If you are giddy for revelry - with its roots deeply immersed in Pagan and Christian traditions and a penchant for all-day-and-night drinking, introducing debutantes to self-imposed royal courts of masked men

and women, and gluttonous tourists in feathers and sequins baring all to someone that they would not give a stick of gum to back home - then you must be packed and ready for New Orleans. From January 6th (the Feast of Epiphany) until this year's Shrove Tuesday on February 12th, the citizens of New Orleans host weekly parties and daily parades leading up to the big finale - the Carnival of Mardi Gras.

Fat Tuesday (the day before Ash Wednesday) has become, for many, a day of excess, tipping the scale/bottle a bit, and something to remember for the next forty-six days until Easter - not exactly the way it was originally intended. But this is a spot of amusement in an otherwise overcast, dreary, frozen February, so I'm happy to participate in the festivities. Fortunately, Lexington has a great Louisiana Mardi Gras connection in Tommy and Kevin Walters of Furlongs. They will be hosting a celebration at their restaurant on Tuesday. It begins at noon with Louisiana style food and drinks, then Zydeco Bon plays music all evening.

The 1940s building in which Furlongs is housed was originally a drugstore, and has an ambiance that is both charming and warm. As you walk in, there's a wall separating the restaurant and the bar with a fireplace open to both rooms. The bar has low ceilings and an English pub feel while the restaurant is an open area, with candlelit tables placed underneath a bay window of leaded glass. As you can imagine, horse memorabilia line the walls.

The menu here is Cajun, with many fresh fish selections such as rainbow trout, amberjack, and catfish (blackened or fried) which are topped with shrimp and lump crabmeat in a rich buttery white sauce or presented atop a crawfish etoufée. Also available are the king crab legs and lobster tails, froglegs and crawfish tails, and "Po-Boys Are Available Anytime."

If you are more in the mood for meat (a popular thing to give up during Lent), there are ribeyes, filets, strips, and BBQ ribs. For fowl, grilled or fried quail is served with jambalaya, as is the blackened chicken breast.

Along with their daily menu, Tommy and Kevin will be boiling up 1,000 pounds of crawfish that they have hand-selected from Lafayette, Louisiana - the fine town where they were born and raised. I have seen several people who, when served crawfish, stare at their plate in horror or confusion, probably asking themselves, "how do I eat this?" The best recourse does not involve any utensils other than your hands; twist the head and separate the body, peel the shell off of the tail, and then pull the meat away. What you decide to do with the head is your own business.

Also from their trip they will be serving boudin (a Cajun sausage), and King Cakes, which have a wonderful history unto themselves. They are shaped in a ring, with colored icing or sprinkles (purple for justice, green for faith, and gold for power) and originally indicated which debutante became queen of a masked ball. The woman who found the silver or gold bean or diamond in her piece of the cake won. This tradition has changed; now there's a plastic baby inside the cake. The person who finds the baby is blessed with good luck for the next year.

The Crescent City is already a busy place this time of year, but add a little football championship and the place must be a madhouse. The city has been busy for months preparing parades for the Carnival and masked balls to present debutantes to the kings, dukes, and otherwise never-officially-coronated royalty. Large tri-colored cakes are being baked with plastic babies mixed in. Mounds of crawfish are ready to be inhaled alongside a cold beer or hurricane. But if you don't have the time or money to travel, you can still celebrate heartily in Lexington at Furlongs' Mardi Gras - and then be well-behaved for the next six weeks.