Saugerties Garlic Festival 2011

My first food festival was all the way back in September 2005 when I went to the Buffalo Wing Festival...which I loved. 

Buffalo Wing Festival September 2005

Since then I've had a desire to go to other festivals...but money and travel seem to be a bit of a problem for me these days.  Last October I found out about the Saugerties Garlic Festival, and as luck would have it...it had past.  Since I've been trying to do new things, I made sure I put this on my calendar a year ago so I wouldn't forget...and I didn't.  I convinced my sister to take the short trip up there with me.

Over the last few years, I've added more garlic to my cooking and decided I liked garlic now.  But I was not prepared for a festival-level of garlic.  I mean, I use the white ones in the grocery store; I never heard of the 67 or so varieties they had there! 

To be honest some of the smell at times was a little overwhelming.  My first sample was a garlic pickle  -which my sister & I loved. Yum, I love pickles. 

Next we browsed the booths trying to decide what Denise would try or buy.  Sister really doesn't like garlic.  I sampled a salsa that was good but it was still early and I wasn't ready to buy anything.  A while later there were a lot of people in one booth so I go in and buy a jar of recommended mango-tomato salsa and two garlic donuts - one sugar one not.  My sister and I split both donuts to try each.  She practically vomits, and I manage to eat 1/4 of each one - I liked the sugar one better, it helped deflect the garlic.  OK, so not the smartest choice.  I wasn't ready to try garlic ice cream; although if my brother-in-law went, we may have tried it.  Next I tried a few garlic-butter popcorn pieces, it was a little too much for me.  That sauce would have been amazing on pasta...but on pop-corn, I had a hard time and threw about my almost full container.  The garlic festival wasn't really working for me.

We continued to walk around and looked at all the vendors - we were surprised to see some garlic fudge or garlic smores among a few other rarities.  We picked up some of Gary's Pickles (these are a favorite from our Stormville Flea Market days) and headed out after being there about 90 minutes.

Oh, I forgot to mention that it was unbelievably humid and I had to take off my sweater, so I was walking around wearing a tight bright orange tank-top...not the best...but what choice did I have other than passing out?  Also, it rained a bunch the day/s before, so the place was very muddy.  On my way out driving through the mud I was sliding all over the place, and was really happy that I didn't get stuck!

garlic popcorn (the humidity was horrible)

salsa :)



the mud was crazy