I Am Not A Vampire

Thus, I shall not be defeated by garlic!

I'll post more about my weekend culinary adventures tomorrow, but for now a quick update.

I just about pulled my hair out last night trying - for the very first time - to use fresh garlic. I saw a container of pre-peeled garlic cloves at the store but passed those by, thinking "I've seen the Food Network! I can handle the real thing!"

Alas, my attempt to peel and chop garlic was not a pretty sight. I tried to replicate some of the Tyler Florence / Rachael Ray "just smash it with a knife" moves, but it was a lot harder to separate the cloves than I expected, and a whole lot more peeling was required than I had assumed. As one who's really only ever seen garlic in jarred form or in cooked dishes, I didn't expect it to be so woody. I ended up just kinda hacking away some of the peel to get to a few cloves for my spaghetti sauce, but threw away a lot of the bulb in frustration.

*Now* however I have found a helpful step-by-step guide on what to do with the remaining bulb I have in the kitchen. I'll probably use it sometime this week, so I'll let you know who wins the next round.