Mardi Gras

Happy Fat Tuesday!

Readers here know how fond I am of New Orleans. Each time I've been down there I have enjoyed the rich culture and fun traditions. It is sad to see how much has changed down there, but the spirit certainly remains the same.

I have long celebrated Mardi Gras Chicago style, which of course means fried chicken, red beans and rice, any form of king cake I can get my hands on.

This photo is from my Southern Heritage Celebrations. They have two different menus for MG, though this one features mainly desserts. Look at those wonderful cream puffs died green, yellow and purple.

I usually end up making mini king cakes with my teens, though not this year as I am starting a new teen volunteer group and we had our meeting already. this means taking Cinnamon rolls from a tube, reforming them into circles, baking. Then ice in different MG colors or sprinkle sugars. Hiding the plastic baby is up to you, but I had more than one teen eat so fast they started to chew on this. It's not just my 10 mos. old that has a problem with this, apparently.

A great edgy mystery series set in New Orleans is Julie Smith's Skip Langdon then Baroness Pontalba (She changes to a new protagonist as a sort of spin off, but these are all excellent.) The first is New Orleans Mourning. Pick these up for some local flavor while eating your king cakes.