Odiferous
Monday, April 02, 2007
Inspired by this recipe, I had some friends over yesterday for a casual potluck. Because I'm a twisted individual who must make a theme out of all social gatherings (it's my natural urge to plan, I tell you), I immediately titled the event "Garluck," and told everyone to bring a dish made with garlic. Since my friends like (a) garlic, and (b) eating, I figured it would work out perfectly.

I spent Saturday night making the soup - because I had to double the recipe, I knew I would need to make it ahead of time. I like to minimize the craziness of the actual event by being as prepared as possible, and after one 11th-hour trip to the grocery store for another thingy of chicken stock, the soup was made. (Well, technically Sean helped me peel cloves, and he cut the onions because dicing onions is so incredibly painful for me and my tear ducts, and my face, and he also helped me not to have a nervous breakdown about messing up the damn soup but enough with the parentheses already) And lo, the soup was so good. I will definitely make it again at some point.



Other dishes included: Kate K's Bruschetta Style pasta, Kate T's garlic & cream cheese dip, Sean's Skordalia, Doug's garlic eggplant/zucchini, the aforementioned soup, and we also threw together a garlic vinagrette and tossed it in a green salad. Honorable mention goes out to Jen and Jeff, who found and attempted a recipe for garlic chocolate chip cookies. Sadly, an issue with baking agents left them with a pan-shaped brick of cookie that was inedible...but they get an "A" for effort.

A casual, midmeal clove count indicated that we had used approximately 200 cloves of garlic, in total, to make all the dishes. Roughly 145 of those 200 were in the Skordalia and the soup.

We capped off the afternoon with some NASCAR, food comas, and an episode of Seinfeld. A good, garlicky time was had by all. Excuse me please, I need to go brush my teeth. Again.