Companion

Aaaah! Garlic!

I love garlic. I have drawn it before, several times, but just garlic and most people don't find it that interesting. So now I have put it into a proper drawing with a theme. The theme of this one being companion planting.

Garlic can be planted amongst roses to help keep aphids under control. Of course there are other things afoot here (hehehe! little pun), where there's a rose there is always a thorn for instance. Also you can see the cycle of life from the little rosebud in the foreground through the full blown rose flower, trampled as it is, to the ripe and fertile rosehip. Even the word, rosehip, has nice female connotations as well as a female form. Garlic is of course very female I think you will agree.

But it does not stop there!

Garlic is so delicious. I love cooking with garlic. I love the way it comes in a great big head, bulging with goodness. And then you have to peel some of the outer layers and start to see the very defined separate cloves. Only then can you start to crunch the cloves apart. I then like to give them a bit of a thumping on the chopping board before I peel the individual cloves, this helps to loosen their little jackets. I cut off the little hard end with a sharp knife and try to get the whole peel to come off in one go. Actually if the garlic is very fresh - which is naturally better - this peel does not come off quite so easily. If it is a bit older then it just falls off quite satisfyingly.

We use masses of garlic now - more and more every week if the truth be known. But we both realise that is is soooo good for you and we do care about our health - like most middle-aged slightly less springy adults. So it just goes into absolutely everything. I like it best when Vic roasts it whole in the oven for me. He always lets me have the lion's share of it. He doesn't actually peel it then at all, he leaves it in its jacket and just roasts it complete. It comes out browned and smoky and as soft as tootpaste. Gorgeous because cooking it this way gives it a wonderful melting sweet flavour.

All I can say is, it is lucky we both like it or we would have to sleep in separate bedrooms. And that wouldn't be much fun now would it?

I won't go on - but I could - about how good garlic is for you. From blood pressure, to heart, to braininess etc etc. If we keep going this way we will live forever! And the added advantage is that we would be eternally immune to vampires too and that can't be any bad thing :-)