The Stinky News
The original flag of the Minnesota Garlic Festival.
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It’s very possible that we’re going to lose our archive of past editions going back several years. Not sure why – something about a new server. For a while longer, you can go HERE, for the 1st edition of 2023, and in the sidebar there is a catalogue of past editions going back to the mid-fifties.
We’re told that these will disappear sometime soon like the scent of garlic in the wind, never to be sniffed again.
Therefore, if you subscribe, you’ll get each new edition, but it won’t be archived. So if you want to hang on to them, you’ll need to store them yourself, though we can’t imagine why you’d want to do that.
The Current Edition and the Four Before That
THE STINKY NEWS
The ontic ontology of
MINNESOTA GARLIC FESTIVAL
Winter Edition 2024
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HEADLINES:
Ticket Prices Remain Unchanged
Vendor Applications Coming Soon
The Doggerel Contest
Flag Contest Winner
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Ticket Prices Remain Unchanged
The State Fair ("The Great Minnesota Get Together") has once again mimicked the Garlic Festival ("The Great Minnesota Stink Together") by not doing something.
Both events aren't going to raise their ticket prices, but Garlic Fest didn't do it first. The State Fair voted to keep ticket prices flat for the 2024 event, prompting Fair CEO Renee Alexander to say, “We want to try and still be that affordable, valuable experience."
However, prior to that the Garlic Fest had already previously not taken action on raising ticket prices, prompting board president Sarah Lindblom to say, "We kinda forgot about that", and Festival Director Jerry Ford to add, "We charge?"
The results?
- The State Fair will cost you $18, your 8-year-old $16, and your 3-year-old that you didn't want to bring anyway gets in free. Parking is $20 unless you can fit them all on your motorcycle ($15)
- By contrast, Garlic Fest is $10, all your 12-and-under kids get in free, and so does your car.
And Garlic Fest tickets are on sale now!
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Vendor Applications Coming Soon
Garlic Festival Vendor Coordinator, Tarah Huston, who holds a Doctorate degree in Ataraxy, informs us that vendor applications will be available on the website starting February 10, 2024. "We're limiting the number of vendors to at least as many as last year and probably a bunch more," said Huston, "so get those applications in early."
The place to start is:https://www.mngarlicfest.com/vendors
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The Doggerel Contest
Festival fans will recall that The Stinky News has run several garlic-centric competitions in which competitors can competitively compete for fabulous prizes. Some of them have been poetry contests. There was the Limerick Grand Prix, the Haiku Smackdown, and the Homeric Heroic Epic Contest. [Footnote 1]
Next up: doggerels.
Rules:
Your doggerel poem must be about garlic. It may follow any particular poetic form or none at all, and doesn't have to be any good or make any sense. Extra points if the poem is set to atonal music. And not too long, please.
Here is an example from our staff poet at Stinky News World Headquarters, N. Jambment. To hear her version of the poem set to atonal music, click HERE.
There once was a garlic-eating dog named Doggerel
who flatulated like a fogger. Well,
he went to the Garlic Fest,
found that he smelled the best,
and so ends this rhyme that doesn't rhyme so well.
So, drop a doggerel on us. Winners to be announced sometime.
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Festival Flag Contest Winner
A winner has been chosen in the competition to design a new flag for Minnesota! And even better, someone won the contest to create a new Garlic Festival flag.
Everyone is familiar with the original Garlic Festival Flag. (If you don't see the image, click HERE.)
However, there has been an ongoing obstreperous outcry against it. These outcryers cry out that the flag shames people who have garlic-shaped heads and no noses. Point taken.
So, we have chosen a winning entry from our one finalist, and this flag shouldn't offend anyone. (If it doesn't show up, see it HERE.)
The designer is Nathan Kirkman, Age 11, and is titled "Flag of Many Wonders." Brilliant! Except that it also shows a proboscisless garlic head. And it's crosseyed. Whatever. We're going with it.
Nathan wins free admission to the festival as long as he signs up as a volunteer.
