Ottawa Cultural Festivals

Growing up in Winnipeg, Folklarama was one of the summer festivals I looked forward to attending every year. Folklarama has been around for over 30 years and has grown to a two week festival with over 40 different cultural pavilions set up around the city. The festival typically draws about 425,000 pavilion visits.

In Ottawa, cultural festivals are smaller and usually initiated by individual cultural communities.  But, still well-worth checking out.

Here are some pictures of the food from a few that have taken place over the summer:

Recently, we went to GreekFest, probably one of the most popular cultural festivals in Ottawa.  I can't even imagine how much food they go through during this festival.

Chicken Souvlaki

Gyros Platter

Bougatsa

Baklava

The weekend before last, we checked out Ottawa's first Night Market.  The market was small (about 15 stands total), but it was a great start to what hopefully will grow and become an annual event.  

These ladies are making Turkish gozleme.

Baklava

curry fishballs

A third festival we attended, the South Asian Festival, took place earlier in the summer.  At the festival, we picked up a jar of Ishina's ready-made curry sauce.

I decided to make a vegetarian dish, using the curry sauce and a bunch of these vegetables:

Vegetarian Curry

2-3 zucchini, chopped
2 tomatoes, chopped
kale (as desired)
1.5 cups cooked brown rice
3 small carrots, chopped
2 garlic, crushed
3/4 jar of curry sauce
2 tbsp olive oil

Add olive oil to pre-heated frying pan.  Add garlic, stirring constantly to avoid burning.  Carrots take longest to cook, so I threw them in first, followed by the zucchini and tomatoes.  I added about 1/4 jar of sauce at this point.  After about 5 minutes, I stirred in the kale, rice and the remainder of the sauce.

Flavourful & healthy!  Great combination.