Monday, May 19, 2014

California Strawberry Festival!

Strawberry Time!

Back home in Florida I love to go pick my own strawberries! I have not done that here in LA, however, I found out about the California Strawberry Festival which is held in Oxnard, CA. Oxnard is about an hour north from West LA. California Strawberry Festival, held in May, was the perfect summer kick off! The festival not only had everything strawberries but live music, crafts and fair games.


I decided to use the free shuttle services and avoid the traffic and parking at the festival grounds. I parked at the Palms Shopping Center, once parked a shuttle pulled up and was ready to head out to the festival. The shuttle too about 15 minutes and dropped us off right at the gate! Arrived to the festival around 2pm, just in time to grab a drink (strawberry beer of course!) and go listen to some live music. I enjoyed the irish band - Young Dubliners!



After listening to some music I walked around to see what I wanted to try... strawberry pizza, chocolate strawberries, strawberry popcorn, strawberry shortcake, strawberry nachos, and more! I decided on the strawberry nachos since lately I've been a sucker for anything nacho related!

The strawberry nachos were AMAZING! The chips were flour based with cinnamon and sugar. One top of the chips were mashed strawberries, then cool whip and on top of that were whole strawberries!! Yumms!

After I ate the whole plate of nachos I walked around to see what else the festival had... the craft area reminded me of all the craft shows my mother and I have attended since I was young. There was a section of fair rides and even a section just for the kiddies... all who had strawberries all over their faces, so cute! As the festival was wrapping up I decided to check out the strawberry farm stands. It was probably 30 minutes to closing and I got a flat for about $11!! I will be eating strawberries everyday for 2 weeks but who cares so good!

Within the week I started making random strawberry dishes, here are a few... Strawberries Mashed on Cinnamon Toast, Wild Rice with Strawberries and Balsamic Glaze (pictured below), Strawberry Salsa (pictured below).


more photos of festival: 



Young Dubliners
 


Check more out here: http://strawberry-fest.org/

Enjoy! xoxo