Crowd of 37,000 Makes for Fruitful Opening of Strawberry Festival

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.

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. 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.