The Exchange Club of Gilroy will be holding its Annual Harvest Dinner and Auction tomorrow evening (November 6, 2009) at the Irmandade da Festa do Divino Espirito Santo (IFDES) Lodge – Portugese Hall, 250 Old Gilroy St, @ Forest.

Tickets will be $30 at the door and the meal will consist of Roasted Cornish Hen, dessert & coffee which was donated by Mama Mia’s Ristorante Italiano.

For more information, contact Rachel Munoz be email or phone (408)846-2142

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This Sunday, October 25th, the Firehouse Bar & Grill will be presenting a Cajun Catfish Fry in downtown Gilroy.    The fry runs from 1pm to 4pm in Gourmet Alley (between 4th and 5th streets just West of Monterey) and costs $15 for adults and $6 for children under 14.

Not only can you enjoy (or experience for the first time) Grilled Catfish, Mac ‘n’ Cheese, Collard Greens, beingets and more Louisiana down-home cooking, but there will be plenty of live music as well.

Call (408)847-2765 for more details.

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Next Wednesday, October 28th, the Downtown Comedy Club, Hosted by Wesley Hoffman, will feature the Three of a Kind Comedy Tour consisting of Kellen Erskine, Dave Burleigh, and Andrew Norelli.

Held the last Wednesday of every month at the Gilroy Gaslighter Theater, 7430 Monterey Road, the Downtown Comedy Club is a must see not only for comedy fans, but for anyone who just needs a good laugh as the first of the month starts to roll around again.

Doors open at 6:30, show starts at 7:30 (and usually ends around 9:30).  $12 will get you into the show and access to the no host bar.

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Earlier in the month I wrote about the Holiday Lights event at Gilroy Gardens and my frustration with the cost/benefit ratio.  Well, we decided to go in hopes of getting photos with the Peanuts gang (which we did).  However, other than the character photos (which we paid an additional $58.96 to purchase) we got almost nothing for the $43 we paid to enter the park for a scant five hours.  In fact, my original concern was that five hours wasn’t enough time to get $50 value out of an amusement park.  Turns out I was worried about the wrong thing as Zaira was ready to leave in under two hours!

The only reason we stayed an extra two hours was that we needed to wait that long to see the much hyped “A Charlie Brown Christmas” show imported from Knott’s Merry Farm.  Actually they were advertising two Christmas shows, but only had one and a half.  How do you have “half” a show?  Well you pull bits (songs, dialog, etc) from one show and perform it elsewhere with the exact same characters/actors, but call it a separate show.  ::sigh::  What a ripoff.

The “holiday lights” themselves were nice, but not any more impressive than we’ve seen around town on private homes.  Less than half of the rides were operating leaving the only thing of interes the Quicksilver Express roller coaster.  Zaira rode that five times and then we were ready to go.  We also walked through the rock maze and circled the park looking for anything of interest two or three times.  The skating rink was okay, but, again, an additional $8 charge was required to participate.

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This coming Friday, December 12th, The Salvation Army and KSBW will be holding their annual telethon in front of the Nob Hill Foods in Gilroy (777 First Street).  Just swing by the store any time between am and 8pm on Friday to drop off donations of funds, new toys, new clothing, new blankets and food.

If you can’t make it all the way down to Gilroy, donation barrels are also available at the Nob Hill Foods in Morgan Hill at the corner of Monterey & Tennant.  Still too far to travel?  Well, you can also see the telethon on KSBW-TV channel 8 where they will be accepting pledges and donations via a 12 line telephone bank.

The Salvation Army is the only charity I regularly recommend without reservation.  They’ve helped me in the past and have an amazing track record of helping as many as possible with as little as they receive.

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The Gilroy chapter of the Lions Club held an omelet and pancake dinner on Friday evening  and let me just say, ‘Thanks for taking me Dad, it was delicious’. It was at Gilroy Presbyterian Church Fellowship Hall. After paying your 6 dollars per person, you could either get in an omelet line, or the pancake line. In the pancake line, there was a lady handing out however many pancakes you wanted, (limit of 5 at a time) butter, and salsa. Unfortunately, no peanut butter.   There were 5 omelet lines next to each other. When you got to the front of the line, there was a man with a small pan sitting on a small propane gas stove. They would pour in the eggs and you would tell them what you wanted inside, by pointing to the bowls o’ ingredients. It was quick, and several of the “cooks” had a good sense of humor and were making jokes.

