Pittsburgh has such fantastically unique things, and one of my favorites (because it involves soooo much good food) is the annual Folk Festival. Yes, it’s nerdy of me to go out just to sample ethnic treats and watch the Ukrainian dancers, and maybe to pick up a goofy Irish button to wear on St. Patrick’s Day, but I sure love it!
This year, I got to bring my wonderful husband along for the fun, and while he was skeptical to begin with, he was a believer by the end! What follows is mostly a collection of pictures that make me hungry just to look at them.
This is Michael’s initial reaction at giving up his Friday evening at a Folk Festival. To make matters worse, this year’s festival was held in Monroeville. We are from the North Hills; we do not go to Monroeville except for very special occasions.
Our first stop once inside was the Carpatho-Rusyn booth for some fabulous potato pancakes. As you can see, Michael is already sold on this Folk Festival business.
And then it was off to the land of my people, the Ukraine!! Here we had delicious pierogies and holubtsi (that is stuffed cabbage). It was like my great-grandmother’s kitchen, except they charged us for the food and the portions eventually ended. As you can tell, my hair decided to prove its Ukrainianness in full force (you can always find us in the Olympics, because we are the little gymnasts with the bad hair). 🙂
And just across the way from the Ukraine was India, where we sampled their lovely samosas. Yum!
And across from that was Vietnam, where we had spring rolls! Isn’t it wonderful when all of your favorite foods’ countries are so conveniently located?
And you know that I timed our visit so we would get to see the Ukrainian dancers. The Ukrainian dancers are the only country to be represented in each and every one of the Pittsburgh Folk Festivals. There is your trivia for the night! 🙂
And after all that magnificent dancing, we were in the mood for some dessert, so we hit up the Philippines for some scrumptious flan. My absolute favorite Filipino food is cassava cake (I worked in the Filipino part of Los Angeles, so I got fairly familiar with some of their traditional foods, and when we left, everyone made me their family’s recipes of the stuff!), and flan is the closest thing I’ve been able to find outside of Eagle Rock, California. I love it! Michael is looking at it like he knows he’s only got a few seconds to lay claim to the bits he wants 🙂
THEN we went to China and got crab rangoons!! I sometimes feel like this blog has become the unofficial crab rangoon food blog 🙂
And then Michael got lamb and veal from Lebanon, which I sat out on, because I am so not a lamb and veal type of girl.
And finally, because our pants were still fitting, we got bratwurst and potato salad from Germany. We couldn’t even take pictures of ourselves with this food because we’d just gotten so fat, our faces wouldn’t fit in the frame.
This was the gorgeous sky we saw as we left the Folk Festival!
The very last thing we grabbed on our way out the door was Scotland’s desserts. We brought home a fern cake and an empire cookie to share with our Lucypup. Sooooo yummy!
All in all, we certainly overdid it in a delicious way! Can’t wait until the festival next year 🙂