Given Pete Stathopoulos is not only the Parish Council President of the Saint Barbara Greek Orthodox Church but also the baseball coach at Bishop Diego High School, it’s no surprise that he’s leading a Greek Grab-n-Go that’s sure to be a grand slam of culinary goodness. As chair of the event, he gets to oversee 40-plus parishioners providing take-home delights ranging from savory spanakopita to sweet baklava on the weekend of November 1-2.
The Grab-n-Go began during COVID, when the church couldn’t hold its annual Greek Festival. “We put it together originally to show we were still here living our faith and community,” Stathopoulos says. While the summertime festival has since returned — and will be back in August down by the beach, as it was this past year — the food-to-go fall mini-fest lives on. Pre-orders online happen through October 26. When ordering, people choose a pickup time and date, because, as Stathopoulos puts it, “We’re limited by how many gyros we can make per hour — everything we do is fresh, coming right out of the commercial kitchen in the church.” They even fry the delectable Greek donuts called loukoumades to order, and then drizzle them with honey and sprinkle them with cinnamon and chopped walnuts.
In addition to the best-selling pita-stuffed gyros — that even come in family-sized platters featuring dolmathakia (stuffed grape leaves pungent with herbs) and spanakopita (spinach pie featuring flaky phyllo) — this year, the church will offer a new dish, pastitsio. Think of it as a Grecian take on lasagna — layered pasta, ground meat, tomato sauce, gooey bechamel. “All the volunteers have their specialty,” Stathopoulos explains, “making a recipe from home that their moms or grandmoms made.” Indeed, the ordering website repeatedly invokes the spirit of Yiayia ("grandma" in Greek).
