantastic Black Masking Indians who visit the elderly who are no longer able to stand on parade routes. These wonderful dancers visit their elders on their stoops and porches. They also honor the Native Americans who took in and hid their enslaved ancestors.

Black Masking Indians look fantastic!

4. New Orleanians love the lost art of conversation, consisting of the fine arts of listening and expressing curiosity. So get ready to learn things about people from all over the world during Mardi Gras.

5. Don't forget the music...it is everywhere! From jazz to classical to down-bayou Cajun. What a gumbo of delightful sounds, with places like the New Orleans Jazz Museum offering free concerts at least twice a week. Here's the wonderful Christien Bold and his band scatting some Duke Ellington at an afternoon performance...

Christien Bold and band keep Jazz thriving!

6. EVERYTHING is political! My daughter organizes mini krewes among her friends for Mardi Gras day marching downtown into Jackson Square. This year Ed and I joined in as personifications of our wonderful U.S. National Parks. We thought this non-political, until their funding started being slashed. So we added 500 stamped post cards to pass out to folks who chose to notify our elected representatives that we are NOT pleased with this decision!

Krewe Save Our National Parks

I hope you'll visit the beautiful Big Easy any time, but especially when it's all decked out for Mardi Gras!

Sunday, February 28, 2021

Mardi Gras and Gumbo Ya Ya by Connie Vines

Last month's blog post focused on the art of perfuming. This month I'm focusing on the Cajun experience and giving you a sneak-peek into my next BWL release, Gumbo Ya Ya; an anthology for women who like Cajun romance.

Key points about Cajun Country:

WHAT DOES MARDI GRAS MEAN?

In French, Mardi Gras means Fat Tuesday. (Mardi is the word for Tuesday and Gras is the word for fat.)

This name comes from the tradition of using up the eggs, milk, and fat in ones pantry because they were forbidden during the 40-day Lenten fast, which begins the next day (Ash Wednesday) and ends on Holy Thursday (three days before Easter Sunday).

Therefore, a big part of Shrove Tuesday is eating an abundance of delicious fried food—especially donuts and Shrove Tuesday Pancakes! YUM.

In England, where the day is also known as Pancake Tuesday, festivities include flapjack-related activities.

WHAT DOES GUMBO YA YA MEAN?

everybody talks at once

It means “everybody talks at once, which, if you've been to any meeting, political, social, PTA or otherwise [in New Orleans], you know what gumbo ya ya means.”

Mardi Gras was celebrated in New Orleans soon after the city’s founding in 1718. The first recorded Mardi Gras street parade in New Orleans took place in 1837. Now a major metropolis, New Orleans is the city most known for its extravagant celebrations with parades, dazzling floats, masked balls, cakes, and drink.

American Cajuns: Cajun, descendant of Roman Catholic French Canadians whom the British, in the 18th century, drove from the captured French colony of Acadia (now Nova Scotia and adjacent areas) and who settled in the fertile bayou lands of southern Louisiana. The Cajuns today form small, compact, generally self-contained communities.

And now, to the good part!

Five Reasons to Marry a Cajun Man (Just ask one):

1. CAJUN MEN COOK

Don't like spending all of your time in the kitchen working over a hot stove? Don't worry your pretty little face about it, chèr. Cooking for you is exactly what we want to do. As a matter of fact, it's what we think about doing when we wake up. Not only do we want to do the cooking, but we do it well. We get it from our mom. Oh, and we even come complete with our own cookware.

2. CAJUN MEN DANCE

Do you always find yourself wishing your man would dance with you? Well, if you land yourself a Cajun, you'd better get your dancing shoes dusted off. We love to dance, and it doesn't matter where or who's watching. Wedding reception, night club, grocery store...it doesn't matter to us. We even have our own unique way of doing it. If we really like you, we'll teach you.

3. CAJUN MEN ARE HANDY

When you marry a Cajun man, you can forget about having to make a "Honey Do List". If something needs fixing, we got that. I mean, like before you even notice something needs fixing we've already noticed it and are on our way with our tools to take care it. We even figure out how to fix things we have no business trying to fix. Cajun men are extremely resourceful that way. The only problem here is, we'll also fix our neighbor's porch, our buddy's trolling motor, our cousin's shrimp nets, our Parrain's blender and so on...You'll have to tell us to stop and come home.

4. CAJUN MEN HAVE A GOOD TIME

You won't find a Cajun man moping around complaining about things. It's not that we aren't serious, we just don't see the need to let things drag us down. We're extremely resilient in pretty much every way. Cajuns don't wait for other people to fix our problems, whatever they may be. We figure it out, put some dirt on it and move on. Why would we want to be all mopey and boude when there's cold beer to be had?

5. CAJUN MEN LOVE THEIR MAMA

People say that if you want to know how a man is going to treat you, watch how they treat their Mother. Well, inside of 5 minutes of seeing us around our moms, you'll want to run off to Vegas on a red eye flight to get hitched immediately. Our worlds revolve around our mothers and will revolve around you as well. We're mama's boys and damn proud of it. She's the woman who gave us life and taught us how to make a roux, and we'll always be eternally grateful for this and so much more. The same rules also apply to our grandmother. Also, be warned, your own mother may like us more than you.

Here are a few Cajun words and sayings you may hear when visiting Louisiana.

Cher [sha]: A term of endearment usually used with women, similar to ‘dear’ or ‘sweetheart.’ “Would you like another cup of coffee, chèr?”

Cocodril (ko-ko-dree): Alligator/gator.

Envie [ah(n)-vee] A longing or hunger to do or eat something. Other Southerners might use the word ‘hankering’ where a Cajun would use ‘envie.’ “I’ve got an envie for some boudin.”

Fais do-do [fay doe-doe]: A Cajun dance party. (Also, an expression adults use when they want children to go to sleep.) “Will we see you at the fais do do?”

Laissez les bons temps rouler [Lay say lay boh(n) toh(n) roo lay]: Let the good times roll. With more than 400 festivals each year, this saying embraces the fun-loving nature of Louisiana.