WILLIAMSBURG — Brooklyn’s Lithuanian-American community was well represented at the Pink Soup Fest, where contestants gathered at the Lithuanian Alliance of America in Manhattan for a competition celebrating one of Lithuania’s most recognizable dishes — šaltibarščiai, or cold beet soup.
The annual event challenges participants to prepare their own interpretations of the brightly colored dish, a staple of Lithuanian cuisine that draws entries from across the city’s Lithuanian-American community.
Ingrida Galkauskienė. Photo: Clark Adomaitis/Brooklyn Eagle
Šaltibarščiai is known for its striking pink color and refreshing taste, typically made with beets, kefir or buttermilk, cucumbers, dill, scallions and hard-boiled eggs. It is traditionally served chilled, often accompanied by hot boiled or fried potatoes on the side.
Among the participants were two mothers of students at Brooklyn’s Maironis Lithuanian Language School, Elena Valainytė and Jolita Crosland, who teamed up to prepare a traditional version of the bright pink summer soup. They competed alongside Ingrida Galkauskienė, a Lithuanian language teacher at Maironis, who also submitted a recipe in the contest.
Valainytė and Crosland are Brooklyn-based mothers whose children attend the Maironis Lithuanian Language School, which is housed at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Annunciation Parish in Williamsburg. The parish, part of Msgr. Jaime Gigantiello’s Brooklyn ministry, serves as an important cultural and educational hub for Lithuanian families working to preserve language and traditions in New York City.
Galkauskienė emphasized the importance of cultural education and community building. “I’m really involved in the Lithuanian community. I work at the school. I teach Lithuanian language to children and adults. I also sing in the Lithuanian choir. I have some small roles in Lithuanian theater, so basically a lot of activities,” she said.
Pink Soup Fest contestants wore pink and Lithuanian flag colors to celebrate the day. Photo: Clark Adomaitis/Brooklyn Eagle
Much of her work is connected to the Maironis Lithuanian Language School in Williamsburg, which she described as a central institution for the community. “I think school itself is the core for the whole community. They grow with the culture, living cultural life, and heritage is crucially important. The school is everything,” she said.
She also noted that classes at the school serve a range of students every Saturday. “Some of them have Latino heritage, some of them are married to Lithuanians,” she said.
For Valainytė and Crosland, the competition was less about winning and more about friendship, heritage and family life in Brooklyn. The two said they decided to enter together as a way to step away from their busy routines and focus on their shared cultural identity.
“Elena and I are a team, and we wanted to make it a celebration of friendship and coming together and having a good time,” Crosland said.
Valainytė, who is originally from Lithuania and has lived in New York for over three years, said the event was also a way to connect with the community before an upcoming move back to Lithuania. “We decided to celebrate our friendship, to do something fun together, not kids-related, just focus on us and our Lithuanian identity,” she said.
Šaltibarščiai is known for its bold pink color and refreshing taste, typically made with beets, kefir or buttermilk, cucumbers, dill, scallions and hard-boiled eggs. Photo: Clark Adomaitis/Brooklyn Eagle
Crosland, who is originally from Lithuania and now lives in Crown Heights, said the school provides an essential space for her child to hear and practice the language outside the home. “This is the only other outlet where he gets to practice and to hear it,” she said.
Valainytė added that the school helps reinforce identity across multilingual and mixed families. “I was really happy to find here in New York a Lithuanian community for my kids to live and feel their Lithuanian identity beyond me speaking to them at home,” she said.
The two mothers described their approach to making šaltibarščiai as deeply traditional, preparing ingredients from scratch and even pickling beets in advance. Valainytė and Crosland said the process itself reflected the care and improvisation often found in home cooking.
“We pickled the beetroot at midnight after the kids went to sleep,” Valainytė said, adding that attention to ingredients like dill and kefir made a noticeable difference in flavor.
Pink Soup Fest contestants served samples of their soup to members of the Lithuanian community. Photo: Clark Adomaitis/Brooklyn Eagle
“It’s very important for me because we make šaltibarščiai every summer. Every family has its own recipe,” one participant said. “The color is so striking, it’s hard for people to imagine it’s edible, but it’s very natural and very healthy.”
Organizers said the Pink Soup Fest was inspired in part by Lithuania’s growing Pink Soup Festival in Vilnius, which has helped popularize šaltibarščiai internationally. Valainytė described the New York event as “a bridge between New York and Lithuania.”
The competition drew a mix of community members, families and cultural participants from across the city, highlighting the continued role of institutions like the Lithuanian Alliance of America and Brooklyn’s Maironis school in sustaining Lithuanian heritage abroad. For participants, the festival was less about rivalry than a celebration of food, friendship and identity preserved across generations and across the Atlantic.