Driving between the southern suburbs of San Francisco, where we now live, and our former home of Los Angeles, you must get off the highway and go through the town of Gilroy. This town’s claim to fame can be smelled very clearly: garlic.

So every year, Gilroy holds a garlic festival, a celebration of the “stinking rose” in all its glory. It’s just an hour away from me now, so I thought I’d check it out.

Although a major event, the garlic festival is still a community affair. Cheerful high school volunteers help guide traffic, and I parked in a dirt lot whose sections were marked by handwritten signs. Sales of festival programs, listing the weekend’s events and last year’s winning recipes, benefit a local school.

After buying a $12 ticket, I was all set. On the festival grounds were all kinds of food: Cajun crawfish, calamari, church BBQ (the best kind!), and of course, everything garlic: garlic bread, garlic chicken stir fry, garlic sausage, even garlic ice cream. Too bad it was one of the hottest weekends of the year, and my appetite was wilting like a lettuce leaf in the stifling heat. There was a massive crowd, too — over the 3-day event, planners say, 107,553 people came through. Fortunately the planners had set out plenty of tents for shade, and there were a few that had misters going to help people keep cool.

Since I didn’t feel up to eating much, I thought I could at least see what people were doing with garlic.

Cooking up a firestorm, for one. Whew! I couldn’t stand the heat, so I got out of the kitchen area.

One of the highlights is a cooking competition, with original recipes. I missed the cook-off, which had an appealing “Iron Chef” ring to it (though the mystery ingredient could be no mystery), but the finalists’ dishes were all appealingly displayed.

The lady on the right, Linda Wang of Sunnyvale (practically a neighbor, though we’ve never met), won 2nd place for her garlic corn creme brulee with pan-seared scallops. They looked delicious.

And the first-place winner?

Yes, walnut-garlic tart with garlic-infused creme and chili syrup, by Laurie Benda of Madison, Wisconsin. I had considered it a novelty, but the fact that it won made me incredibly curious: What did it taste like? If only they were giving out samples.

I did, however, get to try garlic ice cream.

No, not there. Why pay $4.50 when ConAgra had a stall where they were giving away samples for free? Everyone else seemed to be thinking the same thing — the line was enormous. But the payoff was a lovely surprise. My garlic ice cream (soft serve) tasted distinctively of garlic, yet was still mild and sweet. It was light, too, and after finishing my kid-size cone I actually felt refreshed. Amazing.

I also picked up a braid of garlic from Christopher Ranch. Apparently these days Gilroy is more of a garlic processing, rather than growing, center, but Christopher Ranch raises its heirloom garlic right in town, and insists that the flavor is fuller than its main competition from China. I haven’t tried it yet, so I can’t say. But locavores should be pleased.

All in all, it was a good day. Lessons for next time: go early, bring a hat and sunscreen, and a hungry partner. And breath mints!