WALNUT HARVEST LENDS ITSELF TO DELICIOUS TREATS
By Hillary S. Meeks
Visalia Times-Delta
October 1, 2008
CA
September and October mark walnut harvesting season, and Tulare County
has its fair share of groves that bring in these tasty and nutritious
nuts. One such grove can be found at Sevan Farms in northwest Visalia,
run by Brian Yahnian and his father, Sark Yahnian.
A once small walnut operation, the business has grown to 20
acres. After processing, Sevan Farms nuts are sold to several
California distributors, including local distributor Nutrinut Inc.
Once a year Sylvia Yahnian, Brian’s mother and Sark’s wife, teams
up with other women from her family’s church, St. Mary’s Armenian
Apostolic Church in Yettem, to make crescent cookies using their
walnuts to sell during the Armenian Food Festival in May. But sometimes
when walnut season rolls around, she makes the cookies just for the
fun of it.
The cookies have a light texture, almost like a croissant. This dough
is filled with a tasty walnut mixture.
Another Armenian treat sold at the festival is paklava, which is made
with multiple layers of filo dough, walnut filling, a sugary syrup
and copious amounts of butter.
The end result is a sticky and satisfying pastry.
If you don’t want to wait until May to get some of these goods made
authentically by Armenians, try your own hand at baking some crescent
cookies and paklava at home with these traditional recipes.