It’s the peeling of the garlic that gets to me.
Doing the dishes is just fine. If anything, I worry that I have become addicted to it. There is a soul satisfying pleasure to be obtained by looking at a spotless sink. Accentuated, no doubt, by the fact that you’re looking at the result of your own work, which makes it all the more pleasant.
I have also become fairly adept at folding clothes. I would have scoffed if you would have told me a couple of months ago about the small frisson of pleasure to be gained from looking at a perfectly folded t-shirt. Said item of clothing is a daily staple on the sartorial menu these days, so there is plenty of practice to be had.
And any day now, I’ll be putting up a YouTube video about how to slice onions ever so fine, with perhaps a follow-up video on the art and science of cutting up a carrot. If mis en place were to be an Olympic sport, India could rest easy on my account. We’ve got us covered.
Except, as I was saying, for the garlic peeling. I turn into a persnickety old curmudgeon when it comes to that obstinate little bulb, for an imperfectly peeled clove is a blot on an otherwise impeccable dish. Not just a persnickety old curmudgeon, mind you, but a p.o.c with the vocabulary of an inebriated sailor.
Some of you might wish to share tips to help me out of my troubles. Use oil, some of you might say, while others might speak of breaking the tips. Or something else altogether. It has all been tried and it – and this is putting it mildly – has failed. One particular specimen from a batch that used the oil strategy ended up on intimate terms with the kitchen ceiling. We shall speak of the matter no further.
Now, I’m as depressed as the next person about the times and circumstances we find ourselves in, and indulge in all the petty sniping, whining and moaning that all of us are wont to.
But I reserve all of my rage for the garlic. I rant, I rave, I scream and I turn into a mountain of smoldering fury when dealing with that little clove. It makes for quite a sight, I suppose, for I am a man of generous dimensions. Length and width, both. To see me turn into the incredible hulk when dealing with something as tiny as a clove of garlic is something that the wife and daughter mark out on their calendars.
There is an easy enough explanation, I suppose. I’m taking out all of my rage about the times we live in, and all of the attendant troubles that come as part of the package, on that tiny little clove. The proximate cause, as it were, but it allows me to vent out all that I want to.
And it helps, of course it does. Far better that I vent here than elsewhere. The tiniest punching bag, and perhaps the smelliest one too.
We all need one during these times, of course. You, I – why, society at large needs one. Any psychologist will tell you that.
Find your clove of garlic, for you need it. And if you don’t find one for yourself, your brain will for you. And your brain, being the lazy bugger that it is, will likely find something you hate already. Or much, much worse: someone.
And we wouldn’t want that, now would we?
Surely we wouldn’t.
Right?