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MINNESOTA GARLIC FESTIVAL
Saturday, August 10, 2025
840 Century Ave. SW, Hutchinson, MN 55350
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FOOTNOTES:
1) The titles of the winning entries in these contests were:
- Limerick: "A Garlic from Nantucket"
- Haiku: "Untitled"[2]
- Homeric Heroic Epic: "The Garliciad".
2) Actually, all of the haikus were titled "Untitled", which made the judging difficult: "In 1st place we have 'Untitled'. 2nd place honors go to 'Untitled' . . ." [3]
3) And they were all written by "Anonymous", except for one composed by Anne Ominous. So we gave the prize to her.
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THE STINKY NEWS
A phrontistery for festive phonations about
MINNESOTA GARLIC FESTIVAL
Post Fest Post, September 2023
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Headlines:
GET MORE GARLIC HERE
GET MORE RECIPES HERE
HOW MANY PEOPLE?
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GET MORE GARLIC HERE
Have you already eaten all that garlic you bought at the festival last month? You know, those bulbs you bought as seed to plant in October, but they just looked so good you had to make some pesto, and then a batch of aioli, and before long you were chomping them down like an HFCS'd-up tween at a pizza party, and now there's nothing left to plant, let alone satisfy your allium-induced cravings? Or did you simply miss the festival altogether?
You're in luck!
The Upper Midwest Premium Garlic Directory has over 30 growers offering over 70 varieties of garlic. Whether you're jonesing for some perky Porcelain, gastronomical German or chthonic Carpathian, or you can't wait to gorge on Georgian, eat Estonian, munch Music, ingest Inchelium, chew on Chesnok, masticate Metechi, binge on Bogatyr, sup on Siberian, lick some Lorz or dine on Deerfield, this directory has it all. Plus purveyors of garlic powder and other pungent products.
Find it all here:
https://sfa-mn.org/garlic-directory
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GET MORE RECIPES HERE
Minnesota Cooks served up a sumptuous Chef Stage at the festival last month, and you can now download all the recipes HERE.
And here's a really cool spot that Chef Stage Chef Nettie Colόn did on WCCO TV:
https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/video/watch-chef-demonstrations-at-hutchinsons-garlic-festival/
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HOW MANY PEOPLE?
Every year about this time, we start asking the Garlic Festival Board probing questions, like what do they do with the massive profits, why haven't you fired your director, and how come no one is selling garlic scented personal lubricants at the festival?
This year we started our persistent probing with, "What was the attendance?" They put us in touch with Festival Director, Jerry Ford, which is, regrettably, what they always do when they don't have a good answer. [1]
Here is a transcript of that interview.
Stinky News: Director Ford, can you tell us how many people were at the MN Garlic Festival this year?
Director Ford: It's only a one day thing, dude.
SN: Yes, we know.
Ford: You said this year.
SN: OK, what was the attendance that day?
Ford: What day?
SN: The day of the festival.
Ford: Like, this year?
SN: Yes, this year.
Ford: It's only one day . . .
SN: STOP THAT! Just tell us the attendance.
Ford: Whoa, touchy. Fine. Yeah, no, well, there were a lot of people there. Gnome sane.
SN: Yes, but how many?
Ford: It's, like, hard to count them when they keep moving around like that. If this was just a puny little shindig, like that Twine Ball Daze thingy, you could probably do it.
SN: Don't you count the number of tickets sold at the admissions gate?
Ford: Dude! That's a great idea! Wait, yeah, no, won't work, gnome sane.
SN: Why not?
Ford: Dig it: there's all those kids that get in free that don't, gnome sane, have tickets. And what about all those people that sneak in early?
SN: What people?
Ford: Oh, baby, there are hundreds of them! They're, like, selling food and garlic and stuff. And all those people wearing red t-shirts with "staff" on the back. How'd they get in? Gnome sane.
SN: That's your vendors and volunteers. And why do you keep saying gnome sane?
Ford: All the cool cats say it.
SN: You mean "You know what I'm saying?"
