This weekend was the first year of an annual Garlic Festival here in Cleveland, and it was a smash hit. Organic garlic farmers sold dozens of varieties of garlic, all grown right here in northeast Ohio.Garlic necklaces, garlic keepers, garlic foods, garlic decor- amazing.
I sampled and enjoyed garlic popcorn, garlic jelly on cream cheese, and raw garlic and went home with the popcorn, fresh farm eggs, snickerdoodles, a few gifts, and 5 or 6 varieties of garlic for cooking. At the garlic tasting, visitors could sample raw bits of about 7 varieties. One started super spicy, then faded. Another started mild, but had a super hot finish... the stuff in the grocery store is barely garlic. I had no idea! I didn't have the guts to try the garlic butter donuts or the garlic ice cream, or the vanilla ice cream with garlic sauce... next year I will be more bold! I was genuinely impressed with the extreme variety of what could be done with garlic! Who knew?
Live music all weekend kept things moving. I particularly enjoyed the zydeco band, who inspired several people to get on their feet to dance. A hula hoop station and the crazy zepplin car tours kept kids and families busy. It was a huge success. Next year, I'm going to help it become a zero waste event, which should be fun.
The most bizarre part of the weekend was the un-invited vampire picketer. A slightly bizarre woman showed up in a black sweat suit, black snow boots, a long red wig, white face makeup, a cape, sunglasses and vampire teeth. She also had bits of black tulle netting sticking out of various parts of her costume. She carried a typical pickett sign that said on one side "Unfair treatment of vampires" with the word garlic in a red circle crossed out a la ghostbusters. On the other side, it said "Garlic causes sanguinary starvation". She wasn't paid and she didn't ask for any money... she just meandered around the event for about 10 hours a day. As I was leaving, I asked "Doesn't the sunshine hurt?" She pulled out her vampire teeth and said very seriously, "SPF 10,000, tasty-sweetie" then popped the teeth back in. I about lost it.
Hope to see everyone there next year!
0 comments:
Post a Comment