Gilroy Garlic Festival! It stunk GOOD!
By Andrew. Filed in The Americas |
Gilroy Garlic Festival
At long last, something I’ve been wanting to do for YEARS is the Gilroy Garlic Festival! The day was beautiful when I arrive and was intimidated by the huuuuuuuuuuuuuge parking lot. Even tho’ it was only partially filled, I was fearful of the crowds. But as you can see, the festival was so spread out, crowds wasn’t really an issue.
Pyro Chefs
The signature dish at the festival was the stir fried garlic chicken down Gourmet Row. And a long time tradition are the “Pyro Chefs.” This is what they do! They have these HUGE stir fry pans and to get it all going, and to get the crowd going, they have these flameups. The crowd goes CRAZY!
Garlic Ice Cream
Garlic EVERYTHING. Lots of food vendors and the garlic ice cream was one of the longest lines at the festival. I tried the chocolate garlic ice cream… yummmmmmmmm. One thing that was lacking was the condiments! I really wanted to go shopping for unique garlic condiments but there was only a small sampling at the official festival tent. This was the only disappointment I had all day. Nothing to bring home but a lousy T-Shirt…. and my fridge magnant.
Celebrity Chef Stage
There were 3 music stages with great music but the Celebrity Chef stage had the largest crowd, by far! I watch this guy, the head chef of The Franciscan on Fishermans Wharf. He was the total stereotypical Italian Cook! With accent and everything. He was cracking everyone up and made clam dish that smelled AMAZING. But too many people to have a tasting, dangit!
BIG pot of Paella
One of my most favorite dish is Paella. And they had a Paella booth at the festival. They were simmering this dish n these huge pans outside the booth. The smell was to die for.
Olympus Stylus Tough 8000
One more thing I want to mention is that I got a new camera after mine broke in Costa Rica. While in Costa Rica, I missed some great shots when it was raining, or at the Baldi Hot Springs, white water rafting, and even snorkling. So I spent the $300 and got the Olympus Tough 8000. Has some AWESOME features, can go up to 33 feet in the water, in the rain, and can stand dropping and sitting on it and all kinds of things. I loooooooove my new cam!
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