A taste of Mardi Gras

Shreveport Times publisher Pete Zenmiller (left), SWEPCO chief Venita McCellon-Allen and Ken Black, there with wife Helen Black, were among those getting a head start on the Washington, D.C., Mardi Gras festivities.

They gathered Thursday at the The Cambridge Club for the Shreveport-Bossier Host Group Reception for Mardi Gras participants — and some who had to regret the trip stopped by anyway for the fun fete. Festivities start Feb. 8 and the ball is Feb. 10, all at the Washington Hilton.

The club annually caters the by-invitation-only Shreveport-Bossier Congressional Reception for some 450 prior to the ball. (The Host Group gives the affair and Don and Mary Updegraff are chairpersons.)

So guests sampled goodies similar to those that award-winning Cambridge Club executive chef John Ezell created for the menu. A peek at what will be on the plates: Louisiana pate with home-made five-pepper jelly sauce, blackened alligator with okra pesto cream, grits and crawfish and grits and grillades, crab cakes with New Orleans red remoulade, duck and andouille gumbo with rice, praline brittle and, of course, King Cakes. (Now, you know why reception invitations are so sought after.)

Cambridge Club owners Greg and Patti Carey and long-time employees William Boston and Timothy Behan will also be there to oversee it all.