Gigunda Garlic

Time to harvest garlic. This year's harvest is gigunda. One head of garlic is as big as my palm! And i have a couple of hundred of these. It's time for roasted garlic and.... Send me your garlic recipes.

I love this stiff-neck garlic--it grows really well for me. Much better than the soft-neck garlic you buy in the grocery store.Of course, i haven't bought garlic in a grocery store for 20 years.

It's time to give away garlic. But first, i choose the biggest heads and put them away for planting in October.

It's a form of loving-kindness. First, we are kind to ourselves. Then we can share our inborn feelings of kindness and caring with those around us. The more we give, the more open-hearted we feel. We create a positive feedback loop. Just like we do when we plant the biggest garlic cloves for next year's harvest.

Garlic Generosity

The garlic harvest is in: 200 heads of big fat garlic cloves. (I get these great results with stiff-neck garlic, not with soft-neck.) So, perhaps you can imagine why i had about 40 heads of garlic left over from last year.

By this time, the old garlic are so easy to peel. The papery skin falls right off of each clove. But, the cloves are beginning to dry out and look a little aged (sort of like moi). Still, they are good for throwing into sauces or sautees where they pretty much disappear.

In the past, i have peeled my excess garlic cloves and stored them in olive oil. But i am so rich in fresh garlic that i don't get around to using the olive-oiled garlic. So it's time to give them away. I take them with me to every meeting and class i go to (yoga, writing, trapeze), and it's not long before last year's garlic have gone to other women's kitchens.

Now i can start giving away some of this year's harvest as a hostess present every time i go visit friends.