Gilroy Garlic Festival

You have a bucket list right?  Well, if not you should!  I definitely do, and each year I thankfully get to cross a couple of things off of it.  This year I get to cross off the Gilroy Garlic Festival!

Gilroy is a town in California known for agriculture, specifically garlic.  In the summer, your nose is assaulted by the strong, delightful smell of garlic as you drive down the freeway and you cannot help but inhale deeply until you become accustomed to the scent.  The last weekend in July every year is the Gilroy Garlic Festival featuring all sorts of garlic laden concoctions including: garlic fries, garlic chicken, garlic jelly, garlic jerky, and of course garlic ice cream among other things. 

At the request of a good friend who wanted to go to the festival this year, I purchased tickets and made the plans.  We drove down early Saturday morning and arrived when it opened.  This was the best idea ever because not only did we beat the crowds but was also beat the heat!

This event was a well oiled machine with parking attendants, shuttles, ticketbooths, maps and tons of concessions.  The entrance was flanked with vendors selling cooking related products – both edible and usable.  Then you entered the first of 2 food/craft zones.  There was a long line of concession stands selling their garlic masterpieces surrounding arts and crafts booths.  If you continued on, you entered the second zone, which was more of the same, but just different vendors.  Beyond that was the teenagers zone and kids zone. 

We walked the entire festival, scoping it out.  We definitely did some taste testing – garlic butter, garlic jelly, garlic jerky, garlic spice mixes … the list goes on and on.  We decided on some drinks, beer battered garlic fries (amazing!) and a chicken kabob.  The food was great.

We rounded out the experience with a stroll through the craft booths.  There were tons of creative items, the most interesting being jewelry made from old type writer keys and scrabble pieces and then flattened wine bottles with the labels reapplied.  

 At the Garlic Festival!!

After about 3 hours though, we were done with the festival.  It was getting crowded and hot and we had seen everything and tasted a lot.  But, we did not want to waste the drive down, so we continued on to Monterey where we walked Cannery Row and had dinner on Old Fisherman’s Wharf.  

Cannery Row

Though I will likely not go to this event again, I definitely recommend it once!  Say yes to going to the Gilroy Garlic Festival!