Lisa Fischer and Heather Baker, AY Magazine editor-at-large and publisher respectively, took one for the team last night.

They went and tried all the things at the Greek Food Festival preview.  I hope you’re sitting down. Heather had never eaten baklava. Like ever. And boy, did she realize what she was missing when the first bite of phyllo dough goodness and honey hit her lips.

Baklava reigns as the queen of the Greek Food Festival, and her king is gyros (pronounced year-os and kinda roll your tongue). Your Greek friends will be so impressed.  (DO NOT FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING GOOD AND DECENT CALL THEM GY-ROS. Sorry to yell.)

The Greek Food Festival is just a few weeks away. It is May 17-19, 2019. Go ahead and take off work, cancel your own wedding if it’s that weekend, and don’t go into labor if you’re pregnant. It’s the one big DON’T miss food event for the entire state of Arkansas.  We are not kidding when we say this festival is a perennial favorite.

Lucy Whiteside with the public relations team for the festival says they expect 30,000 visitors to the Greek Orthodox Church on Napa Valley Drive that weekend. And only 40,000 pieces of baklava are being made. This is equivalent to a national security crisis right there. I have a calculator so I typed in “40,000 divided by 30,000” and it’s not good news, people. That’s only 1.3333333 pieces per person which might cause a baklava riot.  Ask Heather. She is probably gassing up her car now so she can wait in line the moment they open on that Friday.

One of the great things about the festival besides the aforementioned you know what is the charities that benefit from the generosity of this festival year after after. It does cost $3 to get in or three canned goods which benefit the Arkansas Food Bank. Parking, the trolley and children under 12 are all free.

Check out the photos of the new mosaic the church had installed from Murano glass.  It is spectacular. The Rev. Dr. Nicholas Verdaris, known as Father Nicholas to his parishioners, showed the crowd the new installation and gave a brief history of religious art in the Orthodox church.  He will take people through tours of the sanctuary during the festival.

Dr. Nicholas Verdaris

Make plans to go. And if it’s your first time to try baklava, let us know. We truly think Heather is a unicorn because we thought EVERYONE has had the sweet treat, right?

READ MORE: A May Full of Festivals