Garlic and the Role of the Chef as Artist

Greetings everyone! Everything happens so perfectly at times that I just kind of smile. Ironically, right after Mark wrote a wonderful post about the health benefits of raw garlic, two things happened.

1) I got sick

2) I began catering for some people who don’t eat garlic

To address the first issue, last week I got sick. I was sort of baffled to why I would get sick as I rarely (almost never) do since I began eating a raw vegan diet, and then last night I listened to a very interesting talk by Tony Robbins on the Acid/Alkaline balance in the body. The gist of the matter is that we only can get sick if our body is not at optimal health (which, according to this lecture, is when the body is too acidic). Increased acidity comes from a variety of sources, a big one being diet. However, a vegan raw food diet, particularly one high in leafy greens as mine is, is highly alkalizing. So how is it that I still got sick?

Other than diet, the major producer of acid in the body is stress. Well the last few weeks have been a bit stressful for sure. I’ve been teaching classes and catering a retreat, and all the while trying to handle the uncertainty and frustration that can come from working in Bali (most things happen last minute here, and things change in an instant, so that can make planning ahead a challenge). In addition, we have just had a week straight of rain, so it has been cold, wet and moldy. Another factor that caused my body to be vulnerable.

And to top it all off, the moment I began to feel sick was right after teaching a dessert themed class. Which means that I ate a lot of sugar. Yes it was all raw and natural forms of sugar, but I’m highly sensitive to sugar and I definitely consumed more than I normally do.

So, how does this relate to garlic and the role of the chef as artist, you may ask. Well, I’ll tell you. My first line of defense was, naturally, garlic. Lots of garlic. Tons of garlic. I’m talking, on average about 7 – 9 raw cloves of garlic per day for almost a full week now. Although I still have a small head cold, I am absolutely sure this would have blown up into something much bigger and more flu-like had I not gone for the garlic. I haven’t had a chance to rest properly either, which has slowed the healing process. When eating garlic for medicinal purposes I have two ways I do it. The first is with honey and the second is with olive oil and salt. For both I first grind the garlic with a mortar and pestle until it is almost a paste. Then I mix it with the other ingredients. For the olive oil version I have taken to spreading it on raw crackers – heaven! I’ve found that mashing the garlic with a mortar and pestle, as opposed to finely chopping it, makes it go down a bit easier for me.

On to topic number two: I am currently catering a few meals for a retreat that is happening in town. They have a lot of food restrictions, the most stringent one being garlic. Now, I love garlic. LOVE it. Perhaps it’s the Italian in me, or just my body’s innate knowledge and craving for the immune system boost, but whatever the reason I’m hooked. So catering this retreat has been a bit challenging at times. I find that garlic really adds a flavor element to certain dishes that can’t be substituted. Part of me feels frustrated and offended, “how dare they ask me not to use garlic! What is pesto without garlic?! And Som Tam (green papaya salad)??” But I am working around it. Leaving out garlic when possible, and making changes when not (there goes my vegetables with parsley aioli! Aioli, for those who don’t know, is  garlic mayonnaise, my version is raw and vegan, of course). Another part of me wants to throw articles, scientific studies, and millennial long histories of folk medicine at them – perhaps if they new it better they’d like it! Perhaps they are just afraid!

But these are my beliefs, not theirs. These are my feelings and my disappointments at not having things completely under my control (are they ever?). What exactly is my role as the chef hired to cater their retreat? Surely I have to honor any special dietary needs they have, but what about my creativity? What about my concepts? My menus designed weeks in advance?

Food is my art, but catering is my job. Yes my job and my art overlap, but in the end, I have been hired to make meals for a certain group and thus their tastes, desires and needs come first. And as I sit pouting in the corner that my great artistic creativity has been stifled, I neglect to recognize that I am actually being asked to use my creativity to the highest degree – to think beyond my comfort zone and stretch all limits of what I can do while still making food that people love to eat.

So instead of pouting,  I’m grateful today. Grateful for this opportunity to rise to the occasion, to turn lemons into lemonade, and to explore my creativity as a chef.

And I leave you with this quote:

“The combination of garlic and olive oil has been described by Richard Olney as belonging to ‘the realm of voluptuous experiences.’” – Culinary Artistry by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page