You can't ask for better tour guides to the 32nd Greek Festival than buddies John Halages and George Vithoulkas.

Both men have worked at the festival, which runs tomorrow through Sunday, almost since its beginning.

They say their church activities keep them both going strong.

"They keep me alive," Vithoulkas said. "They keep me young."

"The festival started very small," Halages said. "Over the years it expanded, and now Richmond expects it."

Expect it we do, especially after last year, when we had to make do with a drive-through-only festival because of construction of a new Hellenic Center at Sts. Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Cathedral on Malvern Avenue.

That work is done.

"Now we're back to where we were the year before," Halages said.

It's good news for fans used to showing up each year to pick up their supper at the drive-through or to dine with their friends on the grounds of the church.

Sure, you'll find plenty of music and dancing at the festival, but this is a food story. There's souvlaki (skewered pork or chicken), yahni (green beans and tomatoes), moussaka (eggplant and beef topped with béchamel and cheese), tiropita (cheese-stuffed phyllo triangles), spanakopita (spinach-stuffed phyllo triangles), dolmades (stuffed grape leaves), baklava (a phyllo, butter, nut and honey pastry) and -- trust us -- much, much more.

Festival cooking started in February for those recipes that freeze well. Much of the food, though, is cooked fresh during the festival. Volunteers working the serving line radio back to the kitchen to cook more when their supplies run low.

The Greeks buy a lot of food. For kebabs, we're talking thousands of pounds of chicken and pork. Irene Calos, the volunteer in charge of ordering all the food, has the purchasing or ders and the recipes down to a science.

"Due to the volume we use, we're able to dic-tate how we get it," Halages said.

That means that the chickens destined for the souvlaki weren't killed and processed until last week.

Every Greek home cook worth her oregano has a special way to fix souvlaki.

"It all depends on what part of Greece you're from," Halages said.

Still, the recipes used at the festival are standardized so the next tray of yahni will taste exactly the same as the previous tray. "It's not one person's recipe," Calos said. "It's truly the festival's recipe."

If you want recipes from the church's home cooks, you can buy a copy of the Ladies Philoptochos Society's cookbook, "Fruit of the Spirit," for $18 at the festival. That's the source for the souvlaki and yahni recipes on this page.

So food's the focus, but that's not really what the festival is about. "We try to impart our culture," Halages said. "We follow the tradition."
Contact Jann Malone at (804) 649-6820 or jmalone@timesdispatch.com.