Originally begun as a Sunday family gathering in 1984, the Lebanese Food Festival will celebrate its thirty-seventh festival from May 13 to 15, rain or shine, at St. Anthony Church in Glen Allen.
“Our festival is completely done by the parish of St. Anthony Maronite Church. The festival is truly a family affair! We get together. We laugh, we cry, we sing songs. It’s a true fellowship of our community,” says Sandra Joseph Brown, a parishioner and volunteer.
The popular festival is staffed by all volunteers, ranging in age from three years old (in the youngest dance troop) to 93 years old. “We actually have four generations of families working. Our entire parish is involved in one capacity or another, over 300 families,” says Brown.
Youth in the parish can start dancing at three years old.
“They are ready,” says Brown. “Most of our babies learn to Dabkee (our traditional Lebanese line dance) when they learn to walk.”
There will be a total of five dance troops led by members of the parish. All of their traditional costumes are handmade by their families.
“We have our own original Lebanese band, The Mazloom Family. They will be playing our traditional music for the dance troops, and we even encourage our guests to join and learn how to Dabkee as we dance among the crowds,” Brown says.
The festival’s menu covers a large variety of traditional Lebanese recipes. There will be something for everyone, including vegetarian options. All foods are prepared in the same kitchen.
“We want everyone to be aware in case of food allergies,” says Brown. “We make our own hummus. We cut and skewer our own Shish Kabob and roll and snip our own grape leaves. In fact, we make enough grape leaves to reach Short Pump Town Center and back to the festival site.”
When it comes to menu, the meat, cheese, spinach, and Feta and spinach pies are always in demand.
“We hand fold and fill 40,000, meat, cheese, spinach and Feta and spinach pies,” Brown says. “Honestly, we cannot make enough of those pies. We also stuff 2,000 pounds of our squash or as we call it Kousa, another one of our favorites.”
The pandemic has created a number of challenges for the world, especially when it comes to shortages and delays in commodities and ingredients.
“We have had a wonderful festival committee that has taken the charge on this, and we have been able to find all of our ingredients,” Brown says, crediting Gus Harika and Theresa Shibley, two key committee heads, for taking care of everything. “Case in point we had to order our Lebanese wine and beer in October. Boy, were we nervous. It was shipped from Lebanon and arrived April 18.”
One of the biggest challenges with the menu was getting serving containers. “Paper shortages have been our biggest concern,” Brown says. “Our food will taste as wonderful as in the past, but our serving containers will be different.”
This will be the first time the festival has been held in person since the start of the pandemic.
“It has been a gift from God. We love and miss each other so we were ready,” Brown says. “Remember we are one big Lebanese Family. Be assured we followed all COVID protocols, mask, distancing etc. Having said that, we were just happy to be together. Our volunteers have been wonderful.”
Those who would rather pick up their food and not attend, can still do so by ordering online at lebanesefoodfestival.com. During festival hours only, you can call 804-718-8508 or 804-718-8468 for takeout orders.
“This year you can also pay for takeout with credit cards when you pick your items up,” Brown says. “There is also free parking at Markel Corporation on Highwoods Parkway. We have a free shuttle that takes you back and forth.”
This year’s festival will be even more of a celebration than in the past, she adds.
“Our church family is more than ready to greet our RVA community and from the buzz around town, everyone is ready to come out for this year’s event,” Brown says. “One thing for sure, all of food is made with the most important ingredient ‘love’ and it is obvious when you come out and share a meal with us. After all, you are our family.”