Ford: Yeah, I know what you're saying. You want to know, like, how many people were at the festival.
SN: So how many were there?
Ford: Not a clue, gnome sane?
Then we gave up and asked Festival Manager, Sarah Knoss, who quickly replied, "About the same as last year, maybe a few more."
We'll try to get a figure by our next edition.
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MINNESOTA GARLIC FESTIVAL
Saturday, August 10, 2024 probably
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Footnotes:
1) We just stuck that in there because every time we've done an issue without footnotes we get no more than a dozen complaints that there weren't any footnotes.
THE STINKY NEWS
Post Lughnasa Lunacy about
MINNESOTA GARLIC FESTIVAL
August 2023
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HEADLINES
Festival Director Coherent Again
Who Needs Drones?
A Few Other Things
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FESTIVAL DIRECTOR COHERENT AGAIN on NETWORK TELEVISION
Well, it's happened again, and we're beginning to take it personally. Festival Director, Jerry Ford, was once again erudite and completely comprehensible in an interview with someone other than us. When we talk with him, he's unerudite, incomprehensible, and just plain dumb.
In this latest incident, Director Ford was on KSTP Channels 5 and 45, the ABC affiliate in the Twin Cities, last Thursday morning, and not only did he use complete sentences, but he even made the show's hosts laugh, and not in derision.
And KSTP didn't even need to use the "suck filter" that the Hutchinson cable channel employed so effectively last year.
See the KSTP interview here:
https://kstp.com/special-coverage/minnesota-live/minnesota-garlic-festival-in-hutchinson/
But he did make one fabulously fatuous faux pas, so we gleefully took him to task over it.
Stinky News: Congratulations, Mr. Director, on a successful interview on KSTP.
Ford: Is this, you know, a trick question?
SN: No, it was a congratulatory statement.
Ford: Dude, I didn't do it.
SN: Yes, you did, and you said that New Ulm was a village of idiots.
Ford: Wha?! Um, no, yeah, whoa, not what I meant. Like, you know, the Narren, they're, like, an old German tradition thingy where they make these gnarly masks and pretend to be a whole town of fools. That's what "narren" means in Deutsch, dude: Fools.
SN: Go back and look at the interview. You clearly said . . .
Ford: No can do, dude. I never look at my interviews. I'm way too, like, erudite and comprehensible. It's embarrassing, bro.
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WHO NEEDS DRONES?
Our irregular readers might recall that Kite Making and Flying is a popular festival feature, and the festival has a new Kites Director: Josh Borrell. Josh is a retired army Major who was a Civil Affairs Officer, and is now a vegetable farmer in Waverly [Footnote 1].
Our staff Conspiracy Theorist and Anti-meliorist, Tim Foilhat, believes otherwise. "The veggie growing thing is just a front. As anyone in the know knows, no one who says they were in "Civil Affairs" was civil or had time for affairs – they were actually Military Intelligence," says Foilhat, "I believe he's going to instal cameras on the kites and surveil the Hutchinson airport, which is just next door to the fairgrounds."
When we asked Mr. Foilhat why Josh would want to do that, he whispered, "Because. He. Can."
Mr. Foilhat no longer works at Stinky News Central Command.
On a side note, the festival offers the kite making/flying feature for free, even though we've discovered it costs them $7.00 per kit. So when you see those donation jars, pony up, or Josh might surveil you.
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10 OTHER THINGS to DO at GARLIC FESTIVAL
1) Volunteer! Get in free, VIP parking, a t-shirt, and free food. If the Sign Up Form is intimidating (none of our staff could get through it without saying "Dang, I'll just email Olivia") then just email Olivia and tell her to give you an assignment.
2) Enter the Garlic Growing Contest. There's even a "Garlic Makeover" category where you can let your stinking artistic talents shine.
3) Eat.
4) Buy Garlic.
5) Act like a kid.
6) Watch Chef Demos. Hint: samples!
7) Meet your farmer.
8) Parade in the Peculiar Pragmatic Promenade.
