Columnist ready to beat the queen at Garlic Festival
Certainly, I am not scared.
But maybe I should be.
“This could get ugly. But if you want this, you’re gonna get it,” Peter Ciccarelli said over the phone.
Ciccarelli, the head of media relations for this weekend’s Gilroy Garlic Festival, then added that I don’t have too many fans amongst the organizers of this year’s three-day event.
“The Board is incensed that this guy thinks he will be able to beat The Queen.”
I don’t know The Board, but they sound like an angry bunch. It’s obvious they’re a group that doesn’t forgive or forget.
You may remember a year ago I took part in what was supposed to be a happy-go-lucky affair in which I challenged a former Garlic Festival Queen to a series of competitions. We called it “Beat the Queen,” and I fully expected to be beat by The Queen of 2006, Sheena Torres.
How I got beat, though, is open for debate.
I lost a split decision — I took the first event (climbing a rock wall), she won the second (braiding garlic) and the third event, the flame-off, was awarded to Ms. Torres. It wasn’t until I looked back at the tape and saw irrefutable video evidence that she wasn’t holding the handle of her pan when the giant flame erupted high into the air. An overzealous pyro chef had unfairly helped her by taking over the pan, leaving me, a newcomer to such things, at a distinct disadvantage. (I actually think I still beat whoever it was that held her pan.)
I called it how I saw it in my follow-up article. I called Ms. Torres a cheater.
The fallout was immediate.
My grandma was one of the few people who read the article and didn’t feel compelled to call me a sore loser or petty or just a loser in general. If grandma did say those things, she at least waited until we got off the phone.
So, when I called Ciccarelli earlier this week to line up another challenge, he was incredulous. It took a day for him to find me a new queen, this time selecting 2003’s First Lady, Melissa “No Chance” Noto.
Ciccarelli made sure to tell me it won’t be a cakewalk.
“She’s a nice lady but an absolute dog as a competitor,” he said.
To add a twist to Sunday’s challenge, which will kick off at 3 p.m. by the rock wall on the park side of the festival, the second event — braiding garlic — has been replaced by karaoke. For a houndog like me, I feel like the scoreboard already reads 1-0.
When Ms. Noto called me on Thursday, I knew I was down an event.
“I sang for the pageant all three years,” she said.
OK, I thought. No big deal. I just have to win the rock wall. Having shed some pounds from a year ago, I felt confident about it and decided to focus our conversation on the third and final event: the flame-off.
“Her flame-up photo has been seen all over the world,” Ciccarelli had told me earlier.
Hyperbole, I’m sure. I decided to ask Noto how good she really is.
“It took me three years to be the Garlic Queen, so two years I was in the court. I have three years flame-up experience,” she said.
Ugh.
It sounds like I’m about to be burned by The Queen again, but you can bet I’ll be checking that handle.
