Saying
”
ahead of schedule
”
to Gilroy Garlic Festival officials between July 25 and July 28
is bad juju during crunch week. That’s the word from Brian Bowe,
the event’s executive director who demonstratively pretends to spit
when he hears the taboo words.
”
We never say ‘we’re ahead of schedule,’
”
echoed Bowe’s congenial partner in crime, 2011 festival
President Kurt Svardal,
”
because then something goes wrong.
”
Saying “ahead of schedule” to Gilroy Garlic Festival officials between July 25 and July 28 is bad juju during crunch week. That’s the word from Brian Bowe, the event’s executive director who demonstratively pretends to spit when he hears the taboo words.
“We never say ‘we’re ahead of schedule,'” echoed Bowe’s congenial partner in crime, 2011 festival President Kurt Svardal, “because then something goes wrong.”
Superstitions aside, undertakings for Gilroy’s most deified weekend are right on time, and – dare we say – slightly ahead of schedule according to Deanna Franklin, chair for the recipe contest.
“It’s almost kind of boring, because things are going so well,” joked Svardal as he scooted around Christmas Hill Park in a yellow tractor.
Frequently flanking his father’s side, 13-year-old Kyler Svardal says much hasn’t changed since his dad became head-honcho in 2011.
“He has a lot more phone calls, though,” observed the president’s young protege and volunteer of six years.
Standing in the middle of Christmas Hill Park prior to its infiltration of gung-ho foodies, a 360-degree glance yields a happy panorama of bustling progress: Rows upon rows of white tents dotting green fields, colorful flags fluttering in the air, trucks laden with cargo.
This year’s extravaganza is a pinch of old, a dash of new and sprinkle of improved: The pasta con pesto returns with its classic spaghetti noodles and pesto sauce; the new hand-held, garlic-infused, steak-and-shrimp Alley Wrap makes its culinary debut; and the festival faithful will bask in $350,000 worth of renovations to Christmas Hill Park Amphitheater.
Steady ticket sales add to surmounting anticipation. When Bowe checked the numbers at 4 p.m. Thursday, he reported total online sales at 9,220. Of those, he said 2,941 were combo tickets. The new option allows patrons to bundle admission with an entree for a discounted price.
By this time last year, Bowe said online sales were at 8,000.
“They’re already well beyond that,” he remarked. “And we’ll sell a considerable more by the end of the week.”
Bowe said officials always hope for 100,000 attendees. With the last three years corralling 98,000, 108,000 and 105,000 visitors, “I’m sure it will be right in the ball park,” he said.
Another important festival figure?
Two hundred and fifty seven.
Toilets, that is.
There are 248 “regular event toilets,” seven deluxe toilets with washbasins and two solar toilets that flush by pumping water with your foot, according to Chair of Utilities Mike Wanzong.
He has no idea why they’re called “solar,” but Wanzong hinted “the solar toilets are the best ones.”
Days before the festival’s opening, the grandiose cook-off theater is resembling its old self. The 48-foot stage emits a “brand new carpet” smell that permeates the grandstands.
Outfitted in shorts, sneakers and sunglasses, Recipe Contest Chair Deanna Franklin sat sprawled here with clipboard in hand.
“It’s my tropical garlic getaway,” she joked.
A festival fixture since she was 8 years old, this is Franklin’s fourth consecutive year taking vacation time to volunteer.
When asked if any surprise glitches have popped up, she countered “glitch” has no place in Garlic Festival lexicon. “There are only opportunities to make it better,” she explains.
Franklin pointed to a new strip of mesh material extending overhead alongside the stage. Some of last year’s spectators, she said, were exposed to the sun as the day wore on.
Her husband tackled this issue by spending an entire afternoon observing sunlight patterns. He wanted to ensure placement of a new shade covering “would be perfect.”
It’s this sort of adaptive spirit, flexibility and get-it-done attitude that characterize attributions of festival pioneers like John Vickroy.
Lovers of the Garlic Italian Sausage Sandwich should shake hands with this veteran pyro-chef. He whipped up the recipe seven years ago, after an unsatisfactory shipment of meat put a temporary kibosh on the pepper steak sandwich.
On the ensuing 6 a.m. search for better ingredients, “we had to scramble between here, Salinas and San Jose,” said Hugh Davis, then co-chair of Gourmet Alley and the festival’s president-in-waiting for 2012.
Vickroy was 30 years old in 1980 at his first festival. He recalls other growing pains, like when apricot drying trays used as ceilings in Gourmet Alley caught on fire.
Speaking of fire, what’s a pyro-chef’s secret technique to commanding those giant flames?
“Heat.”
Speaking of heat, “some people say it looks like we’re smiling,” said Vickroy, of the showmanship put forth by pyros during their sizzling spectacle of calamari searing in Gourmet Alley.
It’s actually closer to a “grimace.” The chefs work around 400 degree flames, “which is why we’re on a fluid replacement regimen of beer,” Vickroy said.
The assistant cook-off chair joked a prerequisite to landing a spot on the festival’s elite culinary squadron is “having slight brain damage.”
For past, current and pyros with potential, the camaraderie concocted in Gourmet Alley is a binding friendship.
At the 2007 funeral of Val Filice – festival co-founder and “Godfather of Garlic” – Vickroy recalled the famed fraternity of burly cooks took up an entire row. He described the scene, saying “it looked like the entire offensive line from the Minnesota Vikings.”
The memory of Filice isn’t far from conversation on a foggy Thursday morning as Svardal, Bowe and Davis orchestrate the unloading of a 1,000-pound garlic bulb. Svardal will have the honors of lighting the torch atop the iconic metal statue Friday morning, and will extinguish the flame Sunday night.
All three men donned lime green polo shirts from 2010, a customary “official shirt retirement” reserved for Garlic Festival’s eve.
Bowe said he will always remember Filice imploring officials to “take care of the volunteers.”
“I have no question he would be happy,” said the executive director, speculating how Filice would feel about the event’s growth. “He was very proud of this event, and rightly so.”
Earlier that week, Bowe acknowledged the festival grounds as a micro-world unto itself. When he drives up and down Miller Avenue in the middle of January, the man who lives and breathes garlic as a vocation says he doesn’t see Christmas Hill Park.
Rather, “I see the wine pavilion, Gourmet Alley, the shade structures…it’s funny,” he said. “I can’t get beyond it.”