There were 5 rows of tables with American flags and syrup in the middle. The food was good. The pancakes were warm and fluffy. They tasted good even without peanut butter.  The small cups of milk provided complimented the warmth of both foods. The omelets were very light and airy. They slightly fell apart but tasted good and were small portioned. One of the best things was that you could go back for as much as you wanted. (Until 8 of course)

Overall, the Lion’s club did it well. Breakfast for dinner isn’t done very often, so they had very little competition, but it was still great!

For more from Zaira visit her at Butterfly Diaries.

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Next week the kids at Antonio Del Buono Elementary School in Gilroy will be offering quite the special treat to the community: their very own production of the holiday stalwart: The Nutcracker.  This is quite a far cry from the traditional Christmas pageant put on at most elementary schools across the nation, though apparently has become a much anticipated tradition here in Gilroy.  In fact, their 2006 productionwas even televised on ED-TV!

This year’s public presentation will be next Wednesday and Thursday (December 10th and 11th) at 6:30pm in the school multi-purpose room (9300 Wren Ave).  There will also be two special presentations for their fellow students on December 12 at 10am and 1:15pm.

If you haven’t seen it before, make 2008 the year you start a new Christmas tradition for your family!

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I warned y’all that it was holiday boutique season. For those of you who can’t find what you’re looking for at the St. Mary’s Church Holiday Boutique on Saturday there will be another on Sunday, December 7th at Gilroy Presbyterian (6000 Miller Ave).  Open from 10am to 3pm, admission is free to the buying public and for the fourth year in a row all proceeds will benefit the church’s Mexicali Mission Trip.

In addition to all of the standard local crafts and artisans there will also be food available from the Mexicali group, a fundraising raffle, and a children’s craft area where your child can make there own ornaments while you shop! What more could you ask for?

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This may well be the last year that Holiday Lights is celebrated at the Gilroy Gardens (formerly Bonfante Gardens) amusement park. It will certainly be your last chance to meet Snoopy, Charlie Brown and the rest of the Peanuts gang as Cedar Fair’s operating contract expires February 2, 2009 and the Peanuts characters were a part of that deal.

We still haven’t decided if we’ll be attending Holiday Lightsthis year as the cost is rather prohibitive: $15 for parking, $29.99 each for park admission.  Especially considering the park will only be open for 5 hours each evening (4pm to 9pm).  Even with my $150.00 Cedar Fair Platinum Pass I still have to pay parking and $9.99 for admission. So, if I use the coupon from Wienerschnitzel (pictured above) for Zaira’s ticket and my pass to get me a discounted ticketwe’re still looking at $50 for an evening’s admission.  That’s the same price I paid for an entire year’s worth aof admission to all of the Six Flags parks nationwide.  Is it any wonder Gilroy Gardens is a massive loss leader for the City of Gilroy?

Anyway, I’m getting off track.  You can find more information about Holiday Lights at GilroyGardens.org. They’ll be openWeekends evenings thru December (5-7, 12-14, 19-23, and 26-28).  If you’ve never been now may very well be your last chance.  And don’t forget to pick up the coupon from Wienerschnitzel!

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Next Monday and Tuesday (December 8th and 9th) Gilroy’s Fortino Winery has two great events for y’all-

Their 5th Annual Fall Boutique will be held in the Fortino Winery Rustic Barrel Room from 11am to 5pm each day with all kinds of unique holiday (and non-holiday) items from local artisans, crafters and vendors.  They’ll also have hot muled wine and apple cider.  Personally, I’m a huge apple cider fan.  In fact it was a big part of my first Thanksgiving dinner thanks to Zaira.

For the more adventurous amongst you, Pastry Cef Peggy Fortino will be hosting a Culinary Pastry Class both days as well.  The class will run from 2pm to 5pm and is limited to 15 people each day, so be sure to rsvp to Dawn@fortinowinery.com as soon as possible.  Cost is only $15.00 for Wine Club members and $20.00 for non-members.

Fortino Winery is located at 4325 Hecker Pass Highway in Gilroy and can be reached at 408-842-3305 in case you need directions or have any other questions.

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