A real ‘puff piece’

July 18, 2016 at 12:05a.m.

NILES

In the newspaper business, a “puff piece” refers to a story that praises its subject without offering an opposing viewpoint.

So consider this a puff piece about cheese puffs – the signature dish of the annual Our Lady of Mount Carmel Festival, which concluded its 83rd year Sunday night.

Their reputation speaks for itself. The cheese puffs sell by the thousands.

“We sell between 18,000 and 20,000 every time,” said Jeff Preston, who has supervised the dough making for the five-day festival for 22 years. In the early-morning hours, his team of 20 volunteers starts concocting the delicacy of dough and cheese into large individual puffs, which are then deep-fried. They work nonstop and seem to enjoy doing it.

“It’s a lot of camaraderie and fun,” Preston said. That spirit seems to permeate the entire festival, which relies on the efforts of nearly 300 volunteers, according to the Rev. John Lavelle, Mount Carmel pastor for the last four years.

“I could have all the cheese puffs in the world, but without volunteers, I don’t have a festival,” Lavelle said.

Joseph Merlo, festival co-chairman, said the layout in the church parking lot was changed to make it easier to accommodate more than 10,000 who annually visit the festival.

“We remodeled the whole thing, changed the design and made all the food concessions into a food court,” Merlo said. Games of chance and other activities were situated elsewhere in the church parking lots.

The church’s raffle had no shortage of buyers at $10 per ticket for one of two GMC trucks valued at $47,000 or $25,000 cash. Lavelle said the raffle could have been a gamble for Mount Carmel, which could only guarantee the cash had the church been unable to sell 6,000 tickets. No problem, said Pamela Sowers, who directed the ticket sales.

“We easily exceeded that figure, and we’ll do even better with the crowd tonight,” she predicted, meaning the winner will have the choice of the truck or the money.

For those focusing on something with more kick than cheese puffs, competitors entered 20 homemade wines, the majority red with some rose and a few whites to be reviewed by eight judges.

“We’re not experts,” said Rocky Mitolo, who supervised the competition. “We’re just going to taste and see what we like.”

“Ooh, this tastes rather bitter,” grimaced Karen Infante Allen, Trumbull County clerk of courts, who was one of the judges. “I’m not sure about a couple of these,” said Tony Perrone of the Niles board of education as he and the other judges gamely reviewed the nearly two dozen samples for clarity, color and taste.

Inside the church, the cheese-puff volunteers took a break and then went back to creating their doughy concoctions, which sold at $3 per puff. There was no shortage of buyers, which always helps the coffers at Mount Carmel.

“We sold out earlier today, and I won’t be surprised if we sell out tonight,” Preston said. “We’re always ready.”