BILL GRAY on GARLIC, MOM's (NINA) POT ROAST & DAD'S (BILL) REACTION

Garlic. As we all know, a necessary ingredient in anything that is to be eaten. And I do mean anything. That was Mom's take on it, anyway. Garlic was probably the one constant in all of our meals. The problem was Dad wouldn't eat anything with garlic in it. Gave him indigestion, didn't like the taste. If he knew or had any idea of how much garlic he ate in his life he would have been surprised, to say the least. Here's Mom preparing a pot roast for Sunday dinner, recipe to follow: standing 10-12 feet from Dad she preps the roast by poking holes in it large enough to fit in a clove of garlic. This continued until all of the garlic from a head was used up. There's more to the recipe, but you get the idea. Later, as the roast is done and she's getting the gravy going we always had to have dinner rolls. Of course, they were dosed liberally with garlic powder prior to baking. We'd put a toothpick in the one that had no garlic - that was for Dad. Only, sometimes we forgot to add it, sometimes it fell out. Hell, most times that's what happened. So a toothpick got stuck in any one roll at random and Dad was ok because it had a toothpick in it and that meant "no garlic". He had a good appetite and never said a word. Fortunately, Deb (my wife that is, as we all know my sister struggles boiling water) learned how to make that roast and gravy and we continue to enjoy it to this day. Bill G.