Sunshine and warm air cleared the way for a stream of
festivalgoers during the Morgan Hill Mushroom Mardi Gras this
weekend. And with the help of food vendors, this could have been
the most mushroomy in recent memory.
Morgan Hill
Sunshine and warm air cleared the way for a stream of festivalgoers during the Morgan Hill Mushroom Mardi Gras this weekend.
And with the help of food vendors, this could have been the most mushroomy in recent memory.
After a sparse showing at last year’s event, mushrooms were back in front and center during this year’s event. Scores of vendors sold thousands of pounds of mushrooms sauteed, deep fried, and sprinkled on quesadillas and sandwiches.
So in demand were the fungi that vendors like San Jose’s Oak Grove High School Band & Color Guard had to make an emergency trip to buy more cases of them.
“We started out with 500 pounds, and we had to go out and buy 50 more,” Oak Grove parent Tom Martin said. Oak Grove’s signature dish is sauteed mushrooms on garlic bread.
Across the food court was the Mushroom Mardi Gras mainstay, the Britton Home and School Club booth, serving the perennial favorite, stuffed mushrooms.
Parent Andrea Pasek said their booth was definitely busier than last year. They’d bought 680 pounds of mushrooms for their stuffed mushrooms.
“It’s a tradition, everybody expects us to sell them,” she explained, adding that they still use the recipe taught to them by Britton food teacher Patty Rockwell, who died of cancer last spring.
“I like to think that we have the signature mushroom dish at the festival,” Pasek said.
However, one booth was noticeably missing. Monterey Mushrooms had arranged for an informational booth, showing how mushrooms are harvested and featuring mascot Marty the Mushroom, but they didn’t come.
“We were very disappointed that they didn’t have their mushroom display this year,” Minnich said, adding that she didn’t yet know why they didn’t show.
The annual arts and crafts, music and food festival attracted at least 25,000 revelers on Saturday, according to Dan Sullivan, president of the MMG board of directors.
And according to Executive Director Sunday Minnich, Sunday was well on its way to being just as successful for the 30th annual event. The total tally for the weekend is expected to be between 55,000 and 60,000.
“It’s been the smoothest year so far,” said Sullivan. He said there were no significant problems to report related to public safety or festival management.
The MMG occupies the Community and Cultural Center at the corner of Monterey Road and Dunne Avenue, and Depot Street from Monterey to the Caltrain station at Third Street. Two music stages showcased a variety of bands, singer-songwriters, and a drum circle both days.
The annual festival, which started out as a fundraiser for the now nonexistent Morgan Hill Fire Department, raises money for scholarships to local high school students. The MMG committee was able to give away about $40,000 in scholarships with revenue raised at the 2008 festival.
And Sullivan said this year the festival committee started a separate fund to provide grants to local elementary schools.
Plus, Morgan Hill Unified schools and their sports teams, as well as other student organizations, use the festival as an opportunity to raise money.
Live Oak High School softball team members cooked stuffed portabella mushrooms and barbecued oysters for sale at one booth, and their parents sold glasses of local wine at another.
“The money we raise here is for field maintenance and to do some work on our batting cages,” said head coach Alex Sutton. This is the first year the softball team has sponsored a booth at the MMG.
Sullivan noted that for many nonprofit groups, who were well-represented this year, their MMG booths produce their biggest fundraising events each year, and such groups are encouraged to participate in the festival.
Britton Middle School sold sausage sandwiches, the LOHS band sold parking spaces, and numerous other organizations manned informational booths to get the word out about their respective causes.
While Ann Sobrato High School parents and students helped festivalgoers get into the Mardi Gras spirit by selling plastic beaded necklaces and whimsical celebratory hats, many of the scores of MMG food vendors held down the mushroom theme, serving up fried mushrooms, mushroom sandwiches, and mushroom quesadillas, just to name a few of the fungal offerings.
Brad Good of Reno, Nev., begins to travel the region about this time each year selling fried vegetables at similar art and food festivals. His booth, known as Sippin’ Good Fried Veggies, sells deep-fried zucchini, onion rings and mushrooms.
He said he doesn’t usually get to fry local produce. However, for his first time at the MMG he acquired his mushrooms from Monterey Mushrooms, which is headquartered in Watsonville.
“I normally get my produce from Sacramento,” Good said. At about 12 p.m. Saturday he was almost depleted of fried fungus, a problem he was able to solve a few minutes later with a short drive.
From near and far, this weekend was many patrons’ first time attending the MMG.
Lavonne Occhipinti of San Diego was in town Saturday visiting her mother, who lives in San Jose. While she used to live in the area, Occhipinti said this was her first time attending MMG. She was impressed with both the variety and quality of the arts booths.
And although Linda Hernandez has lived in Gilroy for decades, this is her first year at MMG. “It’s better than I expected,” she said. “There’s a lot of good artists, and a good variety of foods.” Hernandez is considering coming back Sunday to purchase picture frames or stained glass works she admired at a couple of booths.
For many attendees the MMG was a good chance for the family to have fun. Katie McGinty-Ruiz of Morgan Hill was nibbling on a serving of grilled corn-on-the-cob with her daughter Sofia, 2, on her shoulders.
“It’s very family friendly. We’ve enjoyed the jump houses,” McGinty-Ruiz said Saturday, with her husband Ray Ruiz by her side.
Dominic and Rachel Bejarano said their favorite part of the festival thus far is the train rides and swings, as their two kids enjoyed those rides. “We’re here for the little ones,” Rachel Bejarano said.
Alisha Hopkins, a 17-year-old ASHS student who grew up in Morgan Hill and recently moved to San Martin, went to MMG mainly to socialize.
“I like seeing people from elementary school, and people you haven’t seen in a long time,” said Hopkins, who has attended the festival every year since she was little.
More than 200 vendors offered a diverse array of goods, including handmade quilts, trendy clothing, jewelry, restored fiddles, vitamins, furnaces, and yard decorations. Large national corporations like Costco, and strictly family-run operations like Wooden Boxes were represented.
Wooden Boxes sells handmade woodwork produced by the Smith family, of Prunedale. Patriarch Daniel Smith said his wife Hope and their two small daughters made everything for sale at their booth. Even their six-year-old daughter made wooden mushrooms, trees, and stars, among the jewelry and letter boxes produced by the adults.
Daniel Smith, a longtime cabinet maker, said the family has only recently started selling their crafts. The MMG and similar shows are their form of marketing.
“I don’t advertise in the Yellow Pages. Here, people can see the quality work I do. It’s a way to show off my art but also to gain clientele,” Smith said.
Sullivan said the CCC location for the festival has worked better than past locations in downtown Morgan Hill and at the Community Park, mainly because there is not as much automobile traffic.
However, some longtime MMG attendees disagreed.
Eric Wiedemer of Morgan Hill preferred past MMG sites at the Community Park and downtown because they offered more space for the large crowds.
Morgan Hill Police patrolled the MMG throughout the day Saturday, and dispatch did not report any calls for service at the festival. Jasmine Nguyen of Saint Louise Regional Hospital said the hospital’s first-aid booth gave out “a lot of Band-aids,” but no one needed any significant help.
