It’s well-understood that I am an extremely thoughtful and caring son-in-law. So obviously I would take it upon myself to cook my wife’s family a gourmet feast during our recent group trip to Virginia Beach. For this meal, I opted for my current signature dish: a 150 garlic clove pasta sauce. Yes, 150. It’s my own spin on New York Times Cooking’s 40 garlic clove pasta sauce, which went viral and inspired bold reimaginings like this 50 garlic clove pasta sauce, which I decided to triple because I usually only cook for 2 people and this time I was cooking for 6. I proudly inform the family of the evening’s menu, and am surprised to be met with immense skepticism. A lesser chef might let this implied lack-of-faith intimidate them. But I have traveled far in my culinary journey — from not cooking anything at all for the first 27 years of life to now making all sorts of vegetarian delicacies for my vegetarian wife under her vegetarian supervision. I’m not about to let these people question my belief in myself. Besides, what’s the worst that could happen?
My relationship with garlic has always run hot and steamy. As a young meal-prepping man I used to put whole cloves of the stuff in my salads, prompting my then-girlfriend (now wife) to demand I go to a pharmacy and buy all measure of mouth-freshening products so that she could withstand being in the same room as me. I warmly recall this memory inside the Virginia Beach Harris Teeter as I I fondle a plastic container of whole peeled garlic cloves. I reach for another. And then another. I can’t be certain how much garlic each pack contains, but I am certain that I will not be hand-peeling 150 cloves of garlic. Other items in my shopping cart include bucatini from one of the fancy pasta brands, two yellow onions, two shallots, broccoli rabe, two 28 oz. cans of peeled tomatoes, a baugette, shaved parmesean cheese, and some pimento cheese dip for completely unrelated reasons.
The following afternoon I attempt to run three miles along the beach but nearly pass out from heat stroke after only 2. Gingerly, I walk back to the house, shower, and begin preparing my feast. The kitchen is large but the equipment is alien. As a chef who learned to cook later in life, the experience of navigating a new kitchen feels disorienting. Like being the only kid in school who doesn’t know it’s Opposite Day. With some effort, I corrall the pots, cutting boards, knives, and measuring devices I’ll use to prepare my meal. Iron Maiden plays from the JBL speaker, and I feel capable and a little frisky. I run into my first challenge when I put the garlic on to roast: the pot is too small. At home, I make my sauce with a dutch oven, which has a nice wide bottom. This pot’s bottom is nary half that of my dutch oven, which means 150 garlic cloves are stacked almost a quarter of the way up the pot. Now, a lesser chef might panic and take some cloves out. Not I. I pride myself on my ability to think quickly and improvise in all areas of life. I like to say that I move to the rhythm of jazz in the kitchen — not so much preparing the meal as letting the meal tell me what it needs. In this instance, I quickly understood that I’ll need to cook the garlic a bit longer and stir often in order to achieve an even roast. This is perfect as it gives me extra time to chop the onion and shallot and prep the broccoli rabe, which I’m serving as an appetizer.
Before we move on, I have to say a word about the shallot. Look up ANY RECIPE for garlic clove pasta sauce, and you won’t see shallot listed as an ingredient. But again, I march to the beat of my own drum in the kitchen. Further, I’ve always possessed an impressive vision for unlikely ingredients that might combine to form a symphony of novel flavor. For example, Trader Joe’s wine country chicken salad, red pepper hummus, and Frank’s Red Hot are not typically mentioned in the same culinary breath, but when I spread these ingredients across two whole wheat sandwich flats, they become a delectable delight that I’ve been using to satisfy my midday appetite for well over a decade. Similarly, I intuited that the bulbous aubergine shallot, which blends the taste profile of both onion and garlic, would be a fine compliment to a sauce that already has plenty of both.
After roasting the cloves, onion, and shallot in olive oil and salt for a solid 30 minutes, I dump in the cans of whole peeled tomatoes. I spank each tomato with the backside of a wooden spoon to break them up into chunks, which proves incredibly difficult over high heat. At this point the rabe is already cooked, and the pasta water is coming to a boil, so I proudly snap the photo at the top of this essay and send it to my wife to hype up the meal I’m about to serve. 15 minutes later my wife and her family came back from the beach. I insist each of them taste a little bit of the sauce on a spoon to let me know if it “needs anything,” knowing deep down that I’ll feel deeply offended if they actually say it needs something.
