New Orleans has always had a soft spot in my heart. I come from a family that plans their next meal, during the meal that precedes it – and New Orleans is foodie paradise. Add to that, some of the friendliest, most open people you’ll meet, great music and a “laissez les bon temps rouler” vibe and you’ve got yourself a great town.

I have visited my beloved NOLA many times, but always avoided Mardi Gras due to my proclivity for keeping my clothes on and aversion to thick crowds. But this year, I made an exception.

Fresh off the Super Bowl victory and the election of a new mayor, the town feels even more electric than visits past. Yesterday, I parked it Uptown with countless families who had staked out their traditional parade viewing/picnicking spot along the grassy street car tracks on St. Charles Ave. We whiled the day away chatting, people watching and noshing nonstop on amazing food, breaking only to hop up on a ladder to watch one of five parades pass by. Got the throws to prove it! I ate some of the best jambalaya (cooked in a cauldron right there), discovered the Cajun Grasshopper (cream cheese stuffed jalapeno topped with flank steak wrapped in bacon- yum), and tasted some great mini muffeletas and slivers of king cake. Kids (mostly in Brees #9 jerseys) were everywhere – tossing around the nerf football or plush toy animal throws they had caught in the last parade.

At the end of the day, my perception has changed. Away from Bourbon Street, Mardi Gras IS a family-friendly event. And the only breasts I saw yesterday were those in the Popeye’s chicken bucket next family over.

Ok, today was about Bacchus and Beads and Brees, but if you ask me, Mardi Gras, the way the locals celebrate, is all about the food.

This morning we headed to our outpost on St. Charles to catch as many parades as we could. I caught about three and have the beads to prove it. But I also got a taste of King Cake. This one was from one of the many Randazzo bakeries.

I also got a bowl of jambalaya and while I make mine from a Paul Prudhomme recipe, I swear, jambalaya tastes different in NOLA than anywhere else. Also, how impressive is it to make a delicious batch in such a big cauldron?

Finally I learned a grasshopper is not always a terrestrial plant-eating insect with hind legs adapted for leaping or even a cocktail made of creme de menthe and cream. No at Mardi Gras a grasshopper is a jalapeno, stuffed with cream cheese, topped with a slice of flank steak and wrapped in, yes, bacon. Grilled to perfection I’d say.

Happy Mardi Gras y’all and Bon Appetite!

Photo courtesy of Taylor Davidson

I should start with an admission. Hello, my name is Sloane Berrent and I am madly in love with New Orleans. And as of December 1, 2009, I now live in New Orleans. Yet for all my hooting and hollering to friends about how great New Orleans is and what a once-in-a-lifetime experience it is to be here now, in the post-Katrina reconstruction and recent excitement of a new mayor and Super Bowl Champions, this Mardi Gras is my first Mardi Gras ever. So how did a Northern girl, Pittsburgh native, New England educated and for the past five years California-living girl end up in New Orleans?

Well, that’s a longer story entirely, but it all bases around what I’ve come to realize now is the essence of Mardi Gras. The ideal that anything is possible. Want to create five days of parades from the cultural to the subversive where families linger outside and neighbors talk to each other and no one is sitting at home playing video games and getting yelled at for not doing the dishes? Come to Mardi Gras. Want to dress up and raise a small umbrella and dance through the streets behind a brass band? Come to Mardi Gras. Want to see children laughing and running in the streets and catching beads and small stuffed animals with pure looks of joy on their faces? Come to Mardi Gras. Want to start the day surrounded by total stranger but end it with new friends (and probably an outstanding invitation to Sunday dinner one week)? Come to Mardi Gras.

Does the revelry sometimes get out of hand? Sure. So does tailgating at a football game or a cocktail party in the home. But seeing as how there has been a parade every day since last Thursday (save Monday we were all tired from the Superbowl win after all), I haven’t seen one indiscretion worthy of concern. What I have seen, the ladders, the care people take for each other, the ebb and flow of the parade routes as they roll through, is something to relish and appreciate. It’s what makes New Orleans, well, New Orleans. A city with a culture and a language all its own, just beckoning you in to experience her for yourself.

If this isn’t your year to come celebrate Mardi Gras with us, start making plans for next year. I’ll be on year two and much wiser to the “local” ways and you can come find me on the neutral ground celebrating with the rest of the New Orleanians and lovers o New Orleans.

Note to the reader: Look up definition of neutral ground.

Yours from the Lower Garden District,

Sloane

I am a Mardi Gras newbie so I really had no idea what to expect. For my very first parade I missed catching any of the prized painted shoes, but I caught plenty of other goodies including a Sweet Musings sleep mask in pink satin, a stuffed penguin and the obligatory beads, most with ravishing shoes attached at Muses. For the uninitiated, it’s an all-female Krewe filled with sass and attitude and tongue firmly planted in cheek. Ok, there was more than fair share of cheekiness too!

Conversation Hearts

Some of my favorite floats sported all too familiar sentiments like the “Ask for Directions” float, the “Appreciate Experience” float, the “Put a Ring on It” float. Some of the floats were a bit too spicy for a PG-13 site like this one. My favorite of all had a Valentine’s Day theme in the form of conversation hearts. These were post-modern hearts with sayings that every woman I know would wholeheartedly support–Take out the Trash, Put the seat down, and 2 Good 4 You. Looking forward to another day and another parade.

Each year early on Mardi Gras morning, New Orleans comes alive long before the revelers and parade floats take to the streets.

The streets come alive with day-glo feathers, intricate hand-stitched bead work, tamborines and drums and cries such as “Get out da the way, big chief comin’,” and “Hey, pocky way.” It is the ancient tradition of the Mardi Gras Indians who bring the streets alive with their stunning costumes and their music and their chants.

Primarily an African American tradition, gangs of Mardi Gras Indians emerge on the streets of New Orleans donning elaborate, resplendent feathered costumes that have taken nearly a year to make, often by hand, and costing hundreds, some times thousands of dollars. The indians use the day to introduce the city to their new suits.

The gangs of Indians are divided by neigborhoods and known by tribal names like Yellow Pocahontas, Creole Wild West, Fi-Yi-Yi and7th Ward Hard Headers.

Drawing from Native American culture, the tradition of Mardi Gras Indians is believed to have begun in the late 19th century, and, as essential to New Orleans as mainstream Mardi Gras events, their influence is seen in the music of the Neville Brothers, Dr. John, the Wild Tchoupitoulas, the Wild Magnolias and the Meters, especially in songs like “Handa Wanda”, “Iko Iko” and “Hey Pocky Way”.

The violent rivalries of the past have been replaced, where gangs armed with hatchets and guns would shoot and stab one another, the indians now have staged showdowns, as the prettiest suits rule the streets.

A hierarchy also rules the gangs, with a big chief as the leader.

“You also have your Spy Boy, your Flag Boy and your Wild Man. Your Spy Boy is way out front, three blocks in front the chief. The Flag Boy is one block in front so he can see the Spy Boy up ahead and he can wave his flag to let the chief know what is going on. Today, they don’t do like they used to. Today you’re not going to see any Spy Boy with a pair of binoculars around his neck and a small crown so he can run. Today a Spy Boy looks like a chief and somebody carrying a big old stick. It’s been years since I seen a proper flag. Today everybody has a chief stick. The Wild Man wearing the horns in there to keep the crowd open and to keep it clear,” said Tootie Montana, the deceased, but revered chief of the Yellow Pocahontas.