Oxnard Festival Likely to Leave Many Red-Faced

If you want to be a serious contender, don’t eat breakfast. Skipping lunch is also advised. Apart from appetite, speed and a lack of table manners are also a plus.

Past strawberry shortcake contest winners were clocked inhaling their football-size shortcake in less than 45 seconds.

Of course, the general public will have two days to gorge itself on strawberry shortcake and a smorgasbord of other strawberry delights at the California Strawberry Festival in Oxnard, which opens today.

Five million strawberries are expected to be consumed during this weekend’s festival. That translates to 62.5 strawberries for each of the expected 80,000 visitors.

Strawberries will be dipped in chocolate, slathered in whip cream and, for the more adventurous, served as barbecue sauce on hot dogs and as pizza topping.

Forecasters predict sunny skies over Oxnard, with temperatures in the low 70s. The forecast is welcome news for festival organizers who will need to clear $600,000 to make a profit.

On Friday, food sellers (yes, dishes that do not include strawberries are also on the menu) and arts and crafts vendors prepared booths. Two blocks from the festival site at Strawberry Meadows of College Park on Rose Avenue, Rosa Martinez and dozens of other farm workers harvested some of the juicy, red fruit to be consumed at the festival.

No, Martinez said, she will not be able to attend this year’s festival, but the thought of an ice-cold strawberry smoothie, preferably with bananas and crushed ice, appealed to the hard-working Oxnard mother.

“Frankly, the last thing I feel like doing now is eating a strawberry,” Martinez said. “But later, dipped in chocolate or whip cream, that sounds good.”

Musical acts should prove more diverse than the strawberry-themed menu.

Musicians as diverse as rock and ballad singer Eddie Money, the Rembrandts whose hit “I’ll Be There for You” is the theme song of the television show “Friends,” Tex-Mex vocalist Freddy Fender and Karla Bonoff of the group Bryndle will perform at the festival.

Several of the nationally known performers live in Ventura County: Eddie Money of Westlake, Danny Wilde, half of the duo Rembrandt, of Thousand Oaks, and the Estrada Bros. of Oxnard who recently released their first record.

One a cappella/do-wop group, the Blues Berries, will sing such festival-themed tunes as “I Found My Thrill on Strawberry Hill.”

Other talent includes Papa Nata, a local reggae group, Don Preston Blues Band of Oklahoma and Chaille, an L.A. pop-rock singer.

The festival’s celebrity ambassador is the young actor Josh Byrne of TV’s “Step by Step” who will greet children in Strawberryland, where there will be a children’s concert, puppet shows, face painting, arts and crafts, a petting zoo and clowns.

And after a few visits to the make-your-own-strawberry-shortcake-booth, those with strong stomachs can visit the “Reactor,” a virtual reality thrill ride billed as simulating the sensation of Indy car racing and piloting a jet fighter.

FYI

The 13th annual California Strawberry Festival in Oxnard runs from 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. today and Sunday. Admission is $6 for adults and $4 for children 12 and under and people 55 and older. The festival is at College Park at 3250 S. Rose Ave. The Rose Avenue exit on the Ventura Freeway will be closed and northbound drivers are encouraged to turn off at Las Posas, Del Norte or Rice exits and head south. Drivers heading south on the Ventura Freeway should exit south at Victoria Avenue. Commuters taking the Pacific Coast Highway should exit at Pleasant Valley Road. Festival organizers have posted signs at each intersection directing commuters to free parking. Parking is within two blocks of the festival and is near the corner of Channel Islands Boulevard and Rose Avenue. Overflow parking is available at Oxnard College, near the corner of Rose Avenue and Bard Road.