Making Mardi Gras in a Mountain City

Vegetables ready, five pounds shrimp and one pound crab meat in the fridge

We're a long way from the Gulf Coast. Never is that more clear than Mardi Gras week. As an ex-patriot of Mobile, Alabama, Urban Woman and I can tell you that this was the highest of holidays in the city of my childhood. For those of you less educated on the history of the celebration, the oldest Mardi Gras in America is in Mobile, Alabama. It was and is a huge affair. Public schools are closed the day of and the day before Mardi Gras. Of course, when Ash Wednesday hits even school children have to pay for their sins by returning to classes.

Cook that gumbo, Urban Woman!

So, of course, we had to host a little Mardi Gras revelry downtown. Shaft sponsors an irregularly scheduled beverage event throughout the year and February has become the annual celebration of the holiday in downtown Knoxville.

Decorated, but empty

It all starts with the beads and doubloons. Once those are strewn about and the house is ready, it's time to get serious with the gumbo. The roux has to be perfect - extremely dark, but not burned. Vegetables of your choice are added and then the seafood. Crab meat and gumbo is my family tradition. In later years we spiced it up with a little andouille sausage. Be generous with the crab boil and have bottles of Louisiana hot sauce for individual taste.

Now we got it going on!

We had out little gathering on Sunday with about thirty people and I know at least one other home downtown where gumbo was brewing for a family disappointed to miss out on their annual trip to the Mobile Mardi Gras. I met another potential reveler on the street Sunday morning. Her roots are more in the New Orleans direction (they have Mardi Gras there, too). Where our King Cakes were homemade by a good friend, hers was imported from Mandeville, Louisiana, which is across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans.

Let the Good Times Roll

I remember years ago there was an annual Mardi Gras parade in downtown Knoxville. If memory serves correctly, it was somehow a fundraiser for SOCM or some similar organization. Brilliantly dress marchers stand out in my memory, though I can't really recall floats. There was candy and children's games afterwards, I believe. This would have been somewhere around the late 1980s or early 1990s. More recently, I wrote about the Mardi Gras event which broke out at Kendrick Place, hosted by Knox Heritage and headed up by Mobilian Kim Trent.

That idea faded with time and the advent of the darkest years for downtown. In recent years a new Mardi Gras related tradition has arisen: Mardi Growl. It involves festive canines and you'll find last year's posts here and here. This year's event, which benefits Young-Williams Animal Center will be held March 3, which is a bit after people Mardi Gras. It is also an annual work conflict for me, so I'll depend on some of you to take pictures and submit them for inclusion on the blog. Last year Shaft took a raft of photos and Stuck Inside of Knoxville reader and animal chip implanter, Jeannine, also sent in pictures. Just send them to KnoxvilleUrbanGuy@gmail.com

Every good southern party ends in a duel, no?

In the meantime, Happy Mardi Gras, Ya'll.

And to understand why I'm hard on the floats in the Christmas Parade in Knoxville, take a look at the video below. It shows one parade of many from last year in my hometown. For this year in Mobile, I count around forty parades scattered from January 21 to Fat Tuesday. Now that's what I'm talkin' about!

If it's September in Knoxville, it must be Mardi Gras?

Mardi Gras, Knox Heritage Style, Knoxville 

This weekend wasn't all reserved for somber remembrances. Of course, being a home weekend for our local football team, plenty of visitors crowded the streets of downtown Knoxville. This weekend the shirts were Cincinnati red and they seemed like a jovial enough bunch as they enjoyed downtown Knoxville. Friday night also featured the first of the Movies on Market Square. The first installment in the free movie series featured "Hook," while this week's movie will be "How to Tame Your Dragon." This year's emphasis is making the event the most pet friendly movie series in the south.

Erin Donovan helps host, Wild Bill and Tipitina Tinah at the Gate

Kim Trent (?) organizes the parade

Visitors and residents alike must have been startled to see a Mardi Gras Parade break out amidst the football fans and movie aficionados. Starting at Kendrick Place where about a hundred revelers enjoyed "festive beverages" and mini-muffalettas, the party got heated up led by chief crewe member Kim Trent, who hails from Mobile, Alabama which, as she pointed out in her inspirational speech is home to the oldest Mardi Gras celebration on the continent.

The Saints Go Marchin' Out

Marchin' down Union Avenue beside the Daylight Building

The next to the last of the "Summer Suppers" sponsored by Knox Heritage, this event, as most of the dinners, sold out completely. The money raised goes to support the very important work of Knox Heritage and the Summer Suppers are always a big part of the downtown summer calendar.

