We have moved recently to the downtown section of a very small town, and as part of the new urban lifestyle we have adopted we have to walk Luke, the wonder dog, several times a day, because we aren’t living in the ‘burbs. Thank heavens. Luke has a very sensitive nose, and likes to keep up with the news from his canine pals, consequently he stops to sniff at most stop signs, lamp posts, church fences, park benches, store corners, weed patches, trash cans and flower planters. We have become quite familiar with the neighborhood.
While Luke keeps his nose moving along the ground, I sniff the aromas that pass by a little higher up in the air. Most mornings we round the corner toward home up the street where there are a couple of restaurants that serve a busy breakfast crowd. The cloud of bacon frying smell wafts over us gently for a couple of blocks. This morning I trotted home listening to a podcast, but dreamily imagining the hot and delicious bacon sandwich I would whip up for my breakfast: crisp Pepperidge Farm white toast, layers of hot, glistening bacon, with a nice river of Danish butter running down my chin. Buoyed by this thought, I sped up the street. Yumsters. Sadly, once I got home, I decided that a bowl of sticks and twigs with banana slices would be better for me. Such is my raucous fantasy life.
Later on in the day, towards lunch and most decidedly at suppertime, the neighborhood is bathed in the smoky scent of hamburgers grilling. There are three or four places that serve a decent burger here – temptation every day of the week! I think this must be a difficult place in which to practice vegetarianism.
Simple, primal food aromas abound. I was puzzled by an almost familiar scent that came around the corner from one restaurant as Mr. Friday and I walked one night. The smell somehow reminded me of London, without the accompanied spew of diesel fuel or cheap tobacco. Mr. Friday opined that it was curry from our town’s lone Indian restaurant – not a taste with which I am familiar, but I remembered the smell from long walks through London’s less-tony neighborhoods as I slogged toward my shared flat in South Kensington back when I was fresh out of Washington College. I had walked from the tube station down a street that was lined with inexpensive Indian and Greek food shops, and the curry smell came back to me after all these years.
We lived for a time in another small town, when I would walk around with the Tall One before he was ready for school. We would visit the bakery, and buy a warm loaf of fresh bread, and then we would wander down to a bench that overlooked the river, waiting for a train to go past us – our own Thomas the Tank Engine. We would eat the bread, and also feed the ducks. And the small town began to fill with the smells of restaurant prep. I remember the garlic the best.
We are big fans of garlic; garlic bread, garlic in our salad dressing, garlic-y spaghetti sauce, garlic croutons, garlic chicken. We haven’t had any colds this winter – perhaps we found the proper ratio of garlic to life. Just enough garlic to assuage our ravenous lust for it, and just enough to repel invasive species of cold germs. That’s my theory anyway.
I don’t have great knife skills, so I have always tended toward using a garlic press, which I always thought was a pretty sophisticated bit of kitchen equipment. I did not realize I was mired in the 60s, and I might as well start adding Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup to everything I cook. Sheeesh. There are several ways to slice and dice and chop and microplane garlic – be sure you choose the right method or the kitchen police will get you: https://www.seriouseats.com/2015/01/how-to-mince-chop-garlic-microplane-vs-garlic-press.html
I have to admit that I have not baked the Garlic Chocolate Cake which seems just crazy, but otherwise I have prepared everything else on the list, one at a time, in small doses. I am thinking that this list of garlic delights would be quite a weekend feast, something that people will talk about. Especially when some of Luke’s doggy pals walk by our apartment and get knocked out by the pungent storm force gale winds of garlic pouring out our balcony doors. Whew! Let the garlic begin!
A garlic feast that veers from soup to nuts!
Garlic soup
https://food52.com/recipes/26981-sopa-de-ajo-garlic-soup
Garlic bread
https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/garlic-bread-106583
Garlic chicken
https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/thyme-and-garlic-roast-chickens
Garlic salad dressing
https://www.marthastewart.com/337614/romaine-with-creamy-garlic-dressing
Garlic chocolate cake
https://siftandwhisk.com/blog/black-garlic-chocolate-cake/
“Tomatoes and oregano make it Italian; wine and tarragon make it French. Sour cream makes it Russian; lemon and cinnamon make it Greek. Soy sauce makes it Chinese; garlic makes it good.”
Alice May Brock
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