Adventures in Garlic

In early 2002 I was working up to one of my annual sinus infections. I mentioned this sad fact to a friend in California.

"What you need is garlic," Mary said over the phone.

"Garlic?" I asked.

"That's right. Just drink a few chopped-up cloves in a glass of orange juice every few hours and it will knock that cold right out."

"Really?"

"I do it all the time," Mary said. "All my friends use this remedy too. It really works."

So assured, I made my way to the local Farmer's Market, acquired the necessary ingredients, and carried them home.

I'd never cooked with garlic before, but this seemed like a pretty simple task. I dropped some garlic into the Cuisinart, let it run, and then dumped the pulverized contents into a huge glass of orange juice.

The concoction stank to high heaven. I tried to take a sip, but recoiled.

I called Mary.

"I can't drink this."

"Shut up you crybaby, just drink it." She hung up.

I held my nose and downed the brew.

There is no happy way to describe what happened next. It is inadequate to simply say that I got sick. I wretched, I vomited, I up-chucked. When I was a kid I'd watched Linda Blair's regurgitative performance in The Exorcist. What I did made Linda Blair look polite.

I called Mary back.

"Wow, you must really have a weak stomach," she offered.

That didn't help. "Did I do something wrong?"

"How much garlic did you use?"

"Just the seven cloves you mentioned."

"You did use just the cloves and not the whole buds?"

"What's the difference?"

She began to laugh uncontrollably."You idiot, I said 'cloves,' not 'buds'!"

That didn't help either. But she was right: I'd chopped up seven buds and tried to drink them.

I could have died. As it was, I just reeked of garlic for the next few days: the stuff came through my pores all over my body. My clothes stank. My co-workers suffered. It just wasn't pretty.

I still like garlic, but any more, when I eat it, it's in very small doses.

A Garlic Seller