We had another busy weekend in Portland, Oregon, earlier this month, spending some quality time with our younger daughter and her girls and enjoying time outside in mild fall weather. We packed a lot into our Saturday, starting with a visit to the annual Greek Festival at Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Northeast Portland’s Laurelhurst neighborhood.

That area is one of my favorites in Portland for a number of reasons. It boasts a large, shady park surrounded by streets lined with lovely, century-old homes — some magnificent large houses, others smaller Craftsman bungalows. Enormous trees tower over the sidewalks, and gardens burst with rhododendrons, azaleas, ferns and perennials. One of those homes was my husband’s grandmother’s house, a modest bungalow with charming built-ins and her garden boasting a fig tree, a grape arbor (she made the best dolmades with those leaves!) and oregano, among a host of other plants. The house was sold after she passed away more than 30 years ago, but I will always treasure the holiday and Sunday meals we shared there, and working with her in her warm kitchen, smelling of roast lamb and simmering onions, learning how to make her famous Thanksgiving stuffing.

Within blocks of Yaya’s house sits the Greek Orthodox church where Harry and I were married and where our girls were baptized. It has held a festival on its grounds for more than 70 years, usually on the first weekend of October, and though it started out as just a celebration for its parishioners, it has become a much-anticipated event for Portlanders and visitors who appreciate wonderful Greek food and pastries, some traditional dancing and a little Opa! We arrived early enough that the crowds hadn’t made it difficult to get a table or move around. This was almost-two-year-old Josie’s first Greek Festival, and we were delighted to discover that she enjoyed her souvlaki and kept wanting more. Almost-six-year-old June visited last year, but she hadn’t seen the full lambs roasting over open spits before, and she and her Papou revisited the “burnt deer” (as she described them) several times. We loaded up on a variety of things for our lunch, including a Greek pasta salad, spanakopita, souvlaki, meatballs, a gyro and pita bread. Of course we had to get a sampling of Greek pastries (but no one makes better baklava than Harry!), and we topped it all off with a big shared serving of loukoumades, fried balls of dough covered in a gooey honey sauce. My granddaughters did their Greek heritage proud by devouring them in no time! We browsed through the marketplace, where one could buy everything from imported food products such as feta, olives, olive oil and honey to medallions to ward off the evil eye and embroidered pillows and table linens.

After that, we headed back home so Josie could get her nap in (she may not have been the only one to sleep off our Greek lunch) before we headed to Beilke Family Farm for some apple picking. We had visited last year, and I looked forward to some time among the trees. The first thing Josie noticed once we took her out of her car seat was a giant tractor parked near the orchard. She was enthralled, so we made sure she and sister June had plenty of time to clamber around on it and another, even larger one, nearby. But first, the apples were calling, so we gathered our buckets and a large wagon and trundled down the rows of several varieties, the smell of apples (many windfalls covering the ground under the trees) filling the warm October air. It didn’t take long to fill our four buckets, with June helping, as the fruit hung well within her reach, and even Josie was recruited to carry the apples from our hands to the wagon.

After paying for the apples, our next task (after admiring the tractors again) was to pick out pumpkins for decorating and carving. On the way, we passed a large patch of sunflowers (available to cut and buy), and I especially loved a deep maroon-red one. Further on stretched rows of tomatoes, still ripening and waiting for someone to can up a bunch of sauce. (That someone was not me; I already had 40 pounds or more of apples to deal with!)

Once we hit the pumpkin patch, the girls shot off in separate directions, eager to find the most interestingly colored, bumpy, gnarly gourds . . . plus a few for carving. I had to keep a sharp eye on Josie, as she seemed interested in picking up little pumpkins and then throwing them vigorously to the ground. Luckily, it was a short drop!

As her mom, sister and Papou took our choices off to be weighed and paid for, June and I took a detour to admire the loooong row of dahlias growing nearby (also available to cut and take home). They had so many colors and varieties, I’m glad we decided to just photograph them and not try to decide which ones to take home with us. We made our way back to the car, noting how the clouds were starting to thicken and thankful we had been blessed with warm, dry, shirt-sleeve weather for our farm adventure.

On the drive home we enjoyed the scent of the apples and recalled our favorite moments of that perfect October day. Bliss!

— Patty Vanikiotis, associate editor/copy editor