Austin 360
Dorothy Garbe sat in her South Austin home in 2019 watching the New Orleans Mardi Gras parade online with her toddler, thinking of all of her friends and family who were joyfully caught up in the annual celebration. The Fear of Missing Out on her favorite time of the year took over.
She jumped online; found the algorithm mystically working in her favor; bought an airline ticket for the price of a decent bottle of wine; and within a few hours, she was standing alongside the parade route that she’d just been watching from 500 miles away.
A native of Mobile, Alabama, the birthplace of Mardi Gras in the United States, Garbe in years past has celebrated Mardi Gras in New Orleans with her family, who’ve operated a restaurant in the French Quarter for nearly 200 years.
Mardi Gras parades were cancelled in New Orleans for the first time in more than 40 years.
But New Orleans residents have found a creative solution: turn their houses themselves into floats.
The drive to create “house floats” is supporting a community of local artists who lost their jobs.
Mardi Gras looks different for New Orleans residents this year.
Back in November, Mayor LaToya Cantrell announced the cancellation of festivities. The city made a point to note that while Mardi Gras itself can’t be cancelled, the city won’t be able to “celebrate the holiday this year as we have in the past.”
My goodness, this year, even with all its continued craziness, seems to be just flying by.
I cannot believe it s already time for Fat Tuesday, the centuries-old tradition of living-it-up large on the last day before Lent begins.
Easter is coming early this year, the first Sunday in April to be exact, so we all better get ready for it, and yeah- Spring.
As tradition dictates, the day before Ash Wednesday, which is known as Fat Tuesday, Shrove Tuesday, Pancake Tuesday, or if you are French (or in New Orleans) Mardi Gras, we are to use up all the flours and fats and other pantry staples used for making treats so that we are not tempted by them and break our Lenten fast.
Multimedia artist Ceaux s 2021 Mardi Gras poster.
Every year since 2016, New Orleans-born-and-raised multimedia artist Courtney “Ceaux” Buckley, of Axiom Gallery on Freret Street, has been painting vibrant and detailed posters that depict the Black Mardi Gras experience.
Through this annual poster series, Buckley said, he not only aims to provide a representation of the Black experience during Carnival season, but that he also intends to normalize it.
“I don’t think we should always be presented like a big deal,” he said. “These things go on all the time, every year, it’s recurring.”
He adds that it is important for Black people from New Orleans to see representations of their culture in this more generalized way opposed to only packaged news stories and documentaries.
A Mardi Gras feast with New Orleans flair
Red beans and rice, jambalaya, other favorites beckon By Daniel Neman, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Published: February 10, 2021, 6:04am
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5 Photos Classic New Orleans bread pudding with a bourbon sauce. (Photos by Christian Gooden/St. Louis Post-Dispatch) Photo Gallery
The woman eyed me not with suspicion but with curiosity, or perhaps amusement.
We were at a grocery store. We were first looking for sausage at the same time, and then we were standing together in front of the shrimp.
“Are we here for the same reason?” she said. “Are you making jambalaya, too?”
Of course I was. It was Carnival. Mardi Gras was fast approaching (it’s Feb. 16).