37,000 Make for Fruitful Opening at Strawberry Festival

By NICK GREEN

May 19, 1996 12 AM PT

SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

OXNARD —

They came. They saw. They tossed.

Fruit flew Saturday on opening day of the California Strawberry Festival, as berry bowlers gave friends and relatives their just desserts during the strawberry tart toss.

“That’s my stepdaughter. My husband’s going to kill me,” screamed Joan Dawson of Port Hueneme after seeing her pie explode in a melange of sticky whipped cream and gooey strawberry glaze on the face of a giggling Theresa Dawson, 11. “I don’t have to buy them any more food now.”

The 32 participants in the tart toss--who heaved heaping pie tins at loved ones standing behind a painted target--were among 37,000 fruit fans who attended the annual two-day strawberry salute on Saturday.

Most though preferred to get their strawberry fix in a more conventional way.

“You’ve got to have something with strawberries on it,” said Wendy Gorrell, 30, of Ventura, who had graduated from garlic chicken to a strawberry crepe piled high with whipped cream. “It’s bad luck if you don’t,” added husband Clark, 32.

Bad luck was unlikely at the festival, given that it was difficult to find a food that wasn’t laced with some strawberry-flavored concoction. There were hot dogs with strawberry barbecue sauce. Strawberry kebabs (“Why would you do that?” muttered one passerby). And, of course, strawberry pizza.

“Ick,” said one woman as she glanced at the food booth sign and hurried past.

There’s no pepperoni on this pie; it’s a pastry crust covered with cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar, a layer of strawberries and whipped cream and another strawberry on top for good measure.

“Strawberry shortcake I can have at home,” said Pam Drake, 37, of Ventura as she gobbled the sweet feast. “I walked around the arts and crafts thing so I could burn off calories before I came here.”

However, Dana Hirayama, 35, of Thousand Oaks had managed to find a strawberry unadorned with the ubiquitous whipped cream. Her token berry swam in a glass of zinfandel--supposedly dubbed a strawberry fizz, except the booth sold out of the champagne that supplies the fizz less than three hours into the festival. Not that Hirayama cared. Working on her second glass of wine, she had spent much of the afternoon bumping into co-workers from the Thousand Oaks biotechnology company, Amgen.

“It’s like an Amgen event, except we have to pay for our booze,” she said, laughing.

The strawberry theme infuses every conceivable festival activity.

There are no lost children at the festival, just “found little berries.” At Strawberryland, the children’s play area, kids get to play with strawberry-scented putty and color strawberry scenes. And many people, apparently unable to get enough of the berries, carted home flats full of fruit.

“I’m having a party tomorrow,” said Lisa Belko, 32, of Burbank, as she toted home a covered tray of Bobalu berries, the strawberry connoisseur’s preferred variety. “When you dip them in chocolate they tend to hold their sweetness a little bit more.”

At an event that is a tasty tribute to the 4,800 acres of strawberries that surrounds Oxnard, it’s somehow fitting that people love the fruit so much they even lined up for the opportunity to get a glaze graze at the tart toss.

“They were all born in Oxnard,” said Joan Dawson as she watched her squealing children await their turn to receive a tart in the face, “and you have to like strawberries to live in Oxnard.”

FYI

The 13th annual California Strawberry Festival in Oxnard ends its run from 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. today. 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.

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Festival Events

TODAY

STRAWBERRY STAGE

11 a.m.-1 p.m.: Chailie, pop/rock

1-2:30 p.m.: The Rembrandts, adult contemporary/pop

2:30-3:30 p.m.: The Blues Berries, a cappella/do-wop group

3:30-5 p.m.: Freddy Fender, rhythm & blues/Cajun funk

FESTIVAL STAGE

10-11 a.m.: Iron Mountain Boys, bluegrass

11 a.m.-1:30 p.m.: The Estrada Brothers, Latin soul

1:30-4 p.m.: Geno De La Fose, xydeco/French Cajun boogie-woogie