Saturday, November 03, 2012

Going Greek

People in Tallahassee wait for this weekend all year.  It's the Holy Mother of God Greek Orthodox Church's Greek Food Festival!

I remember going to this a few times as a kid, but I never appreciated it much until I was a grown up. 

I'm not sure I was a picky eater, but I was highly suspicious of non-American food (except pizza - but I thought that was American).  My uncle and aunt used to take me to a Chinese restaurant and I never ate anything but cashew chicken because I knew what cashews were and what chicken was.  Trying something else there was NOT an option.  As a kid going to the greek festival, I probably only ate the dolmas (meat wrapped in grape leaves).  I'm sure no one called them dolmas to my face or I probably wouldn't have eaten those either.
These days, I try most things.  I eat Chinese food, Japanese food, Italian, Indian and Korean.  And
Greek.

I look forward to the festival these days.  Dolmas has been joined by spanikopita (spinach and feta cheese wrapped in philo dough), gyros (lamb wrapped in a pita), and my favorite - mousakka!  It's kind of like an eggplant lasagne for lack of a better description. 

There's music and dancing and vendors who sell bellydancing sashes, greek fisherman's hats, jewelry and paint faces. 

Last year, I went with our Rector and his wife and we went inside the church.  It was so beautiful and fascinating to listen to Fr. R asking lots of questions and getting deeper answers than JoeBlow off the street would know to ask or understand.

I'm not sure how they swing it, but the weather always seems to be nice.  Sometimes too hot, but usually just really pleasant and sunny.  Perhaps they have a direct line to the Supreme Weathermaker.  You're always just warm enough to seek the shade on the porch of the church - buy a bottle of cold, cold water and stand on the porch just tall enough to see over the crowd.  This is where I chose to wait as the guys went through the dessert building.  Yeah.  Dessert BUILDING.  Every greek treat imaginable is in there and I can't go in.  I'd buy the place out.  So I sent the guys in with the order for one piece of baclava (for a friend who is coming to claim it next weekend).  They came out with several things - one of which we shared... the Chocolate Kok.  Oh, my.  My son took great delight in mis-pronouncing it (teenagers!) but it was just wonderful.

Once a year...  what a wonderful weekend!!!

3 comments:

Karmyn R said...

I've always loved attending the Greek festival - but I never thought to go inside the church or ask questions about their services. That would have been nice, I think.

ari_1965 said...

I wonder if you and I could start a business called Dessert Building? After all, there's a chain called Dress Barn.

karisma said...

I was also quite a bland eater as a child. Although I did eat Chinese food. That was a treat at our house. :-) My mum cooked fairly basic food though so thats what I was used to. My kids have been bought up with a huge multicultural menu. If one was to serve them up something bland they would probably not eat it. Well actually they would, I just had an image of Zak pouring a bottle of sauce all over his food. Yep he would just grab for the nearest sauce bottle (any type, he is not fussy, Hot Chillie is his favourite though) and drown the food.

The festival sounds like a fun day out. Dolma should be savoured one bite at a time, its a pain in the butt to make it (takes hours). I make a vegetarian variety and while it takes so long to make it disappears very quickly into mouths.

Now I feel like eating some. LOL