Mardis Gras

Happy Fat Tuesday! 

Or is it Pancake Tuesday? If you had asked Sarah, the Scottish nanny who doubled as my cooking school partner, she definitely would have shouted, “It’s Pancake Tuesday!” 

A more practical and appealing label. So like the Scottish.

It wasn’t until Sarah came to live with our family that I understood that Pancake Tuesday, also called Shrove Tuesday, marked the end of something. As a matter of fact, the whole first quarter of the calendar was marked by a series of beginnings and endings at six week intervals.

January 6, 2026 – Epiphany or Three Kings Day: end of the Christmas season & beginning of feasting

February 17, 2026 – End of the feasting & beginning of Lent

April 5, 2026 – End of Lent and the beginning of the Easter season

Like so many celebrations in life, origins get blurry. 

Who knew that Mardi Gras (literally “Fat Tuesday” from the French) owned religious roots?

Pancake Tuesday punctuates the end of the celebratory Carnival season, done so with a feastly flourish and an overabundance of yummy treats. Famously, New Orleans spikes as the height of indulgence with its lavish parades and beignets on every corner.

Conversely, the next day, Ash Wednesday, ushers in Lent, a season of reflective and intentional surrender of worldly pleasures. Fasting, prayer and charitable giving were to mark these six weeks before Easter.

Honestly, I think I do a much better job of over indulgence than surrender.

Seeing as how Sarah was Catholic, she had a classic view of the whole Lenten Season, something that my evangelical church background seemed to skim over. I appreciated the orderliness of the traditions, with roots steeped in the Christian calendar.

In the past, I never grasped the whole “giving-up-chocolate-for-Lent-thing” and viewed it as a trivial offering, but I came to understand that like baptism, it simply signalled an outward sign of an inward change. “Giving up something” was designed to turn us inside out, and to contemplate how we might make room for small “givings-up” on a daily basis.

A series of ends. But ends also signal beginnings.

The end of me, and the beginning of Him.
Now that’s something to celebrate.

xo,

Carole

PS It was Sarah who taught me to make a Pancake Tuesday staple, King Cake … a buttery brioche-like ring of goodness with a cream cheese filling. Unashamedly over-the-top in indulgence and finished off with an equally over-the-top flourish of runny white icing and gold, green and purple sugar crystals. 

Gaudy, like Mardi Gras, and oh so good. Find my recipe here. 

Here’s a fun place to order one if you’re not a baker. King Cake from New Orleans.

And the three colors of Mardi Gras? What do they mean? Reflective of the Three Kings…purple for justice, green for faith and gold for power.