9) One of the best kept secrets [footnote 2] is the Opening Ceremony "Throwing Out the First Bulb"
10) Eat some more, and have a beverage.
10.1) Be entertained.
10.2) Go home smelling completely different.
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MINNESOTA GARLIC FESTIVAL
Saturday, August 12, 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
840 Century Ave. SW, Hutchinson, MN 55350
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FOOTNOTES
1) This much is true. Major Borrell and his family were most recently stationed in Germany. The only other part of this article that even remotely resembles veracity is the bit about donations to cover the cost of the kite materials.
2) It's also a not-so-well-kept secret that some folks try to get in early and sneak into the Garlic Building to get a jump on their bulb buying binge. Festival Security informs us, "The Opening Ceremony will be relocated so that it blocks the entrance to the Garlic Building, and the Featured Growers have been instructed that they must attend said ceremony and eschew garlic sales until said ceremony is complete. So, gatecrashers be warned: nanny, nanny, boo-boo!"
THE STINKY NEWS
the etesianesque disseration edition on
THE FOOD
at
MINNESOTA GARLIC FESTIVAL
Editor's Note:
In this year's Food Issue we not only deal with the issue of all the fantastic food at the festival, but also the issues that arose last year around the issue of food, namely the long lines and the fact that there wasn't a lot of food.
On the latter issue, we had planned to interview the Festival Director, but we got as far as him exclaiming, "Dude, what was up with all the freakin' people!" and launching into a litany of unintelligible excuses. We'll spare you his sputtering spiel and simply tell you how they're going to fix it.
More food. They're going to have lots more food.
And it's going to be really good. A preview follows.
- Beauregard T. Ponce de Leon III, Editor-in-Chief
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FESTIVAL FOOD PREVIEW
A compendium of ingestible comestibles
by Aiyla Eadit, Stinky News Food Critic and Staff Funambulist
Our regular reader won't recall that last year we compiled a comparison between State Fair food, Garlic Festival food, and Twine Ball Daze grub. We're not doing that this go-around because we're not at all sure Darwin's Moldy Ball Day is happening this year [Footnote 1], though there is evidence that it's moving to Highland, Wisconsin.
And we've got plenty to talk about with just Garlic Fest's fabulous fare.
Speaking of garlic, Elbows Allowed will present their prodigious pasties with roasted garlic topping, while Mobile Feast's garlicky gyros feature a tzatziki sauce that's good enough to drink on its own.
Speaking of drinking garlic, Crow River Winery is back with their garlic bloody marys, and – new this year – you can buy bottles of their gourmet garlic cooking wine to take home.
Speaking of beverages, Dan & Becky's Market is expanding their repertoire! You know them for their tasty teetotal beverages and capacious coffee drinks, and now they are adding a choice of chicken – jerk or black garlic – from birds that were sustainably raised just down the road.
Speaking of down the road, Minnesota Nice Cream will trundle their cute little ice cream truck out to the festival once again, filled with candied garlic toppings.
Speaking of creamy, Pretty Great Cheesecake (yes, they have a garlic cheesecake) is doubling down on their pretty greatness with Pretty Great Cake Shakes: milkshakes and soft serve.
Not having spoken of kettle corn, Aunt Wendy's is back with a garlic-flavored version, and Frill Atelier is pulling out all the stops with organic candy floss[2].
Speaking of artistic ateliers, Junebug Carolina Eats is making a marvelous menu that sounds like poetry:
po mi sammie
chili aioli
pimento dip
While Sunny Days Comfort Food is all in on alliums, including a garlic apple grilled cheese.
Speaking of grilled cheese, F-5 BBQ smokes theirs, as well as their burgers and who knows what else they're smoking.
Speaking of turbid tasties, dangerMOON makes mouth-watering Mondu Korean street food using their own Mangalitsa pigs.
Speaking of a walk in the woods, there's Gentleman Forager, with a menu so varied and unusual that we recommend you read it in advance, take notes and bring a field guide.
