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Garlic and Arts Festival a Scent-Sational Destination
Event Name: Ninth Annual North Quabbin Garlic and Arts Festival
Event Date: Saturday and Sunday, September 15 and 16, 2007
10 a.m. to 5 PM both days. Shine or Rain
Location: Forster’s Farm, 60 Chestnut Hill Rd. Orange, MA 01364
Program of events and directions: www.garlicandarts.org
Media Inquiries Contact: deb@seedsofsolidarity.org (978) 544-9023
Admission: $5 per day for adults, $8 for weekend pass; kids 12 and under free.
Press Photos: Download your choice of three photos with captions at: www.garlicandarts.org/news.html
Why do 10,000 people flock to the North Quabbin Garlic and Arts Festival in Orange Massachusetts? In these days of big box stores, over 80 art and agriculture vendors offering beautiful wares made by hand or locally grown is a fabulous phenomenon. Family-friendly admission and on-going activities all weekend long provide something for everyone: Learn to grow your own garlic, press cider, fuel a car on vegetable oil, weave wheat, watch a collie herd ducks. Mom gets the 10-minute healing arts massage, grandpa checks out the portable sawmill, the kids love the horse-drawn hayrides, hoola-hooping, and garlic sack races. Inspiring community organizations, healing arts demos, and renewable energy too, all on a gorgeous historic farm illuminated by fall foliage.
Two solar powered stages resonate with great music and family entertainment throughout the weekend: Mawwal, Zoe Darrow and the Fiddleheads, Bamidele Dancers and Drummers, Melanie and the Blueshots, Reprobate Blues Band, Richard Chase, Nexus, Ethan Stone, Airborne Joel, Peter Seigel, Raks Mahsati, Shali, Ryan Family, Al the Magician. Chair City Cloggers, Norah Dooley, Gaia Roots, Tom Ricardi and Birds of Prey, Phoenix Swords, and more.
Inspired by the beloved bulb that thrives in the New England climate--3,000 pounds of 16 varieties of garlic is grown just down the road from the festival site--the event is a culinary feast. Garlic roasting in the newly crafted masonry oven infuses the air with the “stinking rose” while a dozen food vendors serve an aromatic array of regionally produced, ethnic, and down home delights. A festival favorite are the cooking demos by the region’s finest chefs. New this year! Festival attendees will set a raw garlic eating record by helping to eat 500 cloves, then watch the hearty continue on to break last year’s gold medal of 32 cloves set by Gary Guertin of Gardner, MA.
Come be among the outrageously aromatic… and green. Last year there were only two bags for over 10,000 folks; everything gets composted or recycled.
Al Gore and Willie Nelson will be proud if you bike, carpool or ride the Magic Bus—the free biodiesel shuttle from the West River Street Health Center Lot in Orange, just off exit 14 from Route 2. Shuttle riders, bicyclist and carpoolers get a free raffle entry for great prizes. Follow your nose to the Ninth Annual Garlic and Arts Festival, Saturday and Sunday September 15 and 16, 2007. Gates open at 10 a.m. for those with an appetite for garlic and a passion for fun, at historic Forster’s Farm, 60 Chestnut Hill Road, Orange, MA. Festival Admission: $5.00 per day for adults, weekend pass $8.00, kids 12 and under free. Wheelchair accessible parking and facilities, on-site vehicle to transport those with limited mobility. Visit www.garlicandarts.org for the whole bulb: directions and dog policy, plus the full schedule of vendors, music and performances, chef demos, workshops and games: all you need to come have a scent-sational time.
The North Quabbin Garlic and Arts Festival is a celebration of community organized by neighbors and Seeds of Solidarity Education Center, a non-profit organization. Supporters include the Forster/Stewart Family, North Quabbin Woods, Heyes Forest Products, Franklin County CDC, Franklin Cty Solid Waste District and the MA Cultural Council Agencies of Athol, Northfield, Orange, Warwick and Wendell.
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