Mardi Gras

New York City is fat with the pastries that are the harbingers of Lent. Greenpoint, Brooklyn's Polish jelly-filled pączki, Danish cream-filled fastelavnsbolle at Ole & Steen at Union Square, zeppole in my Italian Carroll Gardens, Shrove Tuesday pancakes dripping with syrup in so many Protestant churches. I will eat them all. I will eat the

Gear up. Load up. Eat fast. Prepare. Be ready. Lent starts tomorrow. Hurry. Now. We don't think about Mardi Gras in this way, but it is a subtext. Eat all the sweets you can before you can't. You'll be fasting. You'll have given up chocolate or... whatever it is you've decided to give up. But

Like much of American culture, there is a disconnection between celebrations and their roots. I find this most apparent in the nation's observation of religious holidays. Perhaps one of the most significant is Mardi Gras, also known as Carnival. We praise Tuesday as a great celebration, an expression of Spring Fever, a dance to the