Food is real star of the show
The sounds of opera and the smells of pasta filled Main Street over the weekend as the second annual Butler Italian Festival drew crowds.
People ate greens, beans, pizza, and gnocchi in the street, as various artists paid tribute to Italian art and culture on a central stage. Michael Dongilli, one of the organizers, said on Saturday the event was successful. He said Friday's festivities drew about 15,000 people.
“We actually had vendors that sold out of food,” Dongilli said.
He mentioned a few evening acts, such as the Jersey Four — a Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons tribute band — but the star of the event was the food.
“Several of the vendors are serving all homemade everything,” Dongilli said. “It is all really, really good.”
Take chef Dom Barca of Pittsburgh's Thee Olde Place Inn. Barca learned to cook in New York City, and now he makes everything, including his potato ricotta gnocchi, from scratch.
“Everything that's here is homemade,” Barca said. “Even the salad dressing. We make the balsamic, we don't buy any of it.”Donna Java, sister of the owner of Patti's Pastries, a pastry store in Beaver County, made similar claims. They sold cannoli cupcakes and Italian wedding cookies, to name a couple treats.Java said they attended last year's festival, “liked the feel” and decided to return.“We have my grandmother's recipes for old school cooking and baking,” Java said.Maria Stephenson was also using her grandmother's recipe. Stephenson used a long treasured family meatball recipe, the one she uses to make meatballs at Dolce Mia's Bakery on Main Street.An early version of the recipe was brought to the states in 1901 by her grandmother, Stephenson said. It was perfected in this country.
“It's the No. 1 thing I sell at the bakery,” Stephenson said. “We're probably the only bakery in the world that their No. 1 product is a meatball.”Some sellers weren't satisfied just to bring their own food: they wanted to bring their whole kitchen.Joe Mercurio of Mercurio's Pizza in Pittsburgh pushed pizzas into a 1,000 degree, brick pizza oven that he and co-workers had wheeled into Butler atop a small trailer.At those temperatures, the pizzas needed only to bake for about 60 seconds, he explained.Visitors with appetites both humble and extreme gathered at the event.Terry Pierucci of Sligo walked the street munching on a cup full of pierogies. He recently went to a similar event in Bloomfield.“This is smaller, but I see a lot of the same booths here,” Pierucci said. “It's very nice.”Jerad Soose of Butler, on the other hand, swallowed pasta by the pile. Soose was the winner of Saturday's pasta-eating competition, securing himself a full stomach and $100.The noodles, he said, were very hot, and he didn't really taste them because of how quickly they went down.“This guy's like a Hoover vacuum cleaner,” said Dongilli, serving as the commentator.
So what was Soose's secret?“I'm just a pig, man,” Soose said.Besides all the grub, some visitors were excited to meet an Italian cinema icon, Gianni Russo, the actor who played Carlo in the movie “The Godfather.”Russo signed autographs and promoted his Italian-made vodka line branded after Don Corleone.“I was 26 in that film,” Russo said. “To be in your first film, and it wins five Oscars is pretty cool.”Michelle Happ approached Russo wearing a “The Godfather” T-shirt. She said she had seen the film at least 30 times. She has two versions on DVD, the VHS and a digital recording.“My co-worker and I, we sit and recite words from it back and forth,” Happ said, “to meet anyone from the movie, this is very cool.”
