Mount Carmel Festival brings ’em back

NILES — Tara Templeton lives in Cleveland, but on Sunday she returned to her native Niles to buy her favorite food at the 75th annual Our Lady of Mount Carmel Festival.

“The cheese puffs — they’re yummy,” Templeton said. “I come back every year just to get my cheese puff fix.”

Ethel Miller, 73, agrees. She has attended the festival at the Robbins Avenue church each of the last 60 years, and her first stop is always the cheese puff line. Miller has come a long way just to buy this favorite considering that she lives in Venice, Fla., and has resided there for the last 15 years since leaving Niles.

“That hasn’t kept me from coming back every year since I moved to make sure I get the cheese puffs,” Miller said.

None of this comes as a surprise to Mike Marrara, who has been chairman of the festival for 11 years.

“They [cheese puffs] have been our biggest seller year in and year out,” Marrara said. “People try to get them elsewhere, but you can’t get them and you can’t duplicate them.”

Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator.