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? Yeah, that was a thing, although ever intrepid Sen. Barbara Mikulski shrugged it off at the time, saying, "Calling 1992 the Year of the Woman makes it sound like the Year of the Caribou or the Year of the Asparagus. We're not a fad, a fancy, or a year."
With the women's march prompting some to ask whether 2017 will be the "

," Monday's the day to celebrate the best unofficial holiday made just for women: Galentine's Day.
What's 

, you ask? It's only the greatest gift we've ever gotten from Leslie Knope, the unfailingly earnest bureaucrat at the helm of the NBC series 

 during Season 2: "Every Feb. 13, my lady friends and I leave our husbands and our boyfriends at home, and we just come and kick it, breakfast-style. Ladies celebrating ladies. It's like Lilith Fair, minus the angst. Plus frittatas."

Knope may have highlighted frittatas, but any fan of the show knows that 

, making waffles our top choice to anchor any Galentine's Day meal. It also can't be a coincidence that a Swedish holiday known as 

 (Our Lady's Day) — clearly, women and waffles were meant to be celebrated together.


Text your gal pals now and get ready for the perfect Galentine's Day celebration Monday night. Here's how.

As Knope would say, "I am a goddess, a glorious female warrior." Or, alternatively, "Uteruses before duderuses. Ovaries before brovaries." Until Galentine's Day is finally declared a national holiday, let's just call this the Year of the Waffle.

is a food writer based in Washington, D.C.

Lifestyle

Kristen Hartke

Author

Monday's the day to celebrate the best unofficial holiday made just for women: Galentine's Day. And for that, we thank our lady of "Parks and Recreation," Leslie Knope

Galentine's Day: Celebrating women, waffles, and, OK, more waffles

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