Smiling with Our Mouths Full

For gourmets and gourmands alike, this is a week in Norwich where you can be forgiven for humming or even singing "Glorious Food" from the musical Oliver! Hope you have a napkin handy to take some notes and then use because you'll need it.

The 44th Annual Greek Food Festival starts tomorrow (just in time for lunch at 11) at the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox church on Washington Street, less than a block from Norwich Free Academy and Chelsea Parade, lasting through Sunday afternoon. 

In an amazing coincidence, the church is a mere four-minute walk from my house, and even closer when the gyros are just about done. As the festival stretches over four days, you could theoretically dedicate yourself to enjoying a different specialty every day or just sampling everything every time you go (no one is judging (I hope)).  

You will want to save some room (on your plate and in your tummy) because Saturday is the 28th Annual Taste of Italy in Howard Brown Park, at the Norwich Harbor.

Forget GPS, roll down the car window as you're driving in downtown and just follow your nose. Unless you have a crippling head cold, you can't miss it. As for the car you came in, get yourself a heaping helping of the Regional Intermodal Transportation Center with lots of free parking and then use the short walk to help you work up an appetite as you follow the mouth-watering aromas. 

There's a reason why The Italian Heritage and Cultural Committee have held this Pastapalooza for almost three decades as anyone who’s ever attended it can tell you. Food, fun, and friends all start with the same letter and Taste of Italy is proof that it's by design. 

The Taste starts at eleven in the morning and goes until five in the afternoon, and no matter how hungry you think you are when you arrive, it will still not be possible to eat all the marvelous dishes being offered by our area restaurants, but it's okay to try your hardest. 

We do a lot of food festivals throughout the year, thanks in large part to Global City Norwich and Norwich Events, so much so that I'm thinking perhaps a better symbol for The Rose of New England might be a Fork, but that's food for thought at another time. The celebrations are more than food course, they're about each of us and all of us.  

We have large numbers of people from various heritages and we all bring something special to where we live. Some I don't know as much about as I'd like to so events combining customs and cuisine are part of the bridges we build within our community to better communicate with one another even if sometimes a lot of we say is just a variation of "are you gonna finish that?"

And if you're looking at a calendar and wondering about the space between the Greek Food Festival starting tomorrow and Taste of Italy on Saturday, that's where you pencil in First Friday Norwich across all of Chelsea and wonder why there can't be more days of the week.  

-bill kenny