----------- More about the Food -----------
And that's just the prepared food you can eat on site. Then there's the stuff you can take home with you - almost all of it from local makers.
We've asked our staff beat poet, Allen Garlicsberg, to compose a stream-of-consciousness ode about it (hear Allen muddle his way through the poem HERE):
Maple syrups past pickles and pesto
in a sour sour sauerkraut saxophone
song of hazelnuts as oil as flour as nuts
joined by jams, gellies, glazes, curds and
doesn't-sound-like it's-spelled meringues.
Rubs, baby, rubs.
Saucy sauces wail BBQ, salsa, habanero hot and garlic, groovy garlic.
Mixing it up chili mix
salsa mix
beer bread mix
spice mix
and seasoning.
Seasoning bread dips like a
tapenade
tapenade
tapenading with a
muffaletta, scat-sing it out loud:
muff - a - let - a.
Crazy kombucha and kimchi
jamming with jaunty meat jerky.
Rubs, baby. rubs with balsamic vinegars, bread dipping.
Say cheese, farmstead cheese.
Sunflower oil, honey, sunflower oil
Raucous rhythm of
pop
pop pop
popopopop
corn.
Dark dissonant melody of woodfire coffee beans.
Black garlic,
the dark of garlic blackened like darkest chocolate.
A coda of condiments
fully realized relishes
Mar ma lade.
Rubs, baby, rubs.
The sinuous symphonic stink of savory garlic.
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MINNESOTA GARLIC FESTIVAL
Saturday, August 12, 2023
mngarlicfest.com
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FOOTNOTES:
1) Litchfield Visitor's Bureau has a rather minimalist posting, though the artwork is kind of nifty. Explore Minnesota has a description, which ends with "The dates for this event have passed. No future dates are available at this time."
2) Brittish for cotton candy. Like gobsmacked = surprised; knackered = tired; chuffed = excited; and Robert is your mother's brother = you've got it made.
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THE STINKY NEWS
Reporting on the Most Festal of all the Estival Festivals
The MINNESOTA GARLIC FESTIVAL
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HEADLINES:
Festival Announces the Featured Garlic Growers
Volunteers Needed
Parking Problems Solved
Stinky News is Going Away
Other Festivals with Bulbs & Balls, Part 2
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FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES FEATURED GARLIC GROWERS
Each year the festival selects 15 garlic growers who will bring the very best of their 2023 crop to sell in the MN Grown Garlic Building. Except for this year. Now there will be 16 featured growers.
See the list HERE.
So, on August 12th, there will be the same 15 garlic growers in the MN Grown Garlic Building who were there last year, but the new 16th grower will not. They'll be outside the building.
The new featured grower is SwanBee Honey. They've been a honey vendor at the festival since the mid-60's, and now they've ramped up their garlic production to the point where they can sell that as well.
But why aren't they in the building with the others?
When asked, SwanBee owner, John Swanson, says, "Well, you know, we've always had our tent right across from the entrance to the garlic building," as he looks at the ground and shuffles his feet, "So that's where folks expect to find us."
But when we asked the other growers, we got a different story. "It's all that sweet honey he makes," says Plum Creek Garlic's Chris Kudrna, "He doesn't stink as much as the rest of us. We have standards to uphold."
So, when you want to buy garlic from all the vendors, be aware that one of them is outside the building, ostracized for smelling too sweet.
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VOLUNTEERS NEEDED
The festival's Volunteer Coordinator, Olivia Olson, has asked us to report that they are still looking for volunteers, especially for the morning shifts working with the Garlic Buds Kids Tent. Learn more and sign up HERE.
We here at the Stinky News Institute for Volunteer Education and Learning (SNIVEL) have a recommendation for Ms. Olson, which we could send to her directly, but it's more fun to print it here where we'll have to apologize for it later.
The problem is that the tickets are too cheap. Jack up the admission price to, say, $87.43, and that free admission perk for volunteers will look pretty attractive. Then you could take away all the other perks – t-shirt, free food, VIP parking – and people would still jump at it just to get in the door for free.
