What you should eat at the Italian Street Festival

How do you say no to meatballs and cannoli for breakfast?

You don't. Why would you?

My summons for this morning meal came from the Holy Rosary kitchen. Each year, the church hosts the huge Italian Street Festival. Hit the event 5 to 11 p.m. June 12 and 13 at the church on 520 Stevens St.

Yes, there will be an accordion, bands, games and midway-style rides. Most people, however, come for the food, especially meatballs and cannoli, although fried ravioli, pasta alfredo, pizza, spaghetti, tiramisu and hero sandwiches filled with sausage and peppers are also on the menu. Volunteers cooks everything in the Holy Rosary kitchen.

Admission to the festival is free. Food prices range from $3 to $5.

Meatballs

About 225 volunteers are required to stage the Italian Street Festival. Many of them work in the kitchen, clocking 14-days. Much time is spent on meatballs, which are served three on a stick ($3), two over spaghetti ($4) and in sandwiches ($4). The meatballs are tender but without any noticeable fillers. The beef flavor shines, enhancing the marinara sauce made by Italian Street Festival food manager Liz Fiato. The tomato sauce – some call it "gravy" – recipe has been in her Italian family for generations. Her father owns The Italian Connection restaurant in Fort Wayne. No sugar goes into the Fiato's well-balanced sauce. You many purchase 32-ounce containers of sauce for $7 each.

Cannoli

Around 7,000 to 10,000 cannoli are sold at the Italian Street Festival. Cooks prepare so much pistachio-flavored cannoli filling that they have fashioned a huge PVC pipe into a device that makes it easy to pack the filling into huge pastry bags. The lightly sweetened ricotta filling gets squeezed into crisp cannoli shells, dusted with confectioners' sugar before serving. Cannoli cost $4 each.

Sausage

Holy Rosary orders a custom blend of pork and seasonings for sausage. The long, well-browned links go into sausage and pepper sandwiches. The links are meaty, not at all fatty. I had mine with Fiato's tomato sauce and a little parmesan cheese, but I'm going for the sandwich ($4) this weekend.

Cheesecake

OK, OK, yes, the Greeks invented cheesecake, but the Italians and the Italian-Americans made it famous. Think New York-style cheesecake. Italian Street Festival cooks make huge sheet pans of cheesecake, $4 a slice, on a graham cracker base. The cheese layer is not too thick and has a tang that stands up to the sweet strawberry topping.

Call Liz Biro at (317) 444-6264. Follow her on Twitter @lizbiro , Instagram @lizbirodish , Facebook and Pinterest .