Sausage and Buckwheat Cakes

Ohiopyle Pennsylvania has a buckwheat and sausage festival every autumn. It is the second full Friday and Saturday October. The volunteer fire department gets much of its needed funds for operations for the year. They serve all the buckwheat and pancakes that you can eat for one price. They give two sausage patties, apple sauce, fried potatoes, and a drink.

I started out there while dating my wife, Cindy. I hand washed dishes for several years, then got recruited frying sausage since. The sausage is whole hog and that includes the hams. It is very meaty and tasty as well.

The sausage used to be fried in iron skillets over gas burners, but as the years passed the department has graduated to large gas fired grills. They’re approximately eighteen inches by thirty inches and get really hot for the fryers.

The cakes are baked in two locations. The first is in the top of the firehouse and the other is in the next door old school house. The cakes are fresh and hot, served shortly after they’re removed from the griddles.

Recently they have started a second festival in the spring. I was conned into helping for this one in 2014. People aren’t shy asking for help when you’re retired. So I am going today and give it a try.

People come from Pittsburgh and surrounding areas. We’ve had politicians, and why not. They’re always looking to be in the public eye, shaking hands. There is a television star that makes the pilgrimage every fall. I’m hoping to see him this year.

WQED made a T.V. program based on volunteerism and the fire department is on it.

The friendships made are the reason many help, even though they aren’t a member of the fire department. Many have been there longer than my almost forty years of helping.