NASHUA – Putting together a meal for a family of six or eight can be a major undertaking.

Just imagine cooking for 6,000-8,000.

That’s how many people usually attend St. Philip Greek Orthodox Church’s annual Greek Food Festival.

The event will be from 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Saturday-Sunday, May 18-19, on the church grounds at 500 W. Hollis St.

Jamie Pappas, who’s in charge of food production and chairing the festival with Doug Philipon and Joe Pappo, said preparations began in February.

“It takes about four months, between the ordering and the prepping and the organizing and the cooking,” she said.

Roughly 75-100 people have been involved in this process, gathering regularly in the church’s kitchen to produce massive quantities of traditional Greek favorites.

“Everything at our festival that we serve is homemade by the people in our community,” Pappas said. “Parishioners, volunteers, parish council members and the priest – everyone gets into the action.”

The cooking begins with items that can be prepared and frozen, which include dolmathes (stuffed grape leaves), spanakopita (spinach pie) and keftethes (Greek-style meatballs). Some items are completely cooked prior to freezing and others are partially cooked.

Some dishes require two types of cooking, Pappas said. The first type cooks the meat and the second releases the flavors of the seasonings and warms the food.

This second type of cooking is done on the day of the festival. Anything that was completely cooked and frozen is thawed, then warmed in the oven so that everything is served hot.

Pastries and desserts are made a week or two before the festival to ensure their freshness, and chicken and lamb are prepared a few days ahead.

“The meat needs to marinate for at least 48 hours,” Pappas said.

Each dish is made using a standard recipe. When cooking for their families, Pappas said, many Greek cooks will add their own little touches to the recipe.

She cited spanakopita, which is made from spinach, eggs, feta, oil and filo dough, as an example.

“People will add different spices, different cheeses,” Pappas said, “My family, we use onion. Some people use dill. Some people use sour cream to make it creamy.”

Along with using standardized recipes, the parishioners have further enhanced their efficiency by adopting an assembly-line approach to food preparation.

Pappas described a twisty butter cookie, koulourakia, that requires a deft hand to make.

“There’s almost a skill to twisting them,” she said.

Twisting, however, isn’t the only thing that needs to be done. People are needed to scoop out appropriate amounts of dough and to add the egg wash and the sesame seeds.

No one has to make a recipe on their own from start to finish, Pappas said, so if you can’t do one step, there’s another step you can help out with.

The result is a festival the entire church is proud of and that the community looks forward to each year.

“We have some people who come Friday for lunch, Friday for dinner,” Pappas said, describing how people will visit the festival multiple times over the weekend to get their fill of home-cooked Greek food. “They just keep coming back. It’s just wonderful.”

Teresa Santoski can be reached at 594-6466 or tsantoski@nashuatelegraph.com. Also, follow Santoski on Twitter (@Telegraph_TS).