Questioning Fat Tuesday Is it possible to properly celebrate Mardi Gras outside of New Orleans' French Quarter? By Nancy Ross Ryan

Nowhere else on earth -- except Rio de Janeiro -- is Mardi Gras celebrated with the same abandon as it is in New Orleans. And whosoever hopes to celebrate it there should make travel plans and reservations a year in advance. Many native New Orleanians, meanwhile, will be making plans to travel in another direction -- hoping to avoid you. The revelers in 1999 were about 2 million strong. What's so great about Mardi Gras? The spectacle to be sure: parades of wildly colorful and elaborately ornate floats owned, decorated and ridden by the krewes (private social clubs); marching bands followed by high-steppers with parasols; music; masques and balls; fireworks; partying in the streets; anonymous debauchery. But let's not forget New Orleans' spicy, sensual food and drink: gumbo, bread pudding, blackened seafood, King cake, Hurricanes. Outside the French Quarter? Says John Moultrie, chef-owner of Mama Bazell's Louisiana Kitchen in Chicago, "If Mardi Gras is a party, the food is the first guest invited." And he insists you don't need to be in The Big Easy to celebrate what he considers the best part of Mardi Gras. "We do it with food," Moultrie says. His menu is 100 percent New Orleans Creole and Cajun all year through: blackened shrimp, gumbo, jambalaya, red beans and rice, bourbon pecan pie, Mississippi mud pie, Mama Bazell's homemade bread pudding, coffee with chicory, and much more. His recipes come from his great grandmother Mama Bennie Bazell, a freed slave who developed a still-secret collection of spice blends. Signature cocktails include his own Creole Cooler (white wine with Grand Marnier), French Quarter Root Beer (vanilla-infused vodka and Coke) and of course the traditional Hurricane. At The Strand Cafe in Lemont, Ill., owner Bill Montgomery puts his staff in costume on the Friday prior and celebrates through Fat Tuesday, inviting guests to wear masks and costumes, too. At The Palace Grill in Santa Barbara, Calif., Tina Takaya, one of three partners, says "Every Tuesday is Fat Tuesday here, and on New Year's Eve we hold a Mardi Gras masquerade." Among the most popular drinks are a Cajun Martini (made with jalapeño-infused vodka) and a Hurricane Margarita. Well, if he says so? But can these restaurants truly offer up the food as well as the spirit of Mardi Gras when they're so far removed from New Orleans' French Quarter? Jamie Shannon, executive chef at New Orleans' classic Commander's Palace, says you can and you should laissez les bon temps rouler ("let the good times roll") wherever you are. If you can't do it in New Orleans, here's his advice. "Get the proper cocktails and the proper music, and serve some great New Orleans food. At my house I make a giant batch of gumbo. And we're real fond of milk punch, and Ramos gin fizz, big time, and Sazerac, the original cocktail, the first ever." Shannon is guided by a Mardi Gras philosophy, too. "I have two New Years, January 1 and the Wednesday after Mardi Gras. When I see the beads hanging from the oak trees and the streets cleaned and wet, I think, 'Oh-oh. Time to start my new year, a clean slate.' So I make resolutions, always. And I keep them -- at least until Jazz Fest."