Q+A with Lakis Pape

This week, the annual Greek Glendi Festival is back for its 31st year at St. Barbara Greek Orthodox Church. The event celebrates Greek food, wine and music, showcased by those who know the staples of the culture best — the 250 festival volunteers. Lakis Pape, a 14-year volunteer, is as Greek as his name suggests. Here, Pape dishes on the essentials of a Greek kitchen and East County’s longtime cultural celebration. Opa!

Q: How long have you been involved with the Greek Glendi Festival?
A: I’ve worked on the Glendi for 14 years. My wife, Linda, and I moved here from Columbus, Ohio, in October 1999, and we started getting more involved with the church about a year later.

Q: How has the Glendi changed since you first attended it?
A: When I started with the Glendi, there were a couple of tents, and that was it. Maybe 5,000 people came. Now, we have big tents and more than 10,000 people come. One year, we had 17,000 people.

Q: What’s your role with the Glendi?
A: I’m doing some of everything as a department chairman. I order the food and plan which foods we will cook. Popi Ameres and I work closely together to plan the menu and how much of each food we’ll have. We calculate how many pounds of lamb, beef, pork and chicken we’ll need and how many side dishes to make.

Q: Give us a snapshot of your day in the days before the festival starts.
A: My job starts early in the morning. My biggest job is managing food preparation, which is a lot of what’s going on the week before the Glendi. We prepare the food people are going to eat, such as cutting carrots and getting ingredients ready for sauces, dressings and other things. And everything is from scratch. So, when meats come in, we clean them, cut off the fat and skin we don’t want, marinate it in our special sauce and the night before the festival starts — and each night before a festival day — we bake the chickens and add more sauce. The sauce is everything.

Q: How many hours did you dedicate to Glendi preparations this year?
A: In January, we worked 20 full days of at least six to seven hours per day. That’s about 140 hours for each of the 15 or so volunteers who work in the kitchen. The festival has 250 volunteers, so volunteer hours total much more than that. We start planning the Glendi in June. When one Glendi ends, the work on the next one begins.

Q: What are staples in a Greek kitchen?
A: Greek cuisine is different from Italian — we don’t use a lot of garlic. We use some garlic, like in the garlic sauce we use in gyros. Cinnamon, nutmeg, lemon, oregano, olive oil, real butter, fresh tomatoes, and salt and pepper — of course — are important ingredients in Greek foods.

Q: Do Greek restaurants in America get it right?
A: Some restaurants in the states serve Greek foods, but they’ve Americanized them to make the dishes look pretty. The taste isn’t as good. When I went to Italy, the pizza didn’t look so pretty, but oh, it was good. Tasty foods don’t always look pretty.

Q: Does the local Greek Glendi stay true to Greek culture?
A: Absolutely. Each year, we have foods that are found in most Greek restaurants, such as the moussaka and baklava. The Glendi’s food is the same as what you would find in Greece. We make the béchamel sauce the perfect consistency — fluffy and a tasty mix of real cheese, eggs, milk and butter. If it’s too thick it has no taste; if it’s too thin it disappears. This event is a celebration of Greek food, wine, music and culture.

Q: What’s your favorite Greek dish? Is it served at the Glendi?
A: I love lamb shanks. If you go to other Glendi festivals, you won’t find lamb shanks like we have here. These lamb shanks are made how my mother and grandmother used to make them.

Q: What’s the secret behind Popi Ameres’ lamb shank?
A: We marinade them in our own special sauce and slow cook them every night before the festival.(the week of the festival). The slow cooking makes the meat fall right off the bone. It’s so good. We try to get our lamb from New Zealand. You have to be careful when picking out lamb, though. Older lambs produce tougher meat.

Q: Are all Glendi festivals the same?
A: I participated in the Glendi when I lived in Ohio. Festivals are similar in different states, but the set up of each is different. Some are located indoors and display the foods differently, but we’re all celebrating. That’s what Glendi means — a celebration or party.

Q. What should Glendi goers know about the festival?
A: We don’t care about the weather — whether it’s cold or rainy, the event will happen. That’s what our tents are for. And, we have a lot of them. The food, drinks and pastries of course are delicious, and people can always taste some of the food here and bring it home. But, most importantly, I want them to understand the hospitality of the Greeks. We’re known to be the friendliest and most welcoming people.
But, with the recession and bad economic times, I think we lost some people. Some people came back. We’re also more organized now and we have strong leadership. A lot of us have business experience. I managed hotels and restaurants in Greece for a few years.

I estimate how many people we’ll have, so we have enough food, but not too much. We don’t want to have any waste, so we try to judge how popular foods were last year.

— Amanda Sebastiano