Thousands pour into Bodega Bay for Seafood, Art & Wine Festival

A wine, food and music extravaganza that boasts the best seafood on the North Coast drew thousands of visitors Saturday to a dry grass field just east of Bodega.

Grilled salmon, barbecued oysters, fish tacos, crab garlic fries and Lebanese baked fish were among a few of the seafood dishes served up by about 20 food vendors at the Bodega Seafood, Art and Wine Festival, now in its 21st year.

Add to that a wide array of local wines and craft beers, live music on multiple stages, scores of high-caliber artists, craftspeople and jugglers, rock climbing and jumpy games for kids.

“By having music, entertainment, wine for the clients, it’s a win-win. It’s a high-end festival,” said Cindy Fox, an artist who lives near Yosemite National Park.

Fox, who has sold works at the festival the past two years, creates mixed-media art, including portraits of salmon and trout done in acrylic wash, pen and ink and oil pastel painted on muslin fabric, then stitched onto specialty papers and fabrics.

“Good food, good art, good entertainment and it’s in a beautiful area - how can you go wrong?” Fox said.

The weekend event, which continues today from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., usually draws between 7,000 and 10,000 people for both Saturday and Sunday. It is the largest festival in the Bodega area and distinguished by the quality of the seafood cuisine, said Janet Ciel, co-organizer of the event.

Ciel said the festival brings people from all over the Bay Area and Central Valley, though she said about half come from Sonoma County.

“It has consistently been a very solid event,” Ciel said.

On Saturday, Michele Craig-Morales and her husband, Gustavo Morales, sat on bales of hay eating an aromatic plate of garlic crab fries, which consisted of garlic-flavored french fries topped with minced crabmeat.

The Santa Rosa couple, who attended the festival with their two children and a niece, said the event was a perfect way to spend part of the afternoon on the way to the beach.

“Where else can you get crab fries?” Morales said, laughing.

Sacramento residents David Martinez, 43, and his wife, Corina, said they were taking a break from the Central Valley heat, which topped 100 degrees Friday.

Martinez, a real estate agent in the Sacramento area, said Bodega Bay is one of their favorite places to visit. The couple has frequently camped at Doran Beach and enjoy fishing and crabbing off the jetty.

“It was 104 yesterday in Sacramento, so this is beautiful,” Martinez said.

This year, the festival added a new stage that features cooking demos by Seattle-based seafood chef Becky Selengut and master fruit and vegetable carver Jimmy Zhang. Some of the proceeds benefit Stewards of the Coast and Redwoods as well as the Bodega Volunteer Fire Department, Ciel said.

You can reach Staff Writer Martin Espinoza at 521-5213 or martin.espinoza@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @renofish.