Gilroy Garlic Festival - 2009

We attended the Gilroy Garlic festival last weekend (July 26). The city of Gilroy, in California, used to be the Garlic capital of the world. Each year, Americans consume around eighty million pounds of garlic. Most of the garlic consumed in US, is grown in Gilroy and other farms in California. The city hosts its yearly Garlic festival every July in the summer, and this year’s attendance was about 108,000. During the festival, various cooking demonstrations are presented, to highlight the use of Garlic in dishes like soups, stews, salad dressings and vegetable dishes. The motto of the festival is “Eat, stink, and drink”! Almost every category of dish is laced with the garlic flavor, and people stand in long lines to get a taste of different products. We too, are no different, and patiently waited to get a chance to taste the popular Garlic ice cream! What did I think of it? Not my cup of tea. I liked the garlic fries, but don’t think it is easy to enjoy the garlic flavor in any form of dessert. But, that is just my opinion. Volunteers and experts show you how to braid garlic bunches in beautiful braids to display. It was interesting to look at clothing and jewelry decorated with the garlic theme. At the end of the festival, I realized that the basic shape of garlic sort of got deeply engrained in my mind, and I had to do something about it, soon. And so, I created a rangoli with the basic shape of a garlic. Though it is not perfectly symmetrical, I was satisfied with the outcome, especially because, one of the design looks more like a piece of jewelry made with black Onyx. Check it out at: http://www.ikolam.com/node/6671 Garlic is no longer on my mind, but black onyx is!! :) -Lata