NEW KENSINGTON -- People arriving at St. John the Baptist Orthodox Catholic Church on Sunday afternoon were out of luck if they were craving halushki and potato-stuffed pirogi.
Sunday was the final day for the church's biannual Slavic Food Festival, and the food usually starts running low a few hours before the end. However, this time the choices were starting to thin out by early afternoon.
"By about 1 p.m. we were starting to run out of things," said the Rev. Paul Ziatyk.
Pirogi filled with sauerkraut and cottage cheese, hot sausage sandwiches, borscht and vegetable beef soup still remained at 3 p.m. Sunday. But the crowd favorites, including stuffed cabbage, were long gone.
Those who missed out will have a second chance later this year, however, when the church sponsors a second food festival in late October.
"We'll also have a flea market then," Ziatyk said.
The food at the later festival will be largely the same, although seasonal pies probably will be included.
The festivals are fund-raisers for the Elmtree Road church, which celebrated its 90th anniversary in 2000.
"The American public loves ethnic food," Ziatyk said.
"The roots of the parishioners who came from Europe in 1909 were basically from Russia and the Ukraine," Ziatyk said. "The food is part of our cultural heritage."
Although the congregation is familiar with the food, it still was a lot of work to create the 640 dozen pirogi and 1,500 stuffed cabbages. About 50 heads of cabbage were used in the halushki, a dish made from mixing the fried vegetable with noodles.
"About 40 people helped," Ziatyk said. "We started cooking on Monday.
"I'm tired," he said with a smile. "We're all tired."
