The Washington Post
September 13, 2000, Wednesday, Final Edition
The Washington Post
September 13, 2000, Wednesday, Final Edition
'Whatever It Takes'
Batches of baklava for the church, 175 chickens for charity. Marion Kopsidas has
always known how to feed a crowd.
By Stefanie Berry
Special to The Washington Post
Wednesday, September 13, 2000; Page F01
In one evening Marion Kopsidas peeled 50 pounds of onions by herself. Another time, she cooked 175 chickens in her own kitchen. Enormous family? No, and she's not a caterer. As usual, she was cooking for charity.
She started almost 30 years ago, selling her special Greek food to raise money for the Salvation Army. She would cook spanakopita, moussaka, cheese pies, spinach pies, stuffed grape leaves, chickens and baklava. Then she would call friends and neighbors and take orders, making notes about the delivery. Either she would deliver the delicacies or they would pick them up at the Salvation Army. Or "Mrs. K," as many called her, would have their requests packed and ready to go.
"I furnished all the food, cooked everything and gave the Salvation Army every penny of it," she recalls. Sitting on the screened porch of her home in Northwest Washington, she pulls out old records from 1973, tattered pages of names, notes, phone numbers, instructions about delivery. And a shopping list: 30 pounds of sugar, 20 pounds of flour, 26 pounds of butter, 16 pounds of onions.
"One year, I cooked 175 chickens! My husband bought me a second stove and we put it in the laundry room, so I had two ovens in the kitchen and one downstairs, three total going around the clock. I was so young. I had great energy."
And then there's her church, the Greek Orthodox church of Sts. Constantine and Helen on 16th Street NW. In 1961, when she was president of the women's charity group of the church, she and the priest decided to a hold a bazaar. "I thought people would come to help cook, but no one came. People had small children, and I was able to do it," she explains modestly. "I peeled and chopped 50 pounds of onions by myself one night, and that was before the Cuisinart!"
Her hard work paid off. The church bazaar, which begins Friday, is now a regular fundraising tradition.
Kopsidas today has lots of help at festival time. "Now all the women come to the church. It's mass production, but it's very good," she explains. "It's a lot of work, but teamwork. There's such fellowship, it's wonderful. And everyone says our food is the best--and it is. It's really good Greek food, the genuine article."
When she is not cooking for charity, she relaxes by . . . cooking for neighbors. Sometimes just as a pleasant surprise, sometimes after a loved one has passed away.
"Cooking is part of being Greek, I guess, or being a woman. I love it, it's part of me. And, I love eating."
Greek sweets such as
baklava and kourambiedes will be the highlight of this weekend's church bazaar.
(Mark Finkenstaedt - for The Washington Post)
Kopsidas moved to a a small cul de sac in Northwest in 1945, 10 years after she married, and she's kept tabs on neighbors who have moved in, grown up and moved out since. (I know this because I'm one of them. My parents' house is just down the block.)
She refers to neighborhood children as "her girls" or "her boys." My brother fondly recalls the times that Kopsidas called out to him as he passed by on his walk home from school. "She would give me a little china plate with three baklavas on it, and they'd be gone before I got home," he remembers.
Once I opened our front door and found, for no apparent reason, a foil-wrapped dinner plate with a dozen or so kourabiedes, buttery shortbreadlike treats with almonds, cloves and powdered sugar. There was no note but no need for one. We'd always return the china the next day; whoever did so had another chance of getting another delicious snack. Drop by her modest "one-man operation" kitchen a few weeks before the festival begins and a sheet of baklava is sitting on the table, a beautiful, fluffy phyllo quilt. She is serving a lunch of Greek chili over rice, spanakopita, and then the baklava and kourabiedes I've been looking forward to.
She didn't learn to cook from her mother, who was from Sparta, Greece. Instead, like many young brides, she taught herself after she got married. "When I was a little girl, my mother said, 'When you get up in the morning, the first thing you're going to ask yourself is, 'What is my husband going to have for dinner?'
"My husband loved to eat and I wanted to make him happy. He had a Greek cookbook by Nicholas Tselementes, a wonderful book which wasn't easy to get at the time in the U.S." She disappears for a moment and returns with the book, covered in worn brown leather; the text and recipes are in Greek.
