It's a Very Strawberry Time of Year in Oxnard

The contest-cute, pie-yummy bash sweetens up the middle of May.

BERRY INDIVIDUAL: Foods that have a more triangular shape, say, like a pizza slice, tend to be consumed in one way, or one way only, if a fork and knife aren't involved: from the tiny end. That's where the eater typically places their mouth when taking on an edible that comes to a point of sorts, and, no, we don't think this applies to such traditionally three-cornered snacks as tortilla chips (because every corner makes a pretty fine starting point). Like a pizza slice, a strawberry is larger at one end, and smaller at the other, but unlike a triangle of cheesy pie, you can't really start at the thicker side, lest you want a mouthful of greeny stem. Beyond that one sort of common sense-specific rule, however, you should, and can, take on strawberry consumption in all of the ways it is available to you at the California Strawberry Festival. We mean, this is the grandstrawberry among berry bashes, one of the biggest, a party that sprawls over a full weekend and contains a lot of moving parts. Literally, in some cases, given that there is a ride-sweet carnival called Strawberryland on the festival grounds (it's for the little ones, yep yep). And those festival grounds? Why they're in...

OXNARD, of course, the longtime home to this longtime festival ("longtime"=starting in 1984). Some twenty charities are beneficiaries for money raised during the May 16 and 17 party, which includes more strawberry treats than you can likely picture. That is, if you're solely picture pie and tarts and shortcake. Speaking of pie, there are pie-eating contests, a contest involving the tossing of strawberry tarts -- that's tossing, gently, to hit your pal's mug, not throwing hard -- as well as a dress-up contest for babies and a strawberry-decorated hat contest for the grown-ups. Tickets? An adult is twelve bucks. A sunny mid-May party all about fruit? It doesn't come more California-y than that (seriously, this can probably be proven by experts). Eating a strawberry from the top, bottom, or sideways? We all take our strawberries how we like, and if the stem is removed, we say go for it. The bright-flavored fruit is used in dozens of nontraditional ways, from salads to appetizers; why not consume it, raw, however you dang well please?

Copyright FREEL - NBC Local Media
Contact Us