It's Fat Tuesday!

In New Orleans, and all around the world, it's mardi gras, or Fat Tuesday.  It's usually called Shrove Tuesday in England and Ireland.  It is, essentially, a Catholic celebration, in which one is supposed to eat fattening foods because the season of Lent begins tomorrow, with ritual fasting, on Ash Wednesday.  In New Orleans, it used to be the time that cooks opened their larders and used every bit of sweet and fattening food they had - so it became Fat Tuesday, for the fattening foods.  Popular practices include wearing masks and costumes, overturning social conventions, dancing, sports competitions, parades, etc. Similar expressions to Mardi Gras appear in other European languages sharing the Christian tradition.
  In Sweden and Finland, it was, traditionally, the only day one baked semlor. Today, the Swedish-Finnish semla consists of a cardamom-spiced wheat bun which has its top cut off and insides scooped out, and is then filled with a mix of the scooped-out bread crumbs, milk and almond paste, topped with whipped cream. The cut-off top serves as a lid and is dusted with powdered sugar. Today it is often eaten on its own, with coffee or tea. Some people still eat it in a bowl of hot milk. In Finland, the bun is sometimes filled with raspberry jam instead of almond paste, and bakeries in Finland usually offer both versions. (Many bakeries distinguish between the two by decorating the traditional bun with almonds on top, whereas the jam-filled version has powdered sugar on top).
  The kits have been clamoring for attention all morning.  Lovey doesn't want to stop touching me, which makes it had to type and do research.  Nedi keeps coming over for pets and rubs and scratches.  Joel is walking the red kids today, so I don't need to go out.  I have been to the store and spoken with Viti, my Russian friend, this morning.  He's decided I'm his adopted American mother, and escorts me to and from the store.  I feel funny with my own personal security guard; but it's kind of nice.  He carries my groceries, holds my arm when crossing icy spots, and loves to speak to me of Russia.  He seems to be a very nice man, and today he showed me a photo of his girlfriend.  It's like getting a new kid to look after.