Gilroy Garlic Festival
Way back in 1979, the people of an inland California town, got together to celebrate their signature crop. Who guess that 31 years later, they’d still be celebrating the Gilroy Garlic Festival! This year’s three-day summertime celebration is July 24-26, 2009. Truly a community effort, it requires the work of 4,000 volunteers. Of course, everything garlic will be available for purchase, from garlic ice cream to French-fried garlic artichoke hearts to garlic rosemary chicken sandwiches. Fabio Viviani, star of Bravo-TV’s “Top Chef” series, hosts the Garlic Showdown on July 26. The “iron chef” format will match four well-known Northern California professional chefs in a cooking competition for which the featured ingredient will be (no surprise!) garlic. Two other contests are the Great Garlic Cook-Off on July 25 and the Master Chef Challenge on July 24.
