Celebrate everything!

A brief guide to Mardi Gras in Tulsa

A year ago I visited New Orleans, just a few weeks before Mardi Gras. The city was awash in party prep. Warehouses blacked out windows to conceal secret float designs, krewes (NOLA-speak for parade organizers) scrambled to put finishing touches on elaborate costumes, and ordinary citizens tried to get enough sleep, hoping to store up the energy required to make it from party to party to party for the two weeks leading to Fat Tuesday. In the Marigny district, I saw a painted sign: Until Further Notice, Celebrate Everything! 

Few places in the country celebrate as fully, enthusiastically, or for as long as the Big Easy. While the NOLA experience is unrivaled, Tulsa knows how to party, too, and we’ve lined out the food, booze, and street celebrations to help you make the most of Fat Tuesday. 

THE FOOD

Start your day with an order of beignets (6 for $4.75) from Wild Fork. The Utica Square restaurant serves breakfast from 7-11 a.m. and accepts to-go orders. Beignets should be eaten hot, so make sure to have a strong cup of coffee or a café au lait already in hand.

Hebert’s and Cajun Ed’s owner Ed Richard says he’s been taking orders for Mardi Gras for weeks. Not to worry: “If you have to make a decision the day before, you can,” he says. Richard suggests some Louisiana mainstays: crawfish étouffée ($69, 8 servings) chicken and sausage gumbo ($85, 8 servings); or red beans and rice ($68.50, 8 servings). If you’re not planning a big shindig, get a few Cajun Ed’s entrees and sides to go.

Bodean Restaurant sous chef Tim Swetson, who lived in New Orleans for sixteen years, suggests having a shrimp boil. “Shrimps are always a crowd pleaser. I like to throw Brussels sprouts in mine, and potatoes, Andouille sausage, hot dogs if you’ve got kids, and pineapple, which soaks up the liquid and it’s a wonderful flavor.” Swetston makes Andouille sausage for Bodean Market ($8.99/lb), where they also sell large Gulf shrimp ($9.99/lb), perfect for Mardi Gras. “I use Zataran’s Pro Boil – the dry package and a little bit of the concentrate. You don’t want it to be bland,” he says.

Antoinette Baking Co. is taking orders for King Cakes ($30 each) until Friday, February 5. The purple, green, and gold ten-inch round cakes are a Mardi Gras must-have, and come in two flavors—chocolate filling or cream-cheese pecan filling, each with the tiny plastic baby inside.

THE BOOZE 

There’s no Mardi Gras party without at least a little booze. For that, we recommend the Sazerac, the official cocktail of New Orleans as well as the first American cocktail. It’s bitter, sweet, spicy, herbal, and hard to have only one.

Ingredients:
1/2 oz. absinthe (try Lucid)
2 oz. rye
1/4 oz. simple syrup
Peychaud’s bitters
Angostura bitters
Lemon twist

Instructions: Pour absinthe into a rocks glass and swirl to coat inside. Discard absinthe; fill glass with ice to chill. Put rye, simple syrup, 3 dashes Peychaud’s bitters, and 1 dash Angostura bitters in a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake well. Discard ice in rocks glass; rub the rim with a lemon twist and drop twist into glass; strain cocktail into glass.  If you want to get really fancy, add a champagne topper. Pour a healthy slug of bubbly into the cocktail. 

THE PARTY

While downtown is skipping the proper parade this year, the Blue Dome District has organized a family-friendly Mardi Gras crawl with street performers, king cakes, music, floats, beads, beads and more beads, from 4-11 p.m. Grab a punch card, hitch a ride on the free trolley, and see if you can make it to all 23 participating Blue Dome businesses, which will have specials and all you need to celebrate. 

Meanwhile, at Elote, another Fat Tuesday celebration: “Because there’s no Mardi Gras parade this year, we’ll have our own parade,” Elote owner Libby Billings said. “We’ll walk to the Blue Dome and then come back and have a party.” The Elote krewe will leave the restaurant at 8 p.m., march, play music, and wind through the Blue Dome and back by 9 p.m., when 11-piece Afrobeat collective Count Tutu will take the stage and play ‘til midnight. “Anyone who is disappointed there isn’t a Mardi Gras parade is welcome to get dressed up crazy and walk with us,” Billings said. 

If you tipple too many Sazeracs at home or want to stay in for the evening, tune in online to NOLA’s WWOZ, a jazz and New Orleans music heritage radio station operated out of the French Quarter. (www.wwoz.org) 

Finally, as they say in NOLA, laissez les bons temps rouler! 

For more from Liz, read her article on Oklahoma's declining arts funding.