The date: |
Friday July 25, 2014 |
The place: |
Gilroy, California |
The event: |
The 36th Annual Gilroy Garlic Festival |
The diary: |
Sights and sounds of the festival |
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Please join me below the orange croissant for more.
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My partner and I first attended the Gilroy Garlic Festival three summers ago. I wrote about it as a member of the What's For Dinner group. Following is the 2014 update.
Gilroy, California is known for growing garlic. Lots and lots of garlic. Situated half an hour-ish south of San Jose, it is easy to get to if you're already in Silicon Valley. Fortunately for us, one of Partner's nephews lives near San Jose. Since we have family there, we visit the area every summer, and this is the second year that we have timed a visit to coincide with the garlic festival. It's a celebration of all things garlic, and of course there is plenty to eat.
The festival is a 3-day affair, Friday through Sunday. We are early starters, and so this year we timed our drive down US 101 to arrive at the site around opening time, on the Friday. From the highway, they have signs and barricades and even uniformed officers directing traffic to the festival grounds. There are vast parking lots, most of them arranged on fields, to accommodate thousands of cars. From the very beginning, a virtual army of volunteers guides you right into your parking slot:
Parking is free, or rather, embedded in the festival entrance ticket price. With that volume of vehicles, attempting to collect money for parking would bog the whole process down to a slow grind. From your spot, you just have to walk a short distance to the tented area for boarding a bus, also at no charge. The buses are in pretty much constant circulation, taking you right to the festival entrance, and later in the day, returning to your parking area.
A few statistics from the festival's website:
10 tons of beef…
4 tons of pasta…
4 tons of calamari…
2 tons of scampi…
2 TONS of fresh Christopher Ranch garlic…
and
Over $10 million raised for local charity
It's a BFD, for sure. Entrance tickets are $17/person, when you buy them online ahead of time. With our pre-printed tickets, we breezed in pretty quickly. Among the first vendors we saw was this one:
Now, this family-run company really isn't involved in garlic production. They specialize in olive oil. We are fond of them, because they were featured on a Food Network Canada series called Pitchin' In, with Canadian chef Lynne Crawford. At the festival three years ago, we met the head of the company, whose photo is on the banner above. A very nice looking fellow.
Walking along a little further toward the main part of the grounds, you can find various tents for garlic-related merchandise, and the first hints of food. This was not long after opening, and so the field is pretty wide open. By early afternoon, it is difficult to navigate because it is just wall to wall people, all baking in the California sun.
Gourmet Alley is the main cooking and eating area, sponsored by the festival itself. Independent vendors, cooking their own offerings, are lined up in other areas around the grounds.
A balloon advertises Garlic Fries. Don't worry, there are plenty of vendor stalls at which to find them, and there's more than enough to go around.
Here's a pair of cooks happily stirring their large pans. This is near, but separate from, Gourmet Alley.
And to see them in action:
Here we move right up to Gourmet Alley itself. Behind the cooks is a long tented over prep kitchen. To both the left and right sides of the prep area, which you can't see from this video, are the serving windows where the public can buy the offerings. Prices are typically $4 to $8 for single servings of sausage on a bun, shrimp, chicken, calamari, pasta, fries, and so on. I was shooting this on a GoPro camera, mounted on an extension stick so I could aim it from on high. Sometimes the framing is a bit off. It was a hot day, and with those gas burners firing full blast, that kitchen is a hot place to stand.
Another extended video from pretty much the same area and then walking around the grounds a bit (the framing is better on this one):
Stepping away from Gourmet Alley, here is one of the rows of vendors with various garlicy goodies for sale. Again, this was quite early in the day so the crowds haven't filled up all the space yet.
Ice cream burgers? Yes indeed. Ice cream is embedded in a pastry, and then deep-fried. I can assure you it is quite delicious.
Here is the booth for Christopher Ranch, one of the main garlic growers in the Gilroy area. Here they are selling braids of fresh garlic in various sizes, along with jars of chopped or pickled garlic.
Clusters of vendors sell crafts, not all of them garlic-related. This one has mocassins, stuffed animals, and sheepskins.
This vendor sells flat bottles. They take empty liquor and beer bottles, and flatten them, presumably by partially melting the glass to make it soft enough to shape. The bottles then lay flat, and provide a surface for candies or whatever else you want to put in them. Apparently this is a big thing in San Francisco.
It's garlic. It's french fries. Pile them together, it's Garlic Fries.
And garlic ice cream, because garlic. This booth is giving away free samples of the stuff, a little tiny scoop on a little tiny cone. The line is long, but moves quickly, and they are pushing it out the window at a rapid-fire pace. The flavor is more subtle than you might think; it's not in your face screaming garlic.
Near the garlic ice cream booth is an amphiteater where live demonstrations of cooking with garlic are always going on. A video crew is there to put all the action up on the big screens.
There's the portable rock climbing wall, for the adventurous types who don't want to just eat all day.
As you leave, there's a shaded departure lounge for your bus back to the parking lot, with plenty of comfy seating. How thoughtful. We were on the grounds for nearly 4 hours, and by this time the grounds were full, but the departure lounge was nearly vacant.
That must be our bus, going back to parking area "yellow".
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