Lilly Bouroujian Thomas (left) and Janet Ozbalik (right) prepare for the 61st Armenian Food Festival. (Photo courtesy Armenian Food Festival)
On a rainy Tuesday morning at St. James Armenian Church at 834 Pepper Ave., about 20 women are huddled around tables, chatting and making khourabia, an Armenian shortbread-like cookie, for the upcoming 61st annual Armenian Food Festival, set for Sept. 6-8.
The aroma of butter fills the air. Lots and lots of butter.
“Khourabia is flour, lots of [softened] butter, sugar and almond extract, and on top [of the cookie] is a slivered almond” says Lilly Bouroujian Thomas. She is in charge of making the baked goods for the festival. “It’s delicate, like when you bite into it, it kind of crumbles in your mouth.”
Every Tuesday beginning six months ahead of the event, these women, all members of the church's Women’s Guild, meet to prepare a different type of cuisine for the Armenian Food Festival. Occasionally they prep the food after Sunday services and on Mondays as well.
“Our members’ [work] is divided,” Thomas says. “One person does the bookkeeping, one person does the meat shopping for the kabobs, and another person does the burgers, and my side does all the baking.”
The work to prepare the khourabia is divided as well. A few people make the dough, while others weigh the batches to ensure they are exactly uniform, setting the dough balls on a cookie sheet and placing an almond sliver on top of each before popping them in the oven for 12 minutes.
The recipes for the baked goods come from many different families. Virginia Green, a former Women’s Guild member, shared all of her recipes with Thomas before she died.
“[The recipes] have been passed down,” Thomas says. “Virginia Green had recipes, then [there were] the new things that we added later like kataif, and the khourabia is my aunt’s recipe.”
In addition to khourabia, the Women’s Guild will prepare thousands of other foods for the event — hundreds of beoregs, dumpling-shaped rolls filled with cheese or spinach; sweet loaves of holiday bread; kataif, a pancake rolled around sweet cheese or walnuts; bourma, a sweet pastry made of rolled phyllo dough; and simit, a round cookie that pairs well with coffee or tea. All of the foods at the festival are first come, first served, and once they’re sold out, they’re gone.
According to Thomas, there is not just one popular item. She says every item sold at the festival is a favorite, and Americans can’t get enough of the Armenian fare. People come from across the state just to get a taste of their traditional Armenian cuisine, frequently checking in with the church throughout the year to ask when the festival will be held.
“We get phone calls or Facebook [messages] from our American friends, ‘When is your food festival?’ ” Thomas says. “They go to the other ones but like our food the best. And our people are nice, they’re so friendly. It’s not huge like the other festivals, but I guess that’s why.”
A majority of the current Women’s Guild members help make food for the festival because their mothers and grandmothers used to pitch in when the event first began decades ago. They want to carry on the tradition.
“I do this because my grandparents were survivors of the Armenian genocide,” guild member Anne Tootelian Norris says. “I [have] a picture of my grandparents standing outside of this church, and my grandmother was grinning with the biggest smile. She was so happy that there was an Armenian church here where she could worship free of persecution, and so I have kept up with this church because I don’t want the doors to close.”
Making the foods for the festival has become as much of a tradition for these women, similar to the festival itself. After they are done making the cookies and other baked goods for the day, they often finish with a lunch at the church or go out to eat.
Thomas and her team baked 1,250 cookies that rainy morning. I had the chance to try a freshly baked khourabia, soft and warm from the oven. The taste of butter overwhelms your senses and brings to mind a sweet, dense biscuit. It’s easy to see why they’re a best-seller at the festival, not only because of the taste, but because of the history that goes into the recipe, passed down from generation to generation.
The Armenian Food Festival takes place from 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, Sept. 6 and 7, and from noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 8.
