Monthly Archives: August 2016

Bill requested no services, just good wishes and good memories.

Services will be held on August 5, 2016, at 10:30 A.M., at South Valley Community Church, 8095 Kelton Drive, in Gilroy, CA.

 A Memorial Service will be held on August 13, 2016, at 2:00 P.M., at LIMA-CAMPAGNA-JOHNSON FUNERAL HOME, 17720 Monterey Street, Morgan Hill. In lieu of flowers, please send a donation to your local hospice. Rita’s final resting place will be in Turlock Memorial Park in Turlock, CA.

The weather may have been mild, but the cook-off stage was hot this weekend when Rebecka Evans, of Danville won first place in the Gilroy Garlic Festival’s famed Great Garlic Cook-Off challenge.Evans, 56, squared off against seven other finalists from all over the country on July 30, when she secured the crown and a $5,000 first-place prize with her garlic goat cheese bacon soufflé with creamy garlic mustard sauce.“I am thrilled. This is a top competition among food competitors. All of us want to be part of this,” said Evans.Cloves of the pungent bulb were sliced, minced, sauteed, baked and fried by contestants—each submitted an original recipe containing at least six cloves of garlic.Evans, who keeps a food blog “At Home with Rebecka,” is no stranger in the kitchen or on the stage—she was a professional opera singer for 15 years and has been participating in the competitive cooking circuit since she was 25.“I love competing and I love food sport,” said Evans.In 2015 alone, Evans placed in several food competitions, including World Food Championships for both bacon and seafood, earning “Fourth in The World” and first runner-up titles, respectively.Marcie Morrow, co-chair of this year’s cook-off committee said she loves the whole process of the competition.The recipes are indulgent and each year 20 of the entries are selected and prepared as part of the decision process in naming the final eight.“Just reading the recipes, you gain five pounds,” said Morrow.“That’s one of the bonuses. It’s getting to cook and be part of the selection process and then being able to call the people that have entered and tell them that they are a semi-finalist for this competition. That’s exciting too,” Morrow said.  The cook-off stage is in constant motion, with each of the eight contestants assisted by their volunteer ‘chaperone’ to prepare their original recipe. Each begins at 15-minute intervals and has two hours to prepare their dish for the judges.Dawn Davis, Morrow’s co-chair, said the best part of working as a committee member for her is the excitement.“It’s fun. The contestants—the amateur cooks on Saturdays are so excited to be here. The judges are excited to be here,” said Davis.Second-place winner and regular food competitor Veronica Callaghan of Glastonbury, Connecticut, was crowned and awarded $2,500 for her roasted garlic pizza with spicy rosemary caramelized onions, figs and bacon.Joanne Robinson, local artist and mother of the Garlic Queen, Kyle Perez-Robinson, sat on stage as a VIP in honor of her artistic contributions to the contest—the artwork on the aprons. Robinson tried Callaghan’s pizza and said it was amazing.“The caramelization of the pizza crust was super good. It was really the best pizza I think I’ve ever had,” said Robinson.The last award of $1,000 and the third place crown of garlic cloves and flowers was given to Kelly Velasco of American Fork, Utah. Velasco said she’s been cooking all of her life and she loves it—especially making risotto. Velasco placed with her garlic risotto stuffed mussels with garlic herb toast. Her husband, Frank Velasco, said he fell in love with his wife’s cooking. “Her asparagus risotto is what she gave me when we were dating. That’s what captured my heart.”Evans said because you can’t always control the conditions, soufflés can be hard to pull off. She feels part of her success in competitions is finding a new dish. “Look at past year entries. Look for things not done before,” said Evans.

