Annual Ethnic Festival is a spicy mix of memories, traditions

Ewa Grzelecki may have left her native Poland in 1986, but one whiff of sauerkraut, made from her mother's secret recipe, and she's back in Bialystok, the city of her birth.
   One taste of it and she is 12 years old again, attending her cousin Maria's wedding.
   That was the year, 41-year-old Grzelecki recalls, that her mother made enough sauerkraut to feed every wedding guest there.
   "It wouldn't be a Polish wedding without it," said Grzelecki, who this time of year makes sauerkraut just like her mother taught her.
   Grzelecki is among a multitude of cooks who showcase their best cuisine at the annual Ethnic Festival sponsored by St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church.
   This year, the March 18 event features 10 ethnic food booths - Korean, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Spanish, French, Italian, Irish, Filipino, American and Slavic .
   Grzelecki won't reveal her mother's recipe, but does say the shipment of fresh polish mushrooms she gets every March from her sister in Poland is key.
   What isn't a mystery is the secret behind the festival's success.
   A melting pot of cooks, each bringing to the table ingredients of home cooking, be it cabbage, ginger, garbanzos or pasta, have by sheer camaraderie concocted one spicy offering.
   With the festival two weeks away, this pot is once again simmering.
   "When I'm chopping or sautéing vegetables, I can't help but think of my grandmother," said Nita Marin-Balolong, who left the Philippines at age 15.
   Marin-Balolong remembers cooking on Saturdays in the Philippines, a family affair.
   "Everything had to be done by hand. The pig, the cow or the chicken had to be killed, and the vegetables picked from the field. It was such a big ordeal."
   When Marin-Balolong prepares her festival specialty of pancit, a rice stick noodle, vegetable and meat dish, she remembers picking the ingredients as a child.
   "My mother would send me out to pick the onions, ginger and cabbage. We'd come back and help scale the fish . . . little things like that I remember."
   The Philippines may be a long way from the Coastal Bend, says Marin-Balolong, but she has found family away from family in the St. Paul cooks who come back every year to share a taste of their culture.
   And that, she says, is a recipe for camaraderie not even she can top.