Event of the Month

Text by Joseph Stocker You'd have to think a long time to come up with the idea of using garlic as the reason for a community celebration. But that's what'll be happening at Camp Verde the last weekend of this month.

THE GARLIC FEST AT CAMP VERDE PROMISES TO TAKE YOUR BREATH AWAY

This will be the second annual Arizona's Own Garlic Festival, as it's properly called. The first one last year drew nearly 4,000 people.

The man who dreamed it up you're not going to believe this is named Charles Onion. He's a good-looking, heavyhaired man of 39 with a thick red-brown moustache and a loud, ready laugh. He lives at Camp Verde and found that garlic grows especially well in the sandy soil of the Verde Valley. He grows a lot of it himself. And so it seemed logical to suggest to the Camp Verde folks that they stage an annual garlic festival. Proceeds would go to the building of a community swimming pool and other good causes.

Onion modeled Camp Verde's garlic festival after that of Gilroy, California, 80 miles south of San Francisco. (Ninety percent of the garlic grown and processed in the U.S. is from within 90 miles of Gilroy. Its three-day festival, now 14 years old, attracts more than 140,000 people.) Why garlic? What makes it special enough to have festivals dedicated to it?

Well, there's a certain mystique about the stuff. Some believe it's a sort of super cure-all. The Roman naturalist, Pliny the Elder, listed 61 ailments he said garlic was good for. The Russians use it to ward off flu. Says Charles Onion: "Real garlic lovers always want to tell you about the favorite aunt who lived to be 110 because every night she put a garlic clove in a glass of water, and then next morning she drank it. And garlic, properly used, of course, does do wonderful things to food. Charles Onion

WHEN YOU GO

The garlic festival will take place Saturday and Sunday, June 27-28, from 10:00 Α.Μ. to 6:00 P.M. at American Adventure Verde River Resort west of Camp Verde, which is 85 miles north of Phoenix. Admission is $5 for adults and $3 for those under 12. From Phoenix, take Interstate 17 north; exit at State Route 260. Go west a mile to Horseshoe Bend Road. Turn right and go another mile to the resort. Plenty of parking. It's likely to be warm, and there's lots of open space, so take a hat. If you want to stay over, there are motels in Camp Verde plus lots of accommodations, some of them plush, in nearby Sedona and the surrounding red rock country. For more information about the festival, contact the Camp Verde Chamber of Commerce, (602) 567-9294.

proves this, at his festival, by bringing in chefs from hotels around the state, installing them in a big tent, having them whip things together with garlic and then letting the folks have a taste.

Last year one of the chefs was Alan Zeman of the Sheraton El Conquistador in Tucson. About 100 people in bleachers watched, visibly moved, as he cranked up his recipe for veal Sonoma, using along with a lot of other stuff a large or, as it's called, "elephant" garlic. I tasted a sliver of it, and it was superb. (You can obtain the recipe by writing to Charles Onion at P.O. Box 2027, Camp Verde, AZ 86322.) All the refreshments on sale at a booth called the Garlic Gallery, except possibly the ice cream, go heavy on the garlic: garlic sausage, garlic pasta, garlic toast, and on and on. And at the main tent, you can get Onion's Garlic Shooter. Charles Onion says his wife, Trish, invented the drink as a way of getting her daily therapeutic dosage of garlic without at the same time getting bad breath.

You chop a clove of the stuff into little pieces and put it in a glass and squeeze lemon or lime juice into it, swirl it, and then drink it. Charles Onion says it's supposed to make you feel good what he and his family call a "garlic rush." I dutifully chugged my Garlic Shooter and didn't feel anything, but then I'm the sort of connoisseur who can't distinguish good wine from bad and, when I smoked, couldn't tell one brand of cigarette from another.

I may run into you this year at Camp Verde's garlic festival. Can't rely on tobacco anymore to get my fix. I'll see if garlic works. Anyway, I've been feeling a little fluey lately.