Garlic Festival

Hudson Valley Garlic Festival
Saugerties, NY

A Garlic Festival certainly counts as a flavor of NY, right? I heard about the annual Garlic Festival in Saugerties NY, last weekend of Sept, and knew immediately we had to go. Huge festival with endless samples and tastes of garlic flavors, plus an excuse to drive upstate a bit? Only $7 to boot? Awesome. I think I read that 50,000 people attended over the two days. It was huge!

A gorgeous day, bright blue skies, crisp fall air, tons of families and others, and TONS of food and garlic. The primary areas are the "Garlic Farmer's Market", featuring hundreds of booths with samples of different types of fresh garlic, as well as garlic-related or garlic-inspired foods. And you could TASTE so many things for your seven bucks worth! Cheeses, hot sauces, pesto, salad dressings, jams, olive oils, you name it. We of course left that day with many jars and flavors of our own, including a few different varieties of garlic. And yes, you could definitely taste the differences! We particularly liked the White German garlic, which had a pretty strong kick. Hubby used it for his chili which was delicious. Then there was the garlic food court area, with full meals for purchase. Pulled pork sandwich with roasted cloves of garlic, can't beat it. And had to try the infamous garlic ice cream! Not bad, was basically vanilla with little bits of caramelized garlic in it. Highly recommend this day out next time! And the surrounding areas were great to visit in the fall.