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Community Corner

New Festival Eats Combine Something New, Something Old, Something Borrowed and Nothing Blue

A new surf and turf with the classic pepper steak and shrimp will be at the Gourmet Alley this year.

Every year, loyal garlic lovers come to the festival for the delicious foods that is served in the Gilroy Garlic Festival’s Gourmet Alley.  They stand in lines for the garlic fries, garlic bread and of course the pepper steak sandwiches.

“Garlic bread is our number one seller every year at Gourmet Alley,” said Michael Davis co-chair of the festival’s Gourmet Alley committee.

But this year, the infamous garlic bread might have some strong competition.

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After different taste tests with various groups in the community, the new item at the Alley will be a pepper steak and shrimp wrap.

 “We are using the meat from our pepper steak sandwiches, shrimp mixed with rice and a garlic-infused flat bread,” Davis said.

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The surf and turf wrap was not the only food item test tasted this year, Davis said. There was a portobello mushroom dish, but there were already two mushroom dishes in the Alley and they felt that was enough.

The committee also has to think about the logistics of the food items. There are only seven chefs to prepare food for the thousands of food lovers that come to the festival. Food can’t just be delicious–it needs to be quick, too.

“The chefs are volunteer, and all of our chefs have been there for years. A lot of them started as cooks and worked their way up,” Davis said, “most of them have been there for 10 years.”

The chefs will be cooking up an old classic this year as well. The Gourmet Alley committee has decided to bring back the old pesto pasta instead of the current penne pesto.

“Old timers wanted it back and basically we had a lot of interested of going back to the old pesto. We made the switch roughly eight years ago,” said Davis.

This is Davis’s last year as a co-chair, working with chair Vito Mercado. When he is not working on the festival, he works as a home designer. He has volunteer for the festival for 12 years, and six years in the Gourmet Alley. He has two daughters, 19 and 15, and this year his youngest will be working the garlic bread.

His co-chair, Vito Mercado, is the Store Director at Nob Hill and has lived here all his life. The chairs have known each other 30 years, Davis said.

The Garlic Festival typical has about 4,000 volunteers, and over 2,000 of those volunteers work in Gourmet Alley, he said.

 “We have volunteers as far away as North Carolina and Georgia. It’s just a wonderful time and it’s really cool thing to see them every year. You always want to be an alley rat,” Davis said.

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