Elmira food fest will feature tastes of NYC, Israel
The festival will be held from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. April 14 at Congregation Kol Ami, 1008 W. Water St.…The festival will be held from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. April 14 at Congregation Kol Ami, 1008 W. Water St. in West Elmira.
Each year, more than 800 people attend the festival that is sponsored by the Jewish Center and Federation of the Twin Tiers and the Sisterhood, the women’s organization of Congregation Kol Ami, said Paul Solyn, executive director of the center and federation.
“We use the funds for both charitable and educational purposes,” he said of the proceeds.
Dressed in period costume, volunteers will recreate Hester Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan at the dawn of the 20th century, including push carts, street vendors and hanging laundry. Klezmer music will be performed, and there will be raffles and a tchotchke (trinket) shop.
Chicken soup with matzo balls and mushroom barley soup will be available, as will potato latkes (pancakes) with homemade apple sauce, noodle kugel (a pudding similar to a pie), cheese blintzes, gefilte fish and smoked whitefish.
There will also be a deli booth named after the famous Katz Deli in New York City, as well as festival volunteers Sheila and Jeff Katz, that will offer kosher corned beef and pastrami sandwiches, potato knishes, kosher hot dogs, chopped liver and stuffed cabbage.
A quick trip from the Lower East Side to Tel Aviv will provide Israeli fast food: falafel, Israeli salads and bourekas (cheese-filled pastries).
The bakery will offer rugelach (cinnamon-flavored pastries), Mandelbrot (sweet almond bread, similar to biscotti), baklava (made of phyllo pastry filled with chopped nuts and soaked in honey), hamantashen (triangular fruit-filled pastries, usually made for the Purim holiday), challah (braided egg bread that traditional Jewish cooks serve at every Sabbath dinner), babka (cinnamon- or chocolate-filled yeast cake) and macaroons, all made from original homemade recipes.
The festival will also offer beverages, including egg creams — which contain neither eggs nor cream — that will be made to order, plus coffee, tea and a variety of Dr. Brown’s sodas.
