Photograph courtesy of the Campbell Chamber of Commerce
Meat Wagon: Spicy sauces and sizzling shishkabobs will fill the air with pungent aromas at the annual Campbell PruneFestival on Saturday and Sunday, May 15-16.
PruneFestival '99: Music and Mesquite
Fest will feature a range of delectables but, thank goodness, not a lot of prunes
Local organizations and restaurants will fire up their grills
By Eric Johnson
There are those of us who enjoy prunes. We're fewer now than in days past-- fewer than in the days when Campbell supplied prunes to the world. But we persist in loving the chewy sweetness of the dried Italian plum variety that put this place on the map.
Still, even those who love prunes have to be glad that the organizers of this year's annual local spring extravaganza, the PruneFestival, have chosen the theme "Music and Mesquite" instead of "Music and Dried Sweets."
We are thankful that Campbell's PruneFest is nothing like the most famous food-themed event in the area, the Gilroy Garlic Festival. Every year, people flock back from that smelly fete in south county raving about the various exotic garlic preparations, which include garlic wine, garlic 'n' onion jam, and the famous garlic ice cream. There will be no prune ice cream at the PruneFestival. No prune stir-fry, and no shishkaprunes. There will, however, be pork shishkabobs, spare-ribs, and barbecued chicken.
Photograph courtesy of the Campbell Chamber of Commerce
Water Torture: Kids of all ages can work out anti-authority issues at the Campbell police department's "Dunk-A-Cop" booth.
This year's PruneFestival will be drenched in the smoky aromas of dozens of delicacies cooked over open flames. It also promises to be the biggest citywide picnic-crafts-fair and musical-social event in Campbell history. That's not entirely due to the cuisine--live music and handmade crafts are pretty big draws, too. But Festival organizers wisely presume to hope that thousands of Cambellites have yet to pull the Weber out of the garage for a chilly spring cookout, and that the word "mesquite" is likely to set their mouths to watering and thier feet to tromping toward downtown.
The PruneFest will feature food booths set up by several local restaurants. Folks from local eateries, including Left at Albequerque and the Rock Bottom Brew Pub, will be joined by culinary colleagues from out of town, including Stoddard's and The Glen, to light fires under grills big enough to feed the whole city.
Other booths will be manned by members of local clubs and organizations, including the Kiwanis Club of Campbell and the Los Gatos Moose Lodge, which cook up hot dogs, Polish sausages and Italian sausages, as well as hamburgers and roasted sweet corn. For seafood lovers there will be grilled crab cakes and deep-fried calamari. Jersey's Cheese Steaks will offer (what else?) New Jersey-style cheese steaks. And for those with a taste for international cuisine, Saint Mary's Assyrian church will serve Assyrian kabobs in pita bread, and Mama Mia's and Tony and Alba's will serve pizza.
Photograph courtesy of the Campbell Chamber of Commerce
Spit Fire: Promoters of this year's PruneFestival are counting on the lure of mesquite barbecue to make this the biggest celebration ever.
For the youngsters and the rest of us, there will be soda pop, fresh-squeezed lemonade, ice cream in waffle cones, sundaes, milkshakes and smoothies. And on tap, there will be the fine German pilsner known as Spaten, as well as local brews from Rock Bottom, Stoddard's, and Gordon Biersch. And because we are all lucky enough to be in California, there will be fine California wines.
Amidst all of this, there will be prunes. Walking through the crowd all day will be a guy in a weird costume who calls himself, no kidding, SuperPrune, and he will be handing out bags of--you guessed it. There may even be some Dr. Pepper (trade secret: it's carbonated prune juice.)
Betty Deal, the executive director of the Chamber of Commerce (the folks who put on the event and came up with the BBQ idea) lists the food vendors proudly--but points out that the party isn't just about eating.
"This is an opportunity for Campbell to show off a little," Deal says. "We think Campbell is the place to be right now, and for ths one weekend, people will get to see why we feel that way."
Campbell, California