Full disclosure: Stinky News staffers get in free with a press pass, but they don't give us t-shirts because they don't want people thinking we work for the festival, and they know better than to give us all-you-can-eat free food.
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PARKING PROBLEMS SOLVED
The Stinky News interviewed Festival Director, Jerry Ford, about last year's parking problems.
Spoiler Alert: They ARE fixing it with parking attendants and more spaces. It just took so long in the interview to get that out of the director that we thought we'd go ahead and say it up front.
Stinky News: "You can't deny that the parking situation at the 2022 festival was not your finest moment."
Director Ford: "I can't?"
S.N.: "It was an unmitigated disaster, a car lot catastrophe, a veritable clusterpark."
Ford: "Oh, yeah, that. Dude, we were, like, hoping people would think it was an amusement ride, you know, like all those roundabouts the 612-ers have to go through to get here."
S.N.: "Well, they didn't think of it that way. Now, how are you going to fix it?"
Ford: "Dig it! I'm about to announce that on the social media thingy. I'm an unfluencer, you know."
S.N.: "I'm sure you are. What social media outlets are you using?"
Ford: "There's more than one?"
S.N.: "OK, let's pretend you're actually using even one. Which one?"
Ford: "YouSpace."
S.N.: "MySpace?"
Ford: "Nah, bro, I got my own space on YouSpace, I don't need your space on YouSpace."
S.N.: "Let's put that aside before it gets any stupider. Just tell me what you are going to announce on (ahem) YouSpace."
Ford: "Right on. Scouts, man. There's this scout troop, #399 up in the Howard Lake area, that, like, parking is their thing. Dude, these kids get merit badges in Valet Services and Ground Traffic Control. So, even though they won't valet park your wheels for you – well, OK, there's this one rad 15 year old who might if you let 'em and no one is looking – but they will direct you to your spot like a pro."
S.N.: "That sounds like a good solution."
Ford: "Whoa, and we also invented another parking lot at the fairgrounds that we're calling – dig this – The New Lot."
(We were going to put one of those "Read the entire interview" links here, but why would you want to?)
So, they fixed the parking problem.
Tip: if you really want to avoid the patron parking lot . . . Volunteer! (see above)
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STINKY NEWS IS GOING AWAY
A wise person once said that all good things come to an end. And sometimes, a few of the bad ones.
In this case, it's the archive of Stinky Newses going back to the mid-60's. Don't worry, new Stinky Newses will still be published semi-occasionally. It's just that the old ones from before 2023 are going to go gently into that good night of digital oblivion.
Why? The parent organization of this whole shebang went and got themselves a new website, and they're so smitten with it that they're just going to let the old website fade away. Well, that's the old Stinky Newses's home.
The worst part of this whole deal is that our staff writers are used to being able to link to old editions when they are too lazy to write new stuff, and there won't be old editions to link to.
Therefore, if you want to binge-read those ancient issues, here's where you can go for a while longer and look in the sidebar: https://archive.sfa-mn.org/garlicfest/
See? it even says "archive" in the web address.
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OTHER FESTIVALS WITH BALLS, PART 2
We've reported in these pages about festivals that feature bulbs or balls – including Testicle Festivals [Footnote 1], Gonad Galas, The Big Mouldy Ball of Darwin Bash, and even a Balls Ball – and we've rounded up another one.
Running of the Meatballs, Scandia MN
It's like the Running of the Bulls, but the bull has been slaughtered and ground up. It's a "FUNdraiser" for Scandia's Gammelgården Museum, which celebrates the lesser known operas in Richard Wagner's Swedish-language "The Ring of the Gammelgården" trilogy: Das Lutefisk, Siegfried's Bar, and Götterdämmit.
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MINNESOTA GARLIC FESTIVAL
Saturday, August 12, 2023
840 Century Ave. SW, Hutchinson, MN 55350
www.mngarlicfest.com
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FOOTNOTES
1) Yes, there's more than one. Two, actually.