GILROY
– With temperatures rising and the famous stink wafting through
town, the countdown to the 26th Annual Gilroy Garlic Festival has
begun.
GILROY – With temperatures rising and the famous stink wafting through town, the countdown to the 26th Annual Gilroy Garlic Festival has begun.
The weather forecast as of Wednesday predicts temperatures in the upper 80s to low 90s. Any coastal clouds will burn off by the time the gates open, but sea breezes are expected to kick up in the afternoons.
“People will come to the festival regardless and in an odd sense the heat makes it fun,” President John Zekanoski said.
Early this week volunteers got down and dirty at Christmas Hill Park as they pieced together the infrastructure of the festival. They began raising the tents, cleaning equipment and preparing the flame-up area of Gourmet Alley. Private contractors also were hired to complete the tasks that require a higher level of expertise beyond the average Garlic Festival Association volunteer. They have set up about 20 telephone lines, distributed temporary electrical power and water to all the vendor booths and set the 260 portable toilets in position.
The Festival Association held a final pre-festival meeting Wednesday evening to review progress with all the committees and discuss Friday’s opening. Committee members are pleased with the work so far and are ahead of schedule, Zekanoski said.
Even his own schedule won’t pick up until the festival begins. He has done a few media interviews but expects to be busiest Friday morning. In the meantime he has been making the rounds at the festival, checking in with volunteers and thanking them for their efforts.
The smooth set-up was interrupted for a short time Wednesday afternoon when a garbage truck, whose contents caught on fire, was forced to dump its load on the Ranch side parking lot Wednesday afternoon to hose down the contents. The fire was caused by ash and briquettes that were mixed into the park’s general trash bins, said Gilroy Fire Department Capt. Colin Martin. There are bins throughout Christmas Hill Park designated for barbecue ash to avoid such incidents. The contents were smoking and flaming, but firefighters quickly took control of the situation. The site was cleaned within a few hours.
Outside of the park, volunteers have been busy preparing food. Most of the ingredients will be delivered to the park Thursday. The pasta and cream sauce for the new pesto dish were cooked in the Salinas School District kitchen, which has a facility large enough to prepare the ingredients. The noodles will be refrigerated in five-gallon buckets. At the festival, pasta chefs won’t need to wait for another batch of pasta to boil and orders can be made on demand.
Gilroy High School choir members and a few parents gathered at Rod Kelley Elementary School to get a head start on the seafood cleanup for Gourmet Alley. They rolled up their sleeves, grabbed the hoses and started scrubbing nearly 400 buckets which will hold the shrimp and squid for two Gourmet Alley staple dishes. Despite the heat, the group didn’t mind being out in the sun.
“I’m not going to encourage a water fight, but if one breaks out I’m not complaining,” said Claire Matt, a junior and member of the Concerto Choir. Volunteers from the Chamber Choir also participated in the cleaning frenzy. Senior Jeremy Borgia is working to raise money for a Chamber Choir trip to Southern California where they will attend a number of singing festivals. He even got his mom, Ariane Borgia, to donate a few hours. Neither of them were too worried about the heat or the smell of the seafood.
“We’ve changed diapers, right?” Borgia’s mother said laughing to another mother in the group.
The retail committee has also been hard at work. Although the mercantile tents were set up in the past two days, volunteers spent five Saturdays pricing every single mercantile item. Their next main challenge will be dealing with the mad rush for the Herbie bobble-head.
Committee Chair Connie Sanchez decided to rearrange the checkout line to prepare for the crowd. The line will form outside of the tent so it does not interfere with shoppers. There will also be a separate express line for people buying just Herbie.
“It’s an ongoing process, and we just have to fine tune it every year. We want to make the festival as enjoyable as possible – including buying Herbie,” Sanchez said.
There will be 3,500 bobble-heads available for sale on Friday and Saturday, and they are expected to sell out within an half-hour of the festival opening each day.
