Friday, July 26, 2013

Gilroy, CA Garlic Festival July 2013

The Gilroy Garlic Festival occurs on the last Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of July, every year.  We went on Friday this year.  A shuttle takes you from the parking area to the festival grounds.  Here is the festival mascot.
 Of course, everything here is related to garlic in one way or another.  There are food booth where you can get almost anything with garlic in it, even garlic ice cream. 
 
 Besides the individual food booths, there is a meal that has several combination plates of various foods, all made with garlic.  Here you see folks "cooking for the masses.  The examples are tri-tips and sautéed vegetables both, naturally, seasoned with garlic.
 
 
Not only is there food to eat, but there are cooking demonstrations.  This one is showing how to make a calamari dish. 
 
It's a wonder the tent didn't go up in flames, too. 
There were cook-offs as well.
And many people selling crafts.
If you got too hot, you could go into the "Rain Room" and get misted.
The kids had a play area. too.  Doesn't this look like fun!?
Here is how it worked.  First the children were zipped into a plastic bag, which was inflated with a leaf blower.  The kids had to hold their ears while the blower was on.
Once the bubble was completely inflated, they were rolled up the ramp and into the pool.  The kids walked, ran, crawled or whatever to move the bubble around in the water until the time was up, then they were dragged to the ramp and rolled out, unzipped and were good to go on their way.
It was a hot day, but fun and interesting to see how many uses there are for garlic.