When I was growing up, my parents owned a women’s clothing store in Queens named “Nancy’s Shoppe,” after my mom. I assume the extra ‘pe’ on ‘shop’ was a fancifying effect. They sold bras and underwear, the unsexy kind – huge, industrial-strength bras that only came in black, white, and beige that were stacked in boxes behind the counter. The clothes were generally bedazzled sweatsuit sets, and wool pants with elastic waists. There was the occasional “fashionable” item, but their clients were the old Italian ladies in the neighborhood – so it was very occasional.
Their customers yelled at them, tried to return clothing that had clearly been worn for years, and sometimes pissed themselves in the dressing rooms. But my parents were thrilled to own their own business – they made their own hours and took time off during the summers. Besides, small businesses ran in the family. The house I grew up in was once my grandfather’s butcher shop.
Meanwhile, they built a house in Woodstock, NY together – my mom did the wiring, my dad the plumbing – and would take off days whenever they could to fix it up and start a vegetable garden on the surrounding land. My dad would come back to Queens with lettuce and give it as presents to my friends’ parents. One woman didn’t wash it well enough one night and served a salad full of tiny slugs to dinner guests. His favorite thing to grow, though, was garlic. He started with small amounts and started working his way up. Soon they were growing a few hundred pounds of garlic a year. Our house in Queens was filled with hanging dried garlic stalks, baskets of bulbs everywhere. They were reminders of this other life my parents had waiting for them, smelly signifiers of their split personalities: hippie Buddhists who dropped the f-bomb with abandon in thick outer-borough accents.
As you can imagine, family-run clothing stores did not do well as Queens became more upscale and malls and chain stores moved in. My parents, always hustling, left nearly 25 years of selling sequined cat shirts and costume jewelry and moved on to the next business – opening a Curves gym. They figured the clients would be about the same, and they liked the idea of helping women get healthy. It was only later they found out the company owners were radical right-wing Christian evangelists who donated money to extreme anti-choice organizations. My horrified parents started collecting money for Planned Parenthood in the gym. After a few years and a lot of money lost, they had close down their neighborhood Curves. This time, they found an opportunity they were cautiously excited about: a health food store in Sunnyside.
They sold vitamins, dried fruits and nuts, and – much to my parents’ delight – produce. Soon they were selling lettuce and cucumbers from “Phil’s Garden.” The baskets of garlic in our house moved to the store. And the constant cooked garlic smell that once permeated my living room was now there, as my mom cooked vegetarian meals in the back to sell at the counter. They still work hard – harder than I’d like – and customers can still be assholes, but now as 60-somethings they’ve settled into a profession that aligns with who they are.
So in honor of my parents, doing something you love, and the ability to keep on keeping on, here are two of my favorite garlic-centered recipes (thanks, Mom):
Baked Goat Cheese with Garlic and Olive Oil
This is probably the easiest appetizer ever. It requires almost no work, very few ingredients, but tastes incredible and looks like you put a lot more effort into it then you really did. Put a layer of olive oil in a small rectangular or oval baking dish – salt and pepper generously. Put your goat cheese straight from the packet in the dish, surround it with peeled whole cloves of garlic – at least ten to fifteen of them. Stick a few on top of the cheese as well. Sprinkle with crushed red pepper. Bake it at 375 degrees for fifteen minutes, or until the top of the cheese gets browned and cracked. Serve immediately with crackers or sliced french bread. The best (read: only) way to eat this is to spread the still-warm cheese on a cracker with a whole clove. It will knock your socks off.
Spaghetti Aglio e Olio
When I make this, I always go with the full pound of pasta. My husband Andrew thinks I’m nuts and have some sort of Italian gene that forces me to make 50% more pasta than necessary, but I really just like how it tastes as a leftover. Also, while I generally make it as a side – I have no problem just making it a main dish and eating an ungodly amount of the stuff.
So while you’re making the full pound of pasta, you maniac, heat up half a cup of olive oil in a skillet on low to medium heat. If you’re like me and have two different kinds of olive oil – the just-fine stuff and the good stuff – use the good stuff. Once it’s heated, throw a bit of salt and 4 large cloves of garlic (minced or sliced) in there. Mincing is easier, but I think slicing super thin pieces ends up tasting better. (No, you don’t need to Goodfellas it with a razor – a good paring knife will do just fine.) Shortly after put in a pinch or more – depending on your taste – of crushed red pepper.
