2-Day County Festival Is Greek for Good Times

Move over, Plato and Socrates.

But bring on the baklava, ouzo and loukanico.

The Ventura County Greek Festival at Conejo Creek Park in Thousand Oaks is many things, but it isn’t a celebration of that nation’s contributions to philosophy and science. A rich historical legacy is fine, but it isn’t exactly party material.

“Dio meres tres thouloveme kai dotheka hourevome,” said retiree Christo Pulos of Port Hueneme, quoting a Greek proverb. “Two or three days we work, and 12 we dance.”

The dancing is nonstop at the festival. So is the eating, with Greek food of almost every description available. But there’s no lamb.

“The trouble is, a lot of gringos don’t like lamb,” Pulos said.

But you don’t have to be a gringo--or Greek for that matter--to enjoy the festival.

“I like Greek music, the atmosphere,” said Agoura Hills resident Heinz Koenig, 59, a German native from Solvang, who has attended the Greek Festival each of the last eight years.

He gave a thumbs-up to the festival’s new, more spacious Conejo Valley site, after years of being held in Camarillo.

The two-day celebration, which has grown from modest beginnings 17 years ago, is expected to be bigger than ever this year, said George Lewis, chairman of the festival organized by St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church in Camarillo.

“We’re expecting somewhere between 17,000 and 20,000 people,” he said. “We want to build a new church in time, and this is one way of doing it.”

Festival proceeds go to the church.

It’s possible to purchase almost anything Greek at the festival, from religious icons to T-shirts that read “Greeks do it with a little more opa.”

“There’s no translation,” said Redondo Beach vendor John Katsouridis of the phrase that is, well, Greek to most non-Greeks. “It means oomph.”

Some of the Greek dishes, as well, are an acquired taste.

Cassie Piper, 9, of Ventura, who was rotating four Greek foods with her mother, sister and a friend at a picnic table, pronounced the saganaki, a flaming Greek cheese that’s fried in rum and lemon, “sloppy.”

“We have to keep broadening our horizons,” said her mother, Ginger. “They found something they like--lemon.”

The “King of Saganaki” is Terry Durham, a banker of Irish-English descent, who brought his recipe for the cholesterol-laden sheep cheese dish to the West Coast from Chicago with his Greek wife.

“Many of the restaurants in California use my recipe, so that’s why they call me the ‘King of Saganaki,’ ” he said.

The festival continues from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. today at the park, which is off the Janss Road exit on California 23. Admission is free.