A Single Flavor for Every Taste

Vampires beware! This weekend, garlic lovers will swarm Westwood Village.

More than 40,000 are expected to sample delicacies ranging from garlic pasta to garlic ice cream sundaes at the 12th annual Los Angeles Garlic Festival.

Festival-goers will munch on garlic potato chips and garlic pretzels plus such dishes as garlic ravioli and 40-clove chicken sandwiches prepared by chefs from more than two dozen Southern California restaurants. Festival tastes and beverages cost between $1 and $5.

Chef Bob Blaisch from Menagerie restaurant in Los Angeles said this is not an ordinary food festival.

“It’s a celebration of one flavor that people love,” said Blaisch, who is planning to prepare coconut garlic shrimp and a garlic ice cream dessert that includes a white chocolate sauce. “The best thing is that you can eat as much garlic as you want.”

Garlic worshipers also can visit garlic craft booths, get a garlic-oil foot massage or check out the cooking stage, where chefs from local restaurants will prepare garlic dishes.

And, to burn off calories and air out those pores, some dancing may be in order. Throughout the two-day event, live music will be presented on the festival’s main stage. Performers include Latin jazz master Pancho Sanchez, rhythm and blues artist Millie Kaiserman, a Motown review and country, jazz and salsa performances.

The annual event was founded more than a decade ago by Katherine Veniero at the suggestion of Berkeley author John Harris, who had written extensively about garlic, said Veniero, a longtime Los Angeles restaurateur.

“I had no idea how much people loved garlic,” said Veniero, who closed her restaurant, Nucleus Nuance, in 1993 and now produces the annual festival. “America got hip to garlic, and the event has seemed to mushroom.”

The festival donates a portion of its proceeds to Shelter Partnership Inc., a nonprofit organization that assists homeless people and families with housing in Los Angeles County, and the Phoenix House of California, a drug rehabilitation organization for teen-agers.

The 12th annual Los Angeles Garlic Festival, 11000 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood. Noon to 10 p.m. Saturday and noon to 9 p.m. Sunday. Admission is $10 adults, $6 senior citizens and free for children under 12. Information: (213) 480-3232.