Birmingham Festival is Sunday Augest 16th

Hey guys, Lady Luck here. Are you going on any road trips this summer? I know I'm going to be going on a bunch of road trips. And being that I'm going to be passenger princess, I love playing on SpinQuest.com. SpinQuest has all of my favorite slot games, live blackjack, live craps. Head on over to SpinQuest right now and get yourself a $30 coin pack for just $10.00. SpinQuest is a free-to-play social casino. Avoid where prohibited. Visit spendquest.com for more details. If you're part of a political campaign, you know media plans are under serious pressure right now. TV alone is not reaching everyone. Digital is crowded, and every dollar has to work harder. That's why political advertisers are adding iHeart. With broadcast radio, podcasts, and streaming, iHeart helps get your message in front of voters with trusted voices, efficient frequency, and scale across local markets. If you need to reach more voters before election day, let's talk. Partner with iHeart today. Call 1-844-844-I-Hart. Carl's in the studio. That's all he learned. He just wants a good cahoot. Carl P.D., welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. Did you ever have a good cahoot? Many years ago. Many years ago when you had your first good cahoot. Nobody forgets their first cahoot. In my 20s. In your 20s? I bet you got a lot of cahoots in your 20s, didn't you? I traveled. It looks like he had a lot of fun getting those cahoots in their 20s. Were you in your 20s? Were you living in the Birmingham neighborhood? No, I actually traveled to four different states as a chef. As a chef, really? Are you running a restaurant right now anywhere? No, but the Hungarian Club is certainly happy to have me there. Oh, I'll bet. I was there for the Hungarian dinner last year. My wife is Hungarian. Her last name's Barta. And, man, she loves going to that place when they hold their events. She sent me down there to buy the apricot cookies that you brought. What are they called? Oh, yeah, Hungarian pastries. Hungarian pastries. Now, come on, there's a Hungarian name for it. They have different names between Polish and Hungarian and Slovakian. Which one can you pronounce, I guess, is the question. Not too many. It's cookies. So are you Hungarian? Not at all. All right. So what are you? Hungarian by osmosis. Ah, I was going to say. Growing up as a young one in Birmingham neighborhood. Okay. I went to Holy Rosary School. Oh, boy. Church over there. Yep. And so I had a lot of... Oh, influence. So where did you get all your cooking experience from, from mom and dad or grandma and grandpa? Actually, my dad used to fix my mom's dinners. She would start it. He'd go home and he'd make some kind of gravy. And just as long as you had gravy on your whole plate, it was pretty big.

So was your dad Hungarian at least? Not at all. Well, where did you get all this then? Why are you involved in the Birmingham Festival? Well, I was gone for so many years, Fred. I started to miss chicken paparcage and stuffed cabbage and the cookies. Yeah. Because every Easter and Christmas, I had about three dozen cookies a day. Oh, God. So I went to culinary school, worked in the Marriott for about 10 years around the country. I ended up in Rhode Island and Connecticut working. Also a chef up at Boston University Medical. Well, you've been around. You've traveled a lot. Yeah. Wow. And you brought all that back to the neighborhood now, right? Correct. Yeah, all my experience and things. And I came back to help out with my dad with the Hungarian club. And it was during COVID. I really wasn't working a lot. So I just jumped in head first. Just and ended up staying. Yeah. Apparently. Yeah. The festival itself isn't this weekend. It's the following weekend Sunday. Correct. August 16th, the opening ceremony is at 1115. That'll start at St. Stevens Church. And then what have you got going on all day? Because this thing is spread out all over the place now, isn't it? Our footprint's getting a little bit bigger. Yeah. So between St. Stevens. In the ceremony, there's a children's area next to St. Stevens with face painting and some games. The Hungarian club will be adjacent to the Calvin United Lot. Okay. Now, they do a sit-down dinner in their basement. So to St. Stevens, we're going to be selling out of tents. Okay. And we made 11,000 cookies this year. Good God Almighty. I don't want to eat anymore. What are they serving up for dinner? We've got chicken popercosh, stuffed cabbage. I also have what I call Birmingham hot dog. It's a Hungarian hot dog. We put all the hunky turkey ingredients, peppers, onions, tomatoes, a little bit of bacon. Almost like a Chicago dog, but it's a Hungarian dog. They call it hunky turkey. It's shittany salina, but no one can pronounce that. Okay. So they call it hunky turkey in the name. I don't know if you got. I might have to hit the dump button on you if you say that name again.

