Garlic Fest, for me, is not just about the garlic. Sure we get some to take home (probably too much), but it’s a genuinely nice food festival that has a lot less of the carnie-ish vendors that most of the food festivals in the Capital District have. And it’s not just garlic, either. We always end up with something for the pooch, some veggies, something to make a sauce or a dip from, a few tastings of wine and liquor, some fresh-squeezed lemonade and usually some really decent cheese (although this year cheese options were pretty slim, possibly due to the oppressive heat that day).

I spent a good part of the day trying to find something hot and spicy enough to make me cry. Even the hot sauce they make from these ghost chili peppers wasn’t hot enough for me. The hottest thing I had all day was a taste of a Turkish Red garlic. It was one of the most potent types of garlic I’ve ever had. Naturally we went home with some.

This is actually my favorite shot of the day. Regardless of how tasty it is, garlic doesn’t make for good photography. Sunflowers and other vibrantly colored fruits and veggies do however. The only thing that would make this better is if there wasn’t someone’s crotch in the background.

I can’t go on without mentioned the vendors themselves. Always lively and full of energy, they move so fast it’s tough to capture some of them in action.

By lunch it was time to head back home to the pooch and get prepped for the first big bottle share I was hosting myself. More on that to come…