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!

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.

The First of Many Big Weekends in Downtown Knoxville

Image via Wikipedia


It's (almost) spring and that means things really start hopping downtown. First Friday is today and there are a number of exciting and interesting events planned. The one that is topping my list is the re-opening of the Sunsphere. They will host an open house from 4:00 PM to 10 PM and I'm looking forward to seeing the views from that perspective. I think the last time I looked out from those windows was around 1986. I'm interested to see how it compares to my memory. I'll let you know.

The Emporium is always a must-stop on any First Friday night and this month's featured artist is Keegan Russel, a mixed media artist. Blount Mansion has started a new First Friday series with speakers of different sorts. This month they are featuring David Madden reading from his book Sharpshooter.  You can find other details about participating businesses

here.

Saturday morning, unfortunately, brings rain if the weather people are to be trusted. Let's hope they are wrong because it also brings one of the most fun annual events to downtown: Mardi Growl. In this more-or-less parade, canine friends are decked out in their festive best in a bit of a nod to the tradition that started on this continent in my hometown of Mobile, Alabama. It should be fun - BUT - I have to miss it because I have to work. If any of you get pictures and would like to e-mail them to me (knoxvilleurbanguy@gmail.com), I'd be happy to post the best of what I get.



Also starting Saturday is the annual Friends of the Library book sale in which treasures from the bowels of the library are offered up for pennies. I hope to catch that one Sunday. It runs for a full week, with the discounts getting deeper as they go.

I'm sure there are many other events that I'm missing. Hopefully I'll stumble onto a few. Some readers have started e-mailing me information about events they think I might like. I absolutely appreciate this kind of help. I can't make it to everything, nor can I blog about everything, but I would probably miss some things if you didn't point me in the right direction.

In the mean time, have a great First Friday.