So besides all the food, they're going to have kids' activities also. Will there be a beer tent set up or anything like that? Is this alcohol free? No, there is going to be a beer vendor there. Okay. With assorted drinks and we'll have hop and waters. All right. And throughout today, we have Hungarian dancers, Irish dancers, Mexican dancers. I noticed the list here, I'm looking at the list. After the opening ceremonies. White High School Alumni Band will go to St. Stevens. They'll sing Hungarian and U.S. national anthems. It'll be an opening prayer. Then they're heading over to the Veterans Memorial. That's right by the VFW Post, right? And that post is one that donates to the Toledo Buffalo Soldiers on a regular basis clothing for when we go out in the winter. So we appreciate them. They'll be doing a 21 gun salute. and taps, and then the Deutsch Volksanzer group will be performing. El Corazon de Mexico, ballet folklorio, will be performing. The Bavarian Holzenholzhakar bomb, that's the thing that they do with the logs on the floor, I think, right? I think so, yeah. Yeah. And then the Stuttplara group, and then the Dayton-Hungarian festival dancers, and then Irish dancers. Where's the American dancers? Well, where are the jazz dancers? Where are the jazz hands? We're all Americans, but we all have our past. And so this Birmingham celebration really tries to embrace the different ethnic communities that have grown up there in that neighborhood in so many years. Because that neighborhood has changed a lot. And they've got everybody, the Germans, the Hungarian festival dancers, and the Irish dancers all going on. And then. To end the festival, 5 o'clock at the VFW, blues confidential. I didn't know the blues were over there in a Birmingham neighborhood. Well, the BFW likes to keep it a little lively over there for their patrons. So they'll be having music there as well. And we've got something interesting again this year. It's called a Symbolum. Yeah, I see that. What is that? It's a very fancy, delicate, ornate piece of musical equipment. I can't really explain it. Like a harp, like a piano, like a guitar? What's it shaped like? It's pretty big. It has to go on a cart. You don't know what it is, do you? I'm too busy cooking during the festival. Simba. We're going to look it up right now. A large trapezoidal hammered dulcimer. There you go. It's a hammered dulcimer. From Central and Eastern Europe, particularly prominent in Hungary, a large wooden soundbox on legs with one, whoa, 125 metal strings. stretched across it.

You play it by striking the strings with handheld mallets or beaters. So it's basically a giant hammered dulcimer. That's pretty sweet. It's a really beautiful sound. Oh, up that. 1130. That'll be at the Calvin UCC, which is right next to the Hungarian club at Consul and Bakewell right there in the lot. You guys are going to be going all day long. Now I know, and I have to ask the question because we've had trouble. at some of the other festivals this year, particularly the Old West End Fest. Have you taken any steps at all to make sure? It's important that you brought that up. This year we're going to have over a dozen Toledo Police Department officers duty circling the area. All right. We kind of cordoned off some of our areas, so there's limited exits and entrances. Good way to do it. We're also going to keep an eye open for people with hoodies and large backpacks. I don't need to be in there. No large purses? Any of that kind of stuff? Well, I'm not going to tell an 85-year-old lady that's carrying her checkbook that she couldn't bring a purse into her dinner. I'll do that for you. I'll do that for it. Hey, Grandma! Get out of here! Parking is kind of an issue. We also have Zion Church, which is behind Calvin there. They will be doing parking for $5. Okay, good. And the rumpus room, there's probably a few spots over there. All right. And after that, it's kind of a free-for-all, up and down. The neighborhood. Yeah, just don't park in front of people's driveways. Exactly. Yeah, okay. Miners have to be accompanied by adults. Zero tolerance. through the festival and increased security. So you've got Hungarian food, pastries, ethnic dancers, vendors, Matt Zooks, blues confidential with Bobby May and Mike Gramsa, all kinds of dancers at four locations. Calvin Church, the VFW lot, St. Stevens, the Rumpus Room, and, of course, the Hungarian Club. Man, this thing's just going to be huge. It's getting bigger again. Because it kind of petered out for a while, didn't it? Yeah, COVID kind of ended it, and it got two big of bridges. This is before I moved back to Toledo. Yeah. And we ended up having so many other vendors. tacos, pizza, french fries. It takes away from the ethnicity. Yes. Yeah. No, absolutely right. I agree. And I know a lot of people felt the same way when that started to happen, not just with that festival, with the Polish festival also that used to be up on La Grange. Correct. And people would say, well, why are we got tacos there, you know? I like the way you're blending in, though, the changing of the neighborhood by having the dance groups come in. Right. Because that acknowledges that the neighborhood has changed over the years. That's true. Birmingham Ethnic Festival for this year, Sunday, August the 16th. Hey, guys, thanks a lot for coming in. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. Yep. What's up, everybody? It's Bretzky. And America is turning 250. And I can't think of a better way to celebrate that than playing on an American-owned social casino, SpinQuest.com. With all of your favorite games, live crap, bubble craps, live blackjack. There's no better place to play.

or free and win real cash prizes.spinquest.com. SpenQuest is a free-to-play social casino. Avoid where prohibited. Visit spenquest.com for more details. These days, it's getting harder and harder to trust what you're seeing. Who made it? Is it real? But with iHeart, everything you hear is guaranteed human. That's why 78% of listeners trust their favorite radio hosts product recommendations. And if you own or manage a business here or need to drive sales, that trust goes a long way in creating your future customers. Make iHeartMedia a part of your 2026 plan today. Visit iHeartadvertising.com. Again, that's iHeartadvertising.com.