Now, the garlic won’t take that long to brown, and you don’t want it to burn before the pasta is ready. So if you’re worried about timing, cook the pasta first and put it to the side while you’re cooking the garlic. Either way – before you drain the spaghetti, save some of the water the pasta cooked in – like 1/4 of a cup.
Once the garlic is browned, throw in the cooked spaghetti to mix. Use your judgement and taste to determine how much of the reserved water you want to put in, if any at all. At this point, you can also throw some chopped parsley and lemon zest in there – I think the zest adds a little something something. Top with grated parmesan cheese and you’re good to go.
Jessica Valenti’s “Eat Me” appears every other Friday at 3pm. Past installments can be found here.
Tags: brb buying goat cheese and garlic, dads, eat me, food, garlic, jessica valenti
It’s a tough, tough call, but this might be my favourite feature of the Toast. I was excited about it for AGES before it happened, and now it has happened I’m still excited. Mostly because now I know I could have Jessica Valenti to dinner and not disgrace myself, because garlic, and cured meats.
You could literally serve those two things on a platter and I would declare it the most genius dinner ever.
I’m imaging the gooey cheese/garlic surrounded by a ring of spaghetti. Dip and swirl and gobble and slurp.
OMG you’re a genius.
Yum! That goat cheese marvel will be mine. Garlic is my favorite and I love to eat it until it’s coming out of my pores. My husband would say that I need to stop before that happens but clearly he is lacking in true garlic appreciation.
I never got it when people would tell me “You’ll get garlic breath!” or “The house smells like garlic!” as though they were bad things. Everything I cook has tons of garlic and my fingers smell like garlic probably 50% of the time.
MY FINGERS TOO. Though I learned the trick of running the inside of a lemon on them and that seems to take care of it…
You guys! I have a French solution to this. There’s this clay rock we use in Provence specifically to combat garlicy-smelling hands. I’m trolling the internet now, looking to see if you can also buy them online. Watch this space….
Oh man, here’s my chance to dispense the most useful advice of all time- get rid of garlicky fingers by rubbing a stainless steel spoon in your hands. Anything stainless steel works, but spoons are a good shape for rubbing.
You can also rub your hands on stainless steel (I use my measuring cup) under running water.
I love garlic, especially roasted, but man does it hang around on me. It does actually seep out of my pores, somehow. The other day I had a pizza with garlic sauce (and super-salty olives; it was fantastic) and later that evening, while I was sitting quietly on the opposite end of the couch from my fella, he suddenly asked, “Did you have garlic for lunch?” I am a delight to behold.
I agree. When I was a HS Freshman, a guy made me take a mouthful of garlic. I had never had it as my mother did not use it. I thought this was the best hazing ever. Loved it ever since. Thank you, Terry (the upperclassman)!
As an older and experienced garlic loving cook, here are 2 invaluable tips: rub your garlicky fingers over a stainless steel blade [of course not to cut yourself], and amazing, the smell disappears. The stainless steel absorbs the garlic oil and smell! Next tip–and it’s true–eating garlic cleanses your system, and the smell will disappear after you brush your teeth and tongue the next morning. However, powdered garlic will remain on your breath for days. I was able to warn my teenaged sons not to put powdered garlic when they bought pizza. Would you believe, they listened!
Conversation at robotosaur’s house last night:
mr. robotosaur: How did you cook the broccoli?
robotosaur: Roasted it with three cloves of garlic.
mr. robotsaur: I don’t taste any garlic.
robotosaur: That is because it is in literally all dinners I serve you. I think you think garlic just tastes like food.
Yup. The Fella is always surprised by how much garlic I buy, and he’s like “Where did the last bunch* go?” and I’m all “INTO EVERYTHING, YOU ARE MADE OF GARLIC NOW, MWAHAHAHA.”
*He might not be, y’know, a culinary-lexicon guy.
For the dip, I’m wondering if you could pre-roast the garlic, then heat with the cheese. When you dip in, the garlic would be just as spreadable as the cheese…mmmm. Experiment has been scheduled.
