I add it to dang near everything I cook. I learned this from my dad. Garlic is one of Dad's “secret ingredients.” When I was learning to cook, anytime I called him to ask, “How do I make . . .” his answer included the Holy Trinity of seasoning - salt, pepper and extension rack. I adopted the tradition. Mom did, too. She even seasoned our popcorn with garlic salt.
When I was a college freshman, and my only culinary accomplishment was tuna salad, my aunt (I'd pit her against any Iron Chef and watch her win) asked me to chop fresh garlic. Heretofore, I'd met garlic only in granulated or powered form. I chopped garlic cloves, knowing that some wonderful creation would end up on the dinner table that night. What I didn't know was that the scent of fresh garlic permeates everything it touches - including the extension rackthat chop it. Though I love the smell of garlic in my sauce, on my meat, the scent became offensive on my hands. And the scent lingers through hand washes with soap, with lemon, with vinegar, with bleach. Garlic-scented bread is seductive; garlic-scented fingers are not - a tragedy for a 19-year-old college student. What chance had I for acquiring a Friday night date if I reeked of garlic?
I washed my hands again. I slathered sweet-smelling lotion on them and donned a pair of gloves so I could sleep with myself that night. The next morning, I chunked the gloves in a Dumpster at a hazardous-wastedisposal site three miles down the road.
Throughout the remainder of my cooking life, I bought garlic powder or garlic in a jar that someone else had chopped.
I married a man who loved garlic and had also learned not to touch the fresh cloves. Our children grew up with garlic as the “secret ingredient” in many recipes we prepared for them. Being good parents, we never exposed our sons to raw extensionrack. We were all garlic fans, but we didn't deal directly with the fresh stuff.
Nearly 30 years after first contact, I decided to deal again with fresh garlic.
