Local

A thousand Slavic delights

Dave Borowski | Catholic Herald

Dolores Opachko wraps a nut roll in a freezer bag to prepare it for freezing.

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Nut rolls fresh from the oven wait to be transferred to cooling tables.

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After spreading dough out on a template, women of the parish dole out apricot filling July 27 in Annandale.

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Cindy Anderson puts nut rolls on the cooling table in preparation for freezing.

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Parishioners Debbie Wargo (left) and Mary Goodspeed measure dough for the nut rolls.

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Theresa Matlaga spreads nut roll mix on a baking shell to create one of of about 1,000 nut, poppy seed and apricot rolls for the Epiphany of Our Lord Byzantine Church Slavic-American Festival this fall.

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Epiphany of Our Lord Byzantine Church’s 40th annual
Slavic-American Festival is still about six weeks away, but
it’s never too early to prepare some of the popular food that
visitors will devour at the Annandale parish’s annual event.

About 60 parishioners showed up at the parish hall July 27 to
join in a marathon nut-,

poppy seed- and apricot-roll baking effort.

It takes planning, hard work and a system to make 1,000
pastry rolls in 12 hours. Preparation for the day began
around 5 a.m. for Theresa Matlaga, chairwoman of the annual
baking event. Of course, she can’t do it alone.

“We get about 50 or 60 people to work, and it’s wonderful,”
she said.

Matlaga said that the most popular roll is nut with about 500
prepared, followed by poppy seed and apricot at nearly 250
each. They also make several prune lekvar rolls that round
out the count to about 1,000.

The pastry shells are rolled on a template to make them a
standard size, then packed with the appropriate filling and
rolled into the familiar shape. They’re gently carried – with
two hands like one would a baby – to a station where
volunteers brush the rolls with an egg wash and then send
them to the oven to bake. The rolls emerge from the oven with
a golden-brown color.

After the rolls come out of the oven, they’re brushed with
butter, for flavor, and then moved to tables where fans cool
them. Eventually the rolls are packed in a plastic bag and
put into large plastic crates to be frozen and later thawed
in time for the festival.

The other Slavic delicacies like “holupki,” cabbage rolls;
“haluski,” boiled potatoes and cabbage; “kolbasi,” sausage;
and “pirohi,” potato-filled dumplings, are prepared closer to
the festival.

John Onufrak, who turns 90 next month, comes to help every
year and was placing finished rolls into bags for freezing.
Onufrak is the oldest male member of the parish and came to
the Washington area after World War II.

“I help out wherever I can,” he said.

Work continued until about 6 p.m., finishing up when the last
plastic crate of rolls was placed into the walk-in freezer
and the kitchen was cleaned.

The rolls will hibernate for six weeks until the hungry
festivalgoers show up.

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