Kat's 9 Lives

I must give a shout out to Gourmet Pigs for driving from LA and it was great hanging out with everyone. It's been a while since I have seen Hellobear and Tiramisu. We all journeyed fall and wide to Oxnard for their infamous California Strawberry Festival on May 17th. The weather was all over the place with the sun hiding most of the morning. I actually enjoyed it better without the heavy sun in the afternoon. At least I had sun block this time around! O=) The festival was PACKED this year. We were parked super far away on rough dirt. It definitely was not a good idea to wear flip-flops as my feet became super super dirty trudging through the parking lot.
The entrance fee is $12 for adults. Somehow Hellobear got in for free! I am going to use that tactic/secret next time! lol Parking is $5. The first thing that we did after we got to the festival was grab some grub! ^_^ Gourmet Pig and I set out for the Corn on the Cob stand. We saw that they offered Strawberry Cream Lemonade and we couldn't resist trying it out. Man, was this a heavy price to pay for not shopping around a bit more. The bill came out to be $8 for corn and lemonade... YIKES! lol What can you expect at a festival. *sigh* The corn was good but I wished there was more roast flavor and tastier butter. Still, they were sweet.
I thought the Strawberry Cream Lemonade looked super pretty. The strawberry that they throw in really makes it beautiful. I didn't really taste the "cream", but it was a very good and sweet lemonade. If only it wasn't $4! lol I saw at the other food stands that they sold it for $3. Oh well!
Later on we noticed that it would have been a better deal to get the Strawberry Smoothie drinks as they were the exact same size and half the price! It was sweet and filled with blended strawberries. Deal wise, this was much more worthwhile but I still prefer the lemonade. It's much lighter and brings out the flavor of strawberries versus a thick syrupy sweet smoothie. I have been pondering about taking some of the strawberries I bought to make some delicious homemade strawberry lemonade. O=)
After that we moved on to the other food stands. Hellobear and I decided to share a Pork Kebab smothered in Garlic Soy Sauce, but the meat was overdone. Kind of sad! We waited there for a long long time breathing in all the bad smoke from the grill. *cough cough* Everyone else abandoned us to do their own things! lol Gourmet Pigs tried out the Strawberry Crepes. The crepes looked decent but loaded with cream! lol We all got split up after a while and ended up seeing each other at the Funnel Cake line. How dare Gourmet Pig not call us to ask if we wanted one! lol They got their share while we were stuck at the end of the line. It's all good though because I made hand signals at them and got to share with them. O=) Got to work the magic! lolThey also had a Cajun stand that looked tempting. I played it smart and waited for Gourmet Pigs to test out the food before I made my purchase. Curious that their line was never that long... she got the Jambalaya and at first I was going to get one myself but the "sausage" part looked like hot dog meat. That sealed the deal for me. I think the best cooked food was the Smoked Turkey Leg and I don't even like turkey!Let's not forget about the delicious Chocolate Covered Strawberries sold by the Buddhist Temple. The strawberries were beautiful gigantic long stems covered in either white, milk, or dark chocolate. They were $2 each or slightly cheaper if you buy more so we did. I thought the dark chocolate was the best combination to bring out the flavors of the strawberry as well as compliment the chocolate. When I had the milk chocolate I just felt it was disjointed in taste and didn't enjoy it as much. Needless to say we gorged out on festival food. ^_^
Of course that was more to the festival. I had to bring back 2 flats of beautiful strawberries. I have been giving them out to people left and right, but of course I save the best for Ms. Lin when she comes home tomorrow! The strawberries are sweet and juicy. They taste almost like candy! ^_^ We bought some arts and crafts there as well. I almost wish I made my own candle! We should have made our own Strawberry Short Cake as well! lol They had live music, but from what I heard while standing in line for the Funnel Cakes... oye! lol Still, a good time was had by all and I got to catch up/meet up with many great friends. Good times!