fat tuesday 2011

Fat Tuesday 2011: King cakes, Mardi Gras and the joys of Carnival season
Fat Tuesday might be the Tuesday before Lent, but little restraint could be seen in New Orleans' Bourbon Street. As Melissa Bell and T.J. Ortenzi reported:

For the past five days, the southern party town has given itself over to excess, good food, lots of drink and maybe a little debauchery. And that's not the weeks leading up to the event with small parades preparing for the celebration. Mardi Gras is a marathon, New Orleanians will tell you, and Fat Tuesday marks the final stretch.

For the non-New Orleanians, a quick primer on Mardi Gras: Before the Catholic holiday of Lent, in which worshipers fast and repent for 40 days, people do their best to make up for the days of restraint with jam-packed days of plenty. Festivals are observed all over the world, such as Carnival in Brazil, but it's never been so associated with a city's identity as it has with New OrleanRead More fat tuesday 2011..