Elephant Garlic

Now, according to the label, this beast is supposed to taste delicate, more like leek than garlic. And it only takes an hour to cook. Well mine didn’t, on both counts. Even I couldn’t eat this simply “spread on toast”. But never mind, I gave it another blast in the oven, which gave me some more time to think what the hell to do with it. In an ideal world, the garlic would have been great in a creamy almond and orange soup, but I don’t think my family could stomach that, particularly on the only warm weekend we had all summer. But this bulb goes to show that cooking disasters can often turn into something delicious. So here’s what I did with mine.

Isle of Wight- The Garlic Farm

Here’s the deal: the MA is extremely time consuming. I’m having to read about 12 articles per seminar a week, which doesn’t sound like much but if you actually try to take everything in and make notes and all that jazz like I’ve been doing, it’s a long process. With PhD applications in and amongst everything else, I’m posting up two articles that I wrote last summer after I graduated. Those days were so warm and sunny, it’s nice to remember a bit of sunshine...

If Julie Andrews was forced to sing a song about my favourite things, I think she’d have a hard time. Garlic, cream and olive oil don’t rhyme very well. Plus they’re a cholesterol nightmare, but who cares? The magic properties of garlic are supposed to help with that.

My friend Lawrence lives on the Isle of Wight. With University finished and an expanse of a holiday before us, not to mention Lawrence dying of boredom on the Island, a road trip was in order. Cue a four-hour train journey to the sunniest depths of Warwickshire, where Roger and I drop in on Maddie and her equally mad family.  After meeting her lovely little stroke-riddled pooch, Buddy, Maddie then gave us a tour of her collection of grumpy horses before we finally met Grace, a big-eyed tubby sheep, blissfully remaining under the delusion that she’s a dog. After stopping to say hello, she followed us around the field, prompting us to continue scratching her big curly butt with a nudge using the full force of her big, warm sheepy body.