Garlic Fest

There are two schools of thought on garlic. Some people view garlic as a crutch, while others think that you can never really over-garlic anything. Aside from eating garlic raw, I've never had anything that I thought was too garlicky. I love garlic. It's universal and appears in so many different types of cuisine. A week ago, I went to the H-Mart (Korean market) and bought already peeled whole cloves of garlic. It was awesome! Apparently, pressing garlic takes away from the flavor, so ideally, it should be minced. I used to buy the jars of minced garlic, but it just doesn't taste the same as the fresh stuff. I then moved on to pressing because it doesn't require that the cloves be peeled. The peeled whole cloves are great because I can just throw a whole bunch in the mini food processor and have a ton of minced garlic in seconds. A warning, though. The peeled cloves make the whole fridge smell like garlic, so I'm trying to work on a way to contain the smell...

Comparison Shopping

So, I sang the praises of the Annie Chun's noodle bowl, which I usually supplement with protein of some sort. They're cheaper at Whole Foods than the supermarket when they're on sale ($2.19 on sale as opposed to $2.99 and up). Lately, though, they seem to be in scarce supply at the Annapolis Whole Foods. Someone from my office recommended Trader Joe's, where the udon and teriyaki (my favorites) are only $1.99.