Got your First Line? Check!

Second Line coming on in.

But what's Mardi Gras without a parade, right? Led by an authentic Dixieland Jazz Band the group took the show on the road, passing through Market Square to undoubtedly befuddled families out for a movie and football fans in town for a game they'd rather forget, though they'll likely remember this spectacle for a long time to come.

Sippin' and Strollin'

Keeping it cool

The parade ended at the courtyard of Emporium with more jazz, the ever-present festive beverages, along with "shrimp and crawfish boil accompanied by jambalaya, red beans & rice, bruschetta with fresh tomatoes, crusty bread, and French pastries from The French Market Creperie." That's about as much New Orleans as you could ever expect to find in Knoxville on a September night.

Still partying at the end of the line.

You can check out the list of this year's summer suppers at the Knox Heritage site and start making your plans for next year. While the final supper is sold out, you still have a chance to catch the Scruffy City Soiree which happens just next week. In the meantime, join the organization and support its work in downtown and elsewhere in the county. They'll even send you an e-mail reminding you about Summer Suppers and other fun events.

If you'd like to see more (and better) pictures and read more about the event, let me highly recommend that you check out Cynthia Moxley's Bluestreak blog. She did an excellent job of capturing the fun.

And another word on Jazz: Tonight is the final in the Jazz on the Square series that has run through the summer. World class jazz for the price of a tip and now the weather is nice! The music starts at 7:00. Next Tuesday night a special screening of "A Place for Me: Living Jazz in a Small Southern City" will be presented at the Square Room, along with a jazz concert by Jazz Fourtet, Emily Mathis and Thad Brown.

Somebody has to clean up the mess!

Dans la célébration de Mardi Gras: Growl Mardi, deuxième partie

Attire Suitable for rain and Mardi Growl, Knoxville, March 2011

Mardi Gras is upon us. Just one more day before Fat Tuesday and then the beginning of Lent. For someone from Mobile, Alabama, it is a time of great memories: school being let out, fighting for candy on the streets, drunken old men in masks beaning us with doubloons. Moon pies. Oh, the moon pies.

How did this many dogs pose for a picture? Mardi Growl, Knoxville, 2011

So, what to do 500 miles away? Enjoy a second day of Mardi Growl. Yesterday's post was one of the most viewed ever for my blog, thanks, once more, to my friend Kevin and his awesome pictures. I think I'm going to offer him ten percent of the earnings from my blog if he'll be the official photographer. I think anyone would be tempted by that kind of cash. It should earn him about 33 large per month. Large cents, that is.

Thanks to another kind reader, Jeannine, I have  a few more pictures to share in our second day of Mardi Growl coverage. Jeannine worked at Mardi Growl in the mobile chip and rabies clinic and also managed to supply all the pictures for today's blog. That's the kind of character you find among the readers of this blog! Good work, Jeanine, on the photos as well as the other kind services. (BTW, If Kevin isn't interested, how does 33 cents a month sound to you?)

Who knows, if I get more photographs maybe we'll make it all the way to Lent. I'm not sure what pictures will be appropriate for Lent, but I'll work on it.

Psychological Abuse? A cat at a dog convention? Are you kidding me?

Who could not love Mardi Growl?

A crowd of around 500 dogs was expected, plus a few humans tethered to their leashes for the annual Mardi Growl celebration to raise money for the Young-Williams Animal Center. Despite the rain, they came out in droves or herds or packs - that's it packs, right? Some of them even had real-live Mardi Gras floats in which they cruised through the parade.

Unfortunately, this day was a work day for me, so I missed it, but my good friend and reader-of-my-blog-beyond-all-reasonable-expectations, Kevin, was kind enough to brave the rain with his camera just so I could give you an idea of what the event is like. In addition to a parade from the Dog Park to Market Square, booths were set up to give out treats and to promote canine-related services and the Old City Buskers provided a festive ragtime beat.

Not only did dogs get into the festive theme, many people dressed up in their best Mardi Gras attire, as well. I'm not naming photographs for this statement, but let me just say that the old idea about the owner and the pet resembling really resonates for me in one of these pictures. Which human do you think most resembles his or her canine companion?

I know it is a larger number than I usually post, but I figured animal lovers can't get too much of this kind of thing  - thanks, again, to Kevin.