This October marked the tenth year of the Connecticut Garlic + Harvest Festival. Held at the Bethlehem Fairgrounds, the event celebrates all things garlic aka “the stinking rose.” From lectures to cooking demos to vendors and, of course, the food court, it’s a day made for garlic lovers.
Garlic To Grow
I’ve made the pilgrimage to the festival for the last few years to stock up on garlic to plant in my garden. This year I may have gone more overboard than usual with a pound each of Music, German Red, Turkish Red and German White varieties.
I have a feeling random empty patches in my flower beds will be filled with overflow cloves. Who needs more flowers when you can have more garlic!
I also couldn’t resist grabbing a small jar of pickled spicy garlic cloves from Rockerbox Spice Co. They are great for chilled antipasto platters. Plus, every now and then Renato likes to use them as a martini garnish.
Garlic + Beyond
In addition to all the wonderful garlic-centric vendors and foods there were a variety of others too featuring handmade crafts and specialty goods.
My special non-garlic purchase this year were some small batch kitty treats. Walk By Faith Doggie Bakery out of East Hampton, CT makes both doggie and kitty treats.
I’ve seen handmade doggie treats before, but someone making kitty treats, well, that is a treat for crazy cat people like ourselves. The treats are made weekly and feature no chemicals or dyes.
Both the catnip and chicken treats got a big paws-up from our big boy Buster.
Food Court
This year we dove into pulled pork sandwiches topped with coleslaw and BBQ sauce from Tim’s Smoked Products.
It’s pretty hard to resist the smell coming from the smoker next their spot in the food court.
We waved hello to our friends from La Zingara with food prep backup provided by The Green Grunion. They were serving up garlic sausage with peppers and onions, sweet potato fries with garlic mayo and pasta with garlic + oil. They had quite the crowd waiting patiently for their garlicky-goodness.
And, of course, we had to round out the day with some garlic ice cream.
You can check out more photos from our garlicky day over on Facebook.
How did I not know about this?! Love the shots of the garlic and am super jealous that you grow it!
Any chance you can publish upcoming events on your posts? Would love to have attended the Stinking Rose weekend. Looked delicious. Just didn't know about it. Would love if you could post in anticipation of some good opportunities. Thanks.
Whenever possible I try to give people a heads up about upcoming events either on the blog or via the blog's Facebook page. I can't always get to it all but I try my best.
I have had good luck growing garlic. I plant it all along my garden fence.