![]() ![]() George Philoptochos Society have baked the Greek sweets. All the lambs are roasted by Downey meat masters who are church members, and the women of the St. George’s Church is proud that its festival is not commercially produced. Families strolled, kids darted back to the children’s play area, and everywhere the music permeated the air. At night, because the Festival runs till 10:30 pm, the lights come on, an older crowd arrives, children go off to bed or quiet down, and the scene is a livelier taverna.Ī special enclosure sold Greek sweets, like pasta flora and baklava, that honey and walnut treat in phyllo pastry.Īnother line formed for the poached loukoumades, traditional Greek doughnuts, deep-fried honey balls that are golden on the outside, and light and fluffy on the inside, drizzled with honey and sprinkled with cinnamon. You hear someone get up spontaneously and call out for some friends, and a circle would begin to form, to the music.Īt 3 pm it was a village square. I closed my eyes and imagined a sunny afternoon in a village. White tables with blue tops and white chairs and sun umbrellas covered the central area, where one could nibble at delicacies or watch the dancing. This time I got a lamb dinner to take home and eat later, with rice and Greek salad and dark briny Kalamata olives. I remembered the moussaka, an eggplant casserole with potatoes, in a rich, tomatoey beef sauce, that I had for lunch in Heraklion, Crete, where I fell in love with the Prince of the Lilies in the murals on the walls of the Mycenean Palace at Knossos. I could get a la carte dishes like moussaka, spanakopites, gigande: dishes with eggplant or spinach or custard or thick baked beans in tomato sauce. Lamb dinners were available, or one could buy souvlaki, chunks of marinated beef or lamb grilled on a skewer and also gyro, meat cooked on a vertical rotisserie, then sliced and served wrapped or stuffed in pita bread, with tomato, onion, fried potatoes, and homemade tzatsiki sauce: yogurt, cucumber and spices. The soft drink has a tangy taste, and a distinctively sweet flavor. Loux comes in a variety of flavors, including sour cherry and lemon. The naturally carbonated water comes from Kefalovrissos. I learned that Panagiotis Marlafekas founded Loux as a family business in the 1950’s in Patras, Greece. In the open area, half the space seemed taken up by the food stalls, the lamb pit, a beer garden, and refreshment booths with Loux, a fizzy cold fruit drink. There’s a children’s play area, and in the adjoining building there were authentic Greek costumes, cooking demonstrations, wine tastings, and exhibits of historic sites, all celebrating the Greek Orthodox Community’s Hellenic culture and traditions. Be Greek For a Day, and Dine With the Gods. Signs said, Stop Worrying and Be Happy, with a picture of Greek worry beads another showed a donkey with the words, Greek 4 Wheel Drive. Impromptu dancers were engaged in Greek circle dancing, kids and oldsters, families, young girls, joining in whenever they felt like it. Live musicians played the oud and the bouzouki, lute-type stringed instruments, and pan pipes carried the melody, while drums kept up the beat. Blue and white Greek flags and star-spangled American ones waved in the breeze, and, at the heart of it all was the music and the dance, under a big open white pavilion roof. This is a Food Festival, and so much more. The spits are turned electrically, but the fire is good old Hephaestus at work. The lambs roast while workers bring more white hot coals, and shovel new charcoal on the starter brazier. ![]() These whole lambs are not carved, they’re split with an ax, and this is as close as we will ever get to the feasting that Homer wrote about. There is one man who cleaves the lamb into serving portions. Racks of lamb turning in spits, 20 of them at a time, and the smell of fat sizzling, greeted you as you enter the platia, or town square. You enter through a little agora, a lane of vendor’s booths that carry everything from t-shirts and Holy Honey (delicious), to olive wood carvings, charms to ward off the evil eye, and fine gold earrings. Apollo saw to it that on Saturday the sun was shining after weeks of gloomy weather. ![]() Sunshine and white tent peaks announced the Greek Food Festival at St.
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