Never Too Much Garlic

My "little" cousin John and his wife Becca came to visit this afternoon. It was not the normal chaos at Casa Clyde when they arrived... It was complete chaos. Two Pink Feathers had shown up at Lollipop. (I feel as if I should be able to link to Wikipedia so as to explain Pink Feather and Lollipop, but I will have to leave it at that right now). Children were on tables. Adeline was feverish, screaming for Dragontales, and falling down stairs. There was no room out back for another car. Whose cars were these anyway? I had almost run out of gas on the way home from school with 4 boys and loud Elvis (whom I could hardly hear...okay that part was fun). That kind of afternoon. So you can kind of understand that I was not paying much attention to what I was cooking. John and Becca were going to have a quick dinner on their way out of town.

Tom had grabbed some CheeseBoard pizzas (whew a wikipedia link... that felt good) and at the last minute and I made some bruschetta during Lollipop with Amy's help. I threw some garlic at her and told her to peel it, which, being an obedient sous chef, she did. Actually I think I told her to whack it. With a knife. Which she did. I threw in the basil. The tomatoes. The salt. Amy was at the computer so I asked her to look up the bread. Did I put on oil? 

I have made many different kinds of bruschettas many different ways, I informed her, and I've never used a recipe. I lived in Italy. I traveled to every crevice of that country. I know the differences between bruschetta in Trapani and the kind in Siena (which is actually a lie... it's the tiramisu I know) blah, blah, blah. But I never got the bread just right.

She looked at the recipe and then up at me putting the garlic in. "How much garlic did you put in?" "I don't know." "This says 2 or 3 cloves." I think I gave her most of a head. I'm used to making large quantities for parties. "Oh well," I said. And I thought to myself, "there is never too much garlic." And proceeded to pour more salt on the kale and then jump as I remembered the bread in the oven. 

My taste buds got pretty messed up during the chemo. I'd need a lot of anchovies and garlic to taste that puttanesca. And my current medicine takes half an hour or so for me to taste anything (it all tastes like that really big, faded silver lid to my soup pot). It was great to see John and Becca and hear their news. We sat on the porch and ate bruschetta and pizza and talked. I ate a lot of bruschetta.''

As I cleaned up the dinner plates, I had another piece of bruschetta and shouted, "Holy Cow!" "What?" asked George. There was so much garlic that my mouth vibrated. I then tried the kale that I'd forgotten to finish in the madness. Wow. The salt made the dead sea look wussy. 

At least the company was good!

Comments

[amy]

Whoopsee....Garlic is very healthy though not when it's thrown at you. Fortunately for me you missed.
What happened to the kale? (very healthy too I might add. You're funny.
xo