"I really had to struggle with the syllables," Kopsidas recalls. "Of course, I'd gone to Greek school, but I didn't pay attention!"
As festival time approaches, Kopsidas often spends her mornings at the church, where she will catch up with a group of 15 or 20 women making dolmades--the stuffed grape leaves that are popular at the bazaar.
They talk about children and grandchildren while their hands busily fill the grape leaves with a mixture of rice, ground beef, lemon juice, parsley, onion, garlic and eggs. Trays of dolmades are already prepared, but the women keep working. The dolmades will be frozen until the festival, when they'll be cooked each day, and served with a freshly made lemon-egg cream sauce. They anticipate selling about 1,500 dolmades at the three-day festival, along with about 2,000 pieces of baklava, 2,500 pieces of spanakopita, 2,000 meatballs (served with freshly made tomato sauce) and much more.
Preparation for the bazaar started in June under the organization of Cookie Papuchis. Food for the festival is cooked on the premises, using only fresh herbs and ingredients.
The women know what can be frozen and what must be made fresh daily, as well as what needs to be done the week before the big weekend--pastries will be dipped in honey, the church hall will get decorated and so on.
Yes, they follow recipes (and also sell a cookbook), but one woman explains that sometimes it's not exact. "Osopare," she says with a smile, explaining that's Greek for "whatever it takes."
How do they do so much in such a short amount of time? "We've got great camaraderie," says Papuchis. "We're happy. We sing."
One memory of a past bazaar remains strong: the year they ran out of baklava. " 'Go home and make baklava, they told us!' " says Kopsidas. "So we did."
And I think to myself, "Osopare."
Once, Marion Kopsidas was asked what she thought was the best Greek restaurant in town. She gave her own address.
When Kopsidas was asked if she would share some of her recipes for this article, she exclaimed, "What am I doing? I'm giving away my children!"
But then she obliged and also gave some cooking tips: Always use good olive oil and unsalted butter (never ever use canola oil or solid vegetable shortening). Never take shortcuts or skimp on ingredients. Use fresh parsley, mint and dill rather than dried.
(45 pieces)
Kourambiedes were the traditional wedding treat of Sparta. "Everyone got one at my wedding," Marion Kopsidas recalls. "I don't like to call them cookies because they're not cookies--they're creations."
Kopsidas says the secret is to whip the butter until it's white. The excess of confectioners' sugar represents wishes for good fortune. She prefers to sprinkle the confectioners' sugar on wax paper, transfer the cookies to the sugar, then cover them with additional sugar.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a medium bowl, combine the flour and baking powder. Set aside.
In a large bowl with an electric mixer on medium speed, beat the butter until white, about 10 minutes. Beating constantly, slowly add the sugar and egg yolks and mix until combined. Using a spoon, stir in the cognac and almonds, if desired, and mix until combined. Add the flour mixture and mix until thoroughly combined. Using about 1/4 of the dough, form it into a log about 1 inch in diameter. Cut the dough on the diagonal into 1-inch pieces. Press a clove into the center of each piece and shape each piece into a ball. Transfer the ball to the baking sheet and repeat with the remaining ingredients.
Bake the dough in the preheated oven until lightly golden but not brown, about 20 minutes. Remove the sheet from the oven and immediately sprinkle the confectioners' sugar over the kourambiedes, being careful to cover the sides and tops of each piece. Set aside to cool for at least 1 hour. Using a small spatula, transfer each kourambiedes into a small paper pastry cup without disturbing the sugar.
*NOTE: To toast nuts, spread them on a baking sheet and place them in a 350-degree oven, shaking the pan occasionally, for 8 to 10 minutes. Watch carefully because nuts will burn quickly.
Per serving: 102 calories, 2 gm protein, 9 gm carbohydrates, 7 gm fat, 21 mg cholesterol, 3 gm saturated fat, 12 mg sodium, 1 gm dietary fiber
Foodways: one in an occasional series that looks at cooking in the community.
The annual bazaar at Sts. Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church will take place Friday, Saturday and Sunday from noon to 9 p.m. daily. 4115 16th St. NW, Washington, D.C.; call 202-829-2910.
Stefanie Berry is senior editor of Washington Flyer magazine.
© 2000 The Washington Post Company