Growers and Grocers

This weekend, September 30 thru October 1, 2006, Garden of Eve Organic Farm in Riverhead, NY is hosting the 3rd Annual Garlic Festival. Festival hours are from 10am-6pm, $2 admission, kids under 6 free. The festival promises garlic inspired foods, crafts, music, theater, and just plain garlic. Admission is free if you bring a dish to enter into the Great Garlic Cook-off.

Garden of Eve is our favorite farm on Long Island and we participate in their CSA (Community Supported Agriculture program). Earlier in the season, garlic was hanging from the ceiling in the barn that functions as the farm stand and now we have a weekly supply of fresh locally grown garlic. It doesn’t get much better than this.

A few weeks ago I had the good fortune to interview farm co-founder Eve Kaplan-Walbrecht (founded with her husband Chris) about the festival.

What gave you the idea to host a Garlic Festival at the farm?

Chris’ parents introduced us to the idea of growing garlic, and took us to the Hudson Valley Garlic Festival in Saugerties, NY. We thought it was amazing, all the garlic, garlic foods, it was all new to us and something we’d never been exposed to before. We learned so much! We thought to
ourselves, “We could do this on our farm and people on Long Island could enjoy this, too!”

Who prepares the food - like the garlic ice cream?

We invite vendors to come and sell any kind of garlic food they can think of. The Garlic Ice Cream will be from Ronnybrook Farm, a family-owned farm dairy from the Hudson Valley. Their milk is hormone-free and they make the ice cream themselves.

How is the festival sponsored?

Chris and I and our families and farm apprentices run the festival.

How many vendors this year and how many festival attendees?

We are expecting about 10-12 vendors, in addition to our farmstand, a puppet theater, pony rides, Terry Winchell’s great live folk music on Sunday, and our little petting zoo. We had 1,000 people attend last year.

What different varieties of garlic do you grow and a bit about how they differ or how you might use them?

We grow mostly a variety called “Music,” which does very well in our area. We will also have German white, German Red, and hopefully some other varieties available for sale. Also Elephant Garlic, which is great for roasting.

For all of the garlic lovers out there who can’t come to the festival this weekend check out the film Garlic Is As Good As Ten Mothers (1981) directed by Les Blank. It is a fun documentary about a garlic festival in California.