After another 20 minutes bubbling on the stove and some liberal salting and red-pepper flaking, my 150 garlic clove pasta sauce is ready for consumption. The pot is so hot when I set it on the dining room table that it ruins the finish of the wood. I try and hide my anticipation as my wife’s family ladels my garlicky goodness atop their bucatini. I explain how the whole cloves are supposed to add a chunkiness to the marinara that makes it more akin to a bolognese. Nobody says anything. I begin to feel irritable. I put my heart and soul into this meal, and it’s being eaten so … unceremoniously. I haven’t even heard an “mmm” or “yummy.” Just forks scraping plates. I suddenly have the urge to say grace. Not that I’d ever say grace. But I can now see the appeal of saying grace. Force everyone to stop and acknowledge their food. My food. The thoughtful and caring son-in-law.
Ultimately, the verdict is that I cooked a decent meal. “Good,” but not great. Jen, my wife’s mother, tells me the cloves are still quite bitter and I should have roasted them longer. She explains garlic confit to me, which I pretend I already know about even though I don’t. My wife says the bucatini is too thick of a noodle for this type of sauce, which feels like another knife in the abdomen. I notice multiple uneaten garlic cloves on everyone’s plate at the meal’s conclusion. I curse the tiny pots in the beach house. I long for my dutch oven. There’s still half a pot of sauce leftover. 75 garlic cloves at least. It gets dumped into a tupperware container and put in the fridge. I’m the only one who eats it the rest of the week.
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I wake up the next morning feeling healthy. Radiant, even. A garlicky aura emanating from my person. Everyone else feels sick. Sore throats and general achiness. By evening time they’re burning up with fever. Not wanting to catch whatever they have, I ask my wife to sleep in the downstairs bedroom which is only accessible by going outside through the backyard like a dog. Down there she will spend the night sweating through her sheets. Waking up every hour thinking 12 hours has past. Or maybe 12 days. Little goblins dancing outside her window. The edges of reality disintegrating and then re-forming in a new shape you never even considered. Just a really miserable night. And this too will be the experience of her mother and her father and her brother and her little nephew who’s only 13-years-old but who definitely didn’t like my 150 garlic clove pasta sauce.
So, did I posion my wife’s family? On the contrary, I endeavored to cook them a lovely meal. This doesn’t stop the wild speculation. The working hypothesis is that I probably purchased some rancid produce because RFK Jr. and the federal government want everybody to get a foodborne illness. But this theory falls apart after an urgent care facility in Norfolk diagnosis the family with strep throat, which is decidedly not a foodborne illness. Upon hearing this news I form another theory: that the immunity-boosting properties of the garlic, of which I consumed vastly more of in the past 48 hours than anybody else in the house, likely protected me from the nasty strep throat bacteria that has infiltrated my wife and her family. I keep this thought to myself, for I am not a petty man. But the idea is exceptionally titillating fron a cosmic justice perspective.
The family spends the rest of the trip gargling salt water and popping advil to reduce the inflammation in their throats. I rest on the beach. I read my book. I watch movies. I remind everyone to take their amoxicillin. I banish my wife to the downstairs of the house to sleep. And I require that the entire family wear face masks around me. The poor sick bastards.
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Ok, I actually made all that up. Everything that I just sandwiched between those two em-dashes. I was the one who got strep throat after eating my own 150 garlic clove pasta sauce. Not my wife and her family. I was the one who had to go sleep in the downstairs guest room like a dog. Wear the face mask. Take the amoxicillin. Have a fever dream about goblins. The garlic didn’t protect me. It didn’t make me feel radiant. Instead, I felt like some guy had shoved his giant hairy fist and forearm down my throat for 12 hours.
I’ve always been a big fan of the phrase “no good deed goes unpunished.” It’s a good one because it allows you to feel like a victim for doing something nice. Sitting on the beach, socially distanced from my wife and family, my throat raw and desiccated, I ask myself if I would have done anything differently that day. And the answer is yes: I would not have gone to the ice cream shop after dinner because it was full of dirty children and one of them almost certainly gave me strep throat. As far as my meal is concerned? No, I wouldn’t have changed a thing. For it is a rite of passage to cook a bunch of people a meal they evidently did not like. Especially if those people are your in-laws. I bet Anthony Bourdain would agree, and everyone likes Anthony Bourdain.
My wife turns to me and asks what I’m smiling about. Embarrassed, I say “huh?” and the utterance sends a shooting pain down my throat.
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