A banner day for Armenians in the Catskills

We recently visited the Woodstock Artists Association & Museum in Upstate New York to see the first-ever major exhibit of works by the late but recently discovered painter Ashot (Art) Pinajian.
    
The exhibit runs through Oct. 11 before moving on to Watertown, Mass.

After touring the museum and dropping off the Armenian-themed cartoons that we’re lending to the exhibition, we continued on to Windham, N.Y., about 30 miles deeper into the Catskill Mountains.

Windham is a quaint little ski town, mostly quiet this time of year, which makes it perfect for weekend getaways for high-powered New Yorkers like our daughter Mandy.

There’s only one main street through town,  a short stretch of shops that hardly ever changes — except for the surprise we spotted in the above photo.

The Armenian flag fluttering over Route 23 is one of several banners outside a new Greek-owned grocery store. (Of course, there’s a Greek flag, too.)

Mandy had scouted this place on a previous visit, but the store had just opened and had few items. She wasn’t hoping for much.

But this time, we found a surprisingly substantial array of specialty ingredients for cooking and baking, including mahlab (ground cherry pits). Mandy scooped up an armful of goodies and promised to be back soon.

I thought this was pretty cool: The flag meant to attract curious Armenians did just that, and our curiosity was rewarded. Better still, Mandy now has a place to shop for our kind of groceries in a town where there isn’t even a regular supermarket.