Probably, yes! But in my experience, it’s often that soft anyway… So hungry now.
My 86 year old grandfather (a full-blooded Sicilian) also grows gobs and gobs of garlic. As much as he complains about it, I think the involved process – the growing, designating the seed garlic, picking, drying, peeling, packing into quart-sized baggies, freezing, and giving out to friends, family, and anyone else he happens to meet – is one of his favorite things. We also just really love garlic.
See also: Tomatoes.
Aha, another random distributer of produce! My parents do that with marmalade and plum jam, just take a few jars anywhere we go and give it to people until we have a manageable amount and can physically get into the garage again. I have friends whose parents know me mainly as Jam Girl.
dang I need friends like y’all!
Wow. We actually scandalize dinner guests with the amount of garlic we use, so this is right up my alley. I’ve done the spaghetti before, but I have got to try that goat cheese! Genius!
Also, “hippie Buddhists who dropped the f-bomb with abandon in thick outer-borough accents” sound like lovely parents to have.
JESSICA YOUR DAD
I went back and added a dads tag to this because of your dad
He will be legit excited about this
AHHH THAT DIP
Things like that are the reason why I can never fully commit to a paleo diet. “If it’s all locally sourced bread and cheese and garlic it’s sitll good, it’s still good..”
There is another way to cook pasta beside the whole pound? What good is cooking pasta if you don’t have leftovers?
That pasta dish sounds di-vine.
OH MY GOD, THAT GOAT CHEESE. That looks like the kind of dish where you’re ridiculously proud to sport your garlic breath for the rest of the evening. Yum.
I just grew some garlic! The pots on my little stoop don’t get nearly enough sun, though, so the heads never grew very big. But they tasted delicious and were darling.
Goat cheese goat cheese goat cheeeeeeeeeeeeee and garlic. OMG.
I sadly do not have a good relationship with garlic, but man oh man, this felt so good to read. Like coming home. Your parents sound like the most incredible, Jessica!
GOAT CHEESE. I want to go to there.
My mom does a spaghetti a lot like the one you described, but she also puts diced tomatoes and a fuckton of fresh basil in there. I ask for it every time I come home and she’s just baffled that I keep wanting it because it’s so simple. But it’s SO GOOD.
I am making the goat cheese thing tomorrow for guests. Wish me luck! I DON’T REALLY NEED IT.
Also: That goat cheese sounds divine. Garlic garlic garlic. One can never have too much of it. And while, yes, rubbing your fingers on something stainless steel works pretty well to get rid of the smell…I really don't see why you would want that…
(This reminds me that I really need to make pesto out of those scapes I have sitting in the crisper!)
Yes! It's Go Natural on Queens Blvd near 45th street. If you go in say hi to my dad; he'll love it.
Luckily, V lives garlic just as much as I do, so if we ever get married and learn how to cook we’ll grow old together smelling faintly of garlic at all times. actually, “faintly” is probably inaccurate.
That goat cheese sounds amazing and I now need to make it to impress the hell out of V.
I love goat cheese so much and the husband loves garlic so much. I think that you just gave me the most perfect food ever that we can both absolutely delight in eating. Maybe I’ll share with the little one. Maybe. He does not always eat like one expects a child to eat, so he most likely would love it.
I just got my first-ever garlic harvest last week. They’re drying in my sunporch strung up in bunches. I will definitely be growing twice as much next year — it was so easy, and my garlic is so gigantic and lovely …
My garlic recipe of choice right now is a piece of toast, rubbed with raw garlic, then soaked slightly with the last of last years canned tomatoes, topped with a big slathering of goat cheese.
This was perfect. My dad’s family are Italian background and although I am actually 5th generation Australian people always assume we must not have been in Australia that long because Dad is just so damn Italian. What is it about Italian parents – not only do they have to have a vegie garden – it’s got to be THE vegie garden. I legit lolled at the bit where you wrote about all the enormous quantities of garlic – at the moment with my dad it’s pumpkins – dad shows he loves me by gruffly asking if I want a pumpkin (or 5) every time I visit. Also onions. It makes me chuckle a little when people talk about vegie gardens being this trendy long forgotten art and all the fancy crap you ‘need’ to buy to start one… my parents always had one when I was growing up and after they moved my dad just started another one!