Cal Fire captain Herb Alpers was in quite a bind leading into Friday’s inaugural Champions for Charity first responders cook-off at the 2016 Gilroy Garlic Festival.Only days away from the competition, which pitted four first responder tandems from different agencies against one another in a three-course elimination format, Alpers needed to find a new partner. His fellow fire captain Anthony Anastasi was forced to bow out due the all-hands-on-deck scenario brought on by the 35,000-plus acre Soberanos fire burning in Monterey County.So, at the last minute, Alpers leaned on a retired firefighter Tom Evans to join him on the festival’s Cook-off Stage to battle for the $3,000 top prize to be donated to the charity of their choosing.The makeshift Cal Fire duo found instant chemistry in the kitchen and pulled off a victory for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, the recipient of the charitable donation made by the Gilroy Garlic Festival Foundation on their behalf.“It was a little more pressure than I’m used to cooking in the firehouse. We had to think quick on our feet,” said Alpers, a 20-year veteran of Cal Fire who remained calm cooking on stage in front of a live audience. “We were so busy cooking and keeping track of time that we didn’t realize our surroundings. All I could focus on was the task at hand.”Two hours earlier, Gene Sakahara and Sam Bozzo, the famed “SakaBozzo” duo of local retired administrators and past Garlic Festival presidents, donned the same Cook-off stage for their final cooking demonstration along with their grandsons.The first responder teams were tested with a surprise basket of ingredients for each of the two rounds, cooking an entree in the opener and a dessert in the finale. It was originally supposed to be a three round competition, including an appetizer, but the Gilroy Fire Department cookoff team was forced to withdraw due to the fire as well.The two other competing teams were paramedics Peggy Brapp and TC Warford from Santa Clara County EMS (playing for nonprofit “19 For Life”) and fire engineer Vince Grewohl and fire fighter Bill Olguin from the Hollister Fire Department (playing for Chamberlain’s Children Center).“When I’m on duty, I cook 90 percent of the time. I love Italian food, but I cook a little bit of everything (at the fire station),” shared Olguin prior to the first round basket being revealed. “Usually it’s what’s on sale; we all chip in for dinner; and there’s a lot of experimenting.”In the opening round, which teams had a half hour to make into tasty dish, the ingredients revealed in the basket (just like on the Food Network’s “Chopped” program) were chicken thighs, pickled garlic, artichokes and hot sauce. While Cal Fire and Hollister Fire made their own concoctions of sautéed chicken with pasta, County EMS produced a Greek lemon chicken with artichokes.“I feel like Gordon Ramsey but not as mean,” said celebrity judge Alexis Higgins, a contestant on Season 3 of Fox’s Master Chef Jr. show, as she tasted the three entrees. “Everyone had real creative dishes and you could really taste the garlic.”The three-judge panel, which also included executive chefs Danae McLaughlin from Harker Schools in San Jose and Benjamin Brown from The Lodge at Pebble Beach, used a points system to determine which teams advanced and the eventual champion.“It was really close and we just hate doing this,” said McLaughlin before Hollister Fire’s duo was eliminated in the entree round.In the 20-minute championship dessert round, the secret basket ingredients chosen were ladyfingers, blood orange cranberry punch, bacon and, of course, more garlic.The victorious Cal Fire squad served up a lady finger, custard, fresh fruit, candy bacon parfait, while Cal EMS made a concoction they called “Bloody fingers” with a Greek yogurt, tart dipping sauce.“I was really pleased with the balance of bacon and garlic in both dishes,” McLaughlin said. “Both pulled off incredible desserts.”In the end, Cal Fire’s dessert was the winning dish in the inaugural Champions For Charity event.

Tuesday at Gilroy Rotary, The Long Riders gave a wonderful presentation. The Long Riders Hepatitis C Project was created by Vic Ferrari, a HCV survivor, Frank Collison, an actor, and Steven Ferrari, Vic’s brother. They will ride the entire 2,650 mile Pacific Crest Trail on horseback from Mexico to Canada. The mission of The Long Riders is to educate, inspire, and empower those who are suffering from Hepatitis C to get tested, treated and cured. They have partnered with the HCV community and formed an advisory board of Dennis Simon, the Founder and Secretary/Treasurer of the Hepatitis C Association and managing partner of Help.4.Hep, a non profit peer-to-peer help line with counselors; Ryan Clary, Executive Director, National Viral Hepatitis Roundtable (NVHP); Wayne Gosbee, Founder, Linkage to Health, Inc. Emalie Huriaux, Direct of Federal & State Affairs for Project Inform. They’d like to raise funds to increase testing since 75 percent of patients don’t know they have the disease. They’ve created “Miles Per Test” program. Every mile ridden, they will raise funds to get 20 more people tested. Each test is $25 a test and their goal is 53,000 people. For more informationwww.longriders.org.

Authorities in recent weeks made two major busts on illegal marijuana grows in southern San Benito County.

The 38th annual Gilroy Garlic Festival has come and gone, and while attendance numbers are down over last year’s, organizers say they should still be on track to reaching $11 million in donations over the lifetime of the event.