Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler

Happy Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, let the good times roll! NPR has a nice selection of New Orleans Mardi Gras music clips, as well as radio programs past and present about Fat Tuesday and its traditions. Hey, with Howard Dean almost the DNC Chair, we should celebrate!

Here's a site with historical photos of Mardi Gras in New Orleans, many from 1907.

I went to Mardi Gras once and it was a gas, and I've been to New Orleans several other times. Thinking about New Orleans today makes me pine for creole and cajun food: crawfish etouffee, jambalaya, gumbo, red beans and rice, spicy, ready-to-peel shrimp, great big freshly shucked oysters on the half shell at the Acme Oyster House, a fried oyster po'boy, a muffaletta sandwich on round bread from a little Italian grocery store on Decatur Street and beignets and strong, chicory cafe au lait from Cafe du Monde at the French Market.

I'd have to fit in dinners at Commander's Palace and Antoine's, and a breakfast at Brennan's. Yum. And perhaps the best thing about it, given our having to exist in Bush's America, is that there are so many things FRENCH in New Orleans!