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Music, dance and baklava this weekend

The festival is coming together. The tents are going up.

St. Philip Greek Orthodox Church (500 W. Hollis St. in Nashua, 889-4000, nashuagreekfestival.com) is getting ready to welcome visitors to its annual Greek Food Festival. “It’s an experience,” said Festival co-chair Marcy Mazur. It’s about great Greek food of course, but it’s more than that, she said.

“It’s a chance to invite guests to listen to authentic Greek music from our bands and visit our Greek marketplace, where they can pick up food or trinkets,” Mazur said. It’s an opportunity, she said, to watch Greek dances; guests are invited to learn how to dance and even to join in.

But of course the biggest attraction is the food.

Lamb enthusiasts will be excited to see a new cut of meat on the menu this year: lamb shanks. Because shanks are a cut of meat that require long, slow cooking, they are not grilled like the shish kebabs are; they are stewed in tomato sauce until the meat falls off the bone. The shish kebabs will still be grilled, though — chicken as well as lamb — on a special grill designed and built by a St. Philip parishioner. There will be a whole booth dedicated to loukoumades, fried Greek dough puffs served with cinnamon and honey and frequently eaten by the bucket. Adjacent to the loukoumades booth is a coffee station, which is, in turn, next to a pastry booth selling baklava, finikia, and Greek butter cookies called kourabiedes. The gyro station will have four different varieties of the pita bread wraps, including a vegetarian option filled with Greek salad and a vegan one with falafel.

“It’s a wonderful event of tastes and smells and sounds,” Mazur said.

While St. Philip — “There’s no S in our name,” Mazur said emphatically. “It’s very important.” — has been holding a food festival for more than 30 years, last year’s festival was the first since Covid. Mazur said the congregation missed it profoundly during lockdown. “It’s a community event,” she explained — not only during the actual Festival, but also in the months leading up to it. It is the culmination of a year of preparation for Mazur and her co-chair, Jamie Pappas.

“If we can get enough people we can usually finish up each dish in two days,” Mazur said.

If you imagine how the food for the Festival is prepared, you might imagine a group of church women in aprons putting out pan after pan of spanakopita (a pastry made from spinach, feta cheese, phyllo dough and an extravagant amount of butter) over a weekend.

“Yes,” Mazur said, “that’s exactly what happens. We have ample commercial freezer space, so we devote a weekend to making each dish. It’s time-consuming. There are 30 sheets of phyllo in each pan of spanakopita and I don’t even know how many pounds of spinach and feta.” Because making phyllo from scratch is incredibly difficult and time-intensive, the St. Philip ladies use commercial phyllo. “We don’t make our own phyllo, and we don’t grow our own grape leaves,” Mazur confesses.

The parishioners do, however, roll their own grape leaves — about 3,600 of them, as well as another 3,600 meatballs. This is on top of 150 pans of spanakopita and 100 pans of pastitsio (“That’s our Greek lasagna,” Mazur explains. “It’s just about my favorite thing we serve.”) Because it doesn’t freeze well, the weekend before the Festival is Baklava Weekend. “All the ladies look forward to it,” she said. “It’s a gathering of friends who get together, cook and laugh.”

Mazur’s advice to visitors is to plan to stay at the Festival for a while.

“It’s a relaxing atmosphere,” she said. ”The lines are going to be long, but it’s worth it.” Festival workers, easily recognized by their blue T-shirts, will work the lines, providing the people waiting for food with samples.

“It’s a big production,” Mazur said.

Greek Food Festival
When: Friday, May 17, and Saturday, May 18, from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Where: Saint Philip Greek Orthodox Church, 500 W. Hollis St. in Nashua
More info: 889-4000, nashuagreekfestival.com
Parking is free. There will be a shuttle to take guests to and from overflow parking at Stellos Stadium (7 Stadium Drive in Nashua).

News from the local food scene

• Competition-worthy cooking: If you’ve ever wondered how good the contestants on Top Chef really are, you can find out for yourself at a Top Chef Dinner on Friday, May 17, at Ansanm Restaurant (20 South St. in Milford, 554-1248, ansanmnh.com) starting at 7:30 p.m. Owner/Chef of Ansanm Chris Viaud, who is a James Beard Award finalist and Top Chef Season 18 alumnus, and four of his fellow Season 18 contestants will cook a five-course dinner celebrating the cultural background of each chef. Tickets are $150 and available through eventbrite.com.

• Layers of knowledge: Add an Italian classic to your cooking repertoire. Tuscan Market (9 Via Toscana in Salem, 912-5467, tuscanbrands.com) will hold a Lasagna Cooking Class on Friday, May 17, from 2 to 4 p.m. Take one more step down the road of your pasta knowledge by making your own lasagna. This is a tradition that should be practiced in every household. This class will feature choices of multiple fillings, including vegetarian-friendly ones. The class will be taught by Chef Jarret Parizo-Kellerman. Tickets are $65 each and available through Tuscan Brands’ website.

• Vines and wines: Experience an immersive outdoor vineyard tour and wine tasting at LaBelle Winery (345 Route 101 in Amherst, 672-9898, labellewinery.com) at a Vineyard Bud Break, Sunday, May 19, from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Sommelier and wine educator Marie King and winemaker Melaney Shepard will guide participants through LaBelle’s vineyards and lead them through a tasting of four LaBelle wines. Participants will learn about the grape varietals grown at LaBelle, how trellising and pruning work, and what it takes for vines to survive and thrive with a constantly changing New England climate. Tickets are $30 and available through LaBelle’s website.

• Tacos and fun: Tuesday, May 21, is Taco and Tequila Night at The Peddler’s Daughter (48 Main St. in Nashua, 821-7535, thepeddlersdaughter.com).