2015 Garlic Story Contest – 3rd Place

A Love for all Seasonings

by Tess Tabak

It was doomed from the start. To him, the blander the better as far as food was concerned. He thought “seasoning” meant a summer abroad. Worst of all, he hated garlic.

I thought I could change him. Garlic was part of my mythos, the fabric of life. As a child, Grandma ate garlic raw on bread when she had nothing else: “We couldn’t afford butter.” Romanian relatives used it to ward off vampires. It cured everything, even the common cold. And it tasted damn good.

The warning sign came one day, when we cooked our first meal together.

“How’s this?” I asked, pointing to a fusilli recipe.

He glanced at it. “Sounds good. But could you leave out the garlic?”

A disapproving look showed him what I thought of that. Leave out the garlic? You might as well leave out the pasta.

“Not even a clove?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I just don’t like it.”

He hated garlic. Well, everyone has his peculiarities. Clearly, something had to change. Either he went or the garlic did.

Well, that was the day I dumped him.