Greek festival brings taste of Mediterranean to town

The secret to good Greek spinach pie, called spanikopita, is the cheese. A good amount of feta does wonders — if you don’t put enough cheese in, according to Lexington resident Amelia Yanakis, it turns out bland.

And like all cooking, the real secret lies within your own tastes.

“Various cooks make different recipes and when you taste one that isn’t good you say, ‘Ew, I don’t like this,’ but if you taste a good one, you’re in,” said Yanakis, while carefully applying layers of thin filo dough to a pan.

She and other members of the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church on Meriam Street spent Monday morning laying out the dough, mixing the filling, and baking about 30 pans of pie for the church’s “Taste of Greece” festival later this month.

The kitchen at St. Nicholas was packed with an efficient assembly line of cooks chopping, mixing, brushing, and sautéing the spanikopita ingredients. They will freeze the final product until the weekend of Sept. 21, when all will be baked and served at the festival.

It takes place Friday, Sept. 21 and Saturday, Sept. 22 from 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.; and Sunday, Sept. 23 from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the church hall and grounds at 17 Meriam St. The event will include a performance by the Makredes Ensemble Saturday at 8 p.m., and will also have children’s arts and crafts and games.

St. Nicholas Church first opened its doors Nov. 15, 1964. Its membership has about 250 families. For about 30 years, the church has held the food festival off and on, said church member Stephanie DeVasto.

At the festival, Spanikopita will be offered a la carte for $3.75. Other dishes will include beef or chicken souvlaki, gyros, Greek salad, and more.

At least two of the offerings — spanikopita and a honey-and-nut dessert called baklava — use filo dough, which takes some patience.

“It’s very delicate, the filo, because it cracks and breaks,” said Sandra Miminos, who was on sauté detail. “You have to treat it with love.”