Valentines cartoonograms

Well, it’s time for yet another Hallmark Holiday and given the awful weather outside, I’m celebrating by staying inside and sending all of my readers some virtual holiday cheer in honor of Valentine’s day. However, I’ve always been ambivalent about the holiday. Thus, I present two views.

I’m a romantic at heart, and appreciate the happy couples who can spend the day celebrating the most powerful attractive force in the universe. This brings me to my first celebration of the holiday, to the left of this paragraph. If there are any non-geeks in the viewing audience who find this a wee bit confusing, you are invited to study up on Newton’s law of universal gravitation. If you still find it a wee bit confusing, you can just assume that I’m not only a geek but have a warped sense of humor.

On the other hand, I also spent an awful lot my life viewing Valentine’s day as an annual ritual which rubbed romance in the noses of those who weren’t romantically involved, and can state with confidence that the holiday doesn’t look much fun from that side. So for everyone who is stuck celebrating a solitary Valentine’s day, I give you the dark (chocolate) side of the force, off to your right. Again, because I delight in excessive obscurity, I invite those who experience confusion to resort to their reference materials and study the wonders of that food of the gods, Theobromine. Ultimately, you may find that it delivers many of the benefits of romance, with fewer lasting side effects.

Hershey does for chocolate what Woody Allen does for debonaire

I’ll admit that I’ve never been much of a chocoholic, but then I’m an American.  I grew up in the land of Nestlé syrup, Mars bars, and Hershey’s kisses.  Had I grown up with a decent dark chocolate, I might have had a proper sweet tooth and more of a weight problem than I do now.  However, that’s not the primary point of this post.  The point is that even from a young age I realized that there was something fundamentally wrong with much of the stuff that passed by me, and was always pretty careful when someone handed me chocolate, because I never knew when it would be the “yucky stuff”.  (At that point, I didn’t know which brand was which, so it was safer just to be ever vigilant.) 

Fast forward to tonight, when I opened my first bag of “Synder’s of Hanover Pretzel Dips — Made with Hershey’s Milk Chocolate”.  I didn’t even have to take a bite.  As soon as I opened the bag, that half-rancid smell washed over me from across the decades and I was again 8 years old trying to figure out whether I could get away with spitting out candy in front of my Mom.  Since I’m made of sturdier stuff than I was then, I actually ate some of them to confirm that the taste matched the smell, but the conclusion was never in doubt.  To call this stuff food, or candy, or chocolate, is an insult to fine confectioners everywhere.  Further, I finally recalled that the stuff that I hated the most all those years ago was also from Hershey — in that case “Kisses” — and developed a simple resolve:

Not only will I never again buy Pretzel Dips Made with Hershey’s Milk Chocolate, but never again will I buy any product made with Hershey’s Milk Chocolate.

The stuff really is that bad.

In Praise of the Stinking Rose

Recently my lady prepared us a truly wondrous meal. Now, this is not totally surprising: she has formal culinary training, and can make a mean Beef Wellington; mouth-watering mashed potatoes; and a quiche to die for. (Yes, real men do eat quiche, when it’s as good as hers.)

The surprising thing is that this wondrous meal came out of a box that was labeled “Kraft Macaroni and Cheese”. She just added a few ingredients to make it into the mystical delight that I experienced. The four extra cheeses definitely helped, but I am convinced that the true secret ingredient in her potion was the garlic. If you are as foolish as I, you would probably expect a healthy dose of garlic to make the mix bitter or “biting”, but instead the result was to give it a hint of sweetness and piquancy, plus enough robustness to transcend its mundane beginnings. (Sorry, Kraft Inc. I like your products, but they aren’t normally the stuff of excitement for me. Perhaps other folks opinions vary.)

Armed with this revelation, I undertook a review of my favorite garlic heavy dishes from other local eateries, and found that the same basic ingredient did indeed produce a wide variety of effects in the dishes I consumed. Since I don’t reside in Gilroy California, I can’t experience the true garlic gamut, but there are some nice establishments in the Eastern Pittsburgh area that give a very pleasant experience:

• Rotelli Pizza & Pasta: If you order a stuffed calzone and make garlic one of your three ingredients, you will get a taste of the traditional “stinking rose”. Their fresh garlic is strong enough to kill a moose and will make sure that no vampire (or boy/girlfriend) will come near you for hours. It’s also utterly delicious.
• Hot Tops Pizza: The “Quatro Formaggio” pizza at this Penn Hill’s pizzeria is liberally topped with chunks of roast garlic. The result is very gentle and sweet, and nicely complements the four cheeses. This is a joy to eat when piping hot, and even better eaten straight out of the fridge the next day.
• Jimbo’s Eatery: Jimbo’s is a marvelous little mom & pop restaurant in Penn Hills with a huge menu. I honestly don’t know any more how much garlic Jimbo usually puts on a pizza, but if you tell him that “the garlic people” sent you and you want the same amount they get, you won’t go wrong. What you’ll find is a very pizza that’s very nice in it’s own right — Jimbo uses top quality ingredients and then forgets to charge accordingly — but enough minced garlic that you’ll be picking it out of your teeth for hours afterwards. This one is a happy medium between the two that I described above. It’s got some bite, but mostly it’s pleasantly flavorful.
• Gullifty’s: Gullifty’s (in Squirrel Hill) runs their garlic festival through the month of November. Though we haven’t (yet) visited it this year, I seem to recall that the slogan in previous years has been “It’s chic to reek”, and they’ve pulled out all the stops with their garlic dishes. The truly marvelous thing about Gullifty’s is that the chef doesn’t believe in generic recipes. Each dish always seems to be a unique creation — unlike anything you’ll get elsewhere and unlike anything else on their own menu. I’m definitely looking forward to this year’s festival. If you’ve already been there, please let us know which dishes we need to try.

This is just a sample of the varieties and venues wherein we like to find our favorite allium. Certainly it has proven its versatility to me, and hopefully will treat you just as well.

Update:  Less than 2 years later, in August of 2007, 3 of these establishments are gone.  Gullifty’s and its garlic festival still remains, but Jimbo’s, Hot Tops, and our particular home branch of Rotelli are all gone.  If anyone else has a favorite place to find some good strong garlic in the Pittsburgh area, we sure are in need of a fix — please drop me a line.