Would you like some wine with your garlic?

Back around 2002, I was about 19/20-years old and still VERY new to cooking. Not only did I have absolutely no clue about what "healthy" cooking was, I had no clue what "real" cooking was. I was doing my grocery shopping at Winco in Corvallis (Oregon) and purchasing items like boxed, instant mashed potatoes; canned green beans; and Widmer Hefeweizen (don't ask...). 

I can't remember what the meal was, but I had decided to make dinner for all my friends. The recipe called for a few garlic cloves. I don't remember the exact amount, but it was more than a couple. 

Well...I was so new to cooking that I assumed "a clove" was a whole garlic head. Yep. I put in "a few" whole heads of garlic, thinking that each one was "one clove". Needless to say, the dish turned out to be a lot more garlic-y than how it was supposed to be. I only got lucky in the fact that the flavors still blended well and all of my friends LOVED garlic, so at least the food didn't go to waste. 

Lesson learned!

New Cooks: Get facts on garlic including how to slice, chop, and mince here (scroll down to "GARLIC".)