The Garlic Companion

Recipes, Crafts, Preservation, Techniques, and Simple Ways to Grow Your Own

by Kristin Graves, $35 Storey

Garlic is great! And equally good at adding incredible flavours to a dish as it is at warding off some of the creepycrawlies. Alberta-based garlic farmer, Kristin Graves, celebrates everything related to this pungent plant and shares a number of great dish ideas too, from garlic ginger beer (p.32) to Fresh Garlic Scape Salsa (p.81), but even “Grandma’s Garlic Cabbage Slaw” (p.114) and “Black Garlic Chocolates” (p.106), so there is some variety here to experiment with, and some things a little further off the beaten path to explore. But it’s glorious garlic that is the star here.

The rest of the book explains why this is a compendium rather than a cookbook with ample space devoted to some garlic crafts – yes, you heard that right! But also full chapters on cultivating your own garlic – by someone actually growing garlic commercially in Alberta, and picking and preserving your impending garlic crop.

Wonderfully photographed throughout by Dong Kim (whose work frequently appears in Culinaire) with several pages devoted to step by step “how-to” images, which you’ll be glad to see if some of the craftier elements are in your wheelhouse. A fine addition to your bookshelf to satisfy your culinary curiosity!