Fat Thursday

Yeah, Mardi Gras was Tuesday and I did my very best to celebrate in style. Fat Tuesday is the day set aside to clean out your cupboards before the month long Lent. Eat up the "fat" that you couldn't have during the fast. Pancakes are a traditional meal, but I wanted to have a more festive fat dinner...enter the Hanukkah (another holiday dedicated to fat) tradition of deep frying. I made beignets. French style. Pate a choux balls dropped in hot oil and fried until puffy and golden. I was making a dinner dish, so I made savory beignets with black pepper and rosemary. And whole wheat flour, but that's a given because it's the only flour in my house, much to my brother's chagrin.

Can I say oh. my. taste buds. They were wonderful. We had, on the side--because the beignets were the main attraction--blackened salmon, sweet balsamic vegetables and a huge green salad. Oh. Jalapeno mint jelly for the beignets. We had to. Dessert? Naaa...just more pastry.

Even though Lent began on Wednesday, John fried up the last of the batter for breakfast so we could enjoy beignets and coffee. Sprinkled with the merest whisper of powdered sugar they were divine. I will say that the French do many things right when it comes to food, and fried dough has to be at the top of the list.

Although I am not, nor have I ever been Catholic, I do on occasion keep a Lenten fast. I didn't last year because of pregnancy, but am this year. I think a certain amount of sacrifice is good for the soul. Because I am among the food-hedonists, sacrificing a foodie vice gives me time to reflect on just what it is that I eat. And what I should eat. And how certain foods affect me. In any case, I am, again, giving up the refined flour/sugar/empty carbs that seem to draw me in as soon as I come around them. Beer is an exception. I had over a year of sacrifice to teach me the meaning of beer to my life. But I will be giving up butter enriched foods as well...so no whole wheat pie crusts...that's cheating.

I've already broken Lent. But at least I thought about it. I'll do better. Starting now. Has anyone seen Chocolat? The perfect foodie-Lent movie.

What, if anything, are you doing for Lent? It doesn't have to be food related, it's about preparing for the sacrifice of Easter. Or, the sacrifice that leads to Easter, to be more precise. I'd like to know who else believes that a little restraint is good for the soul.