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 “Let food be your medicine.”

(attributed to Hippokrates of Kos)

I started this batch of pickled garlic back before Yule, and made the mistake of setting it out on the Yule board, well before its time.

Yikes. Each clove of garlic burned in the mouth like a red-hot glede.

Disappointed, I set the pickle aside and, basically, forgot about it.

Thank Goddess.

Last week I came across the jar again and, some five months on, decided to give it another try. “If ever my immune system needed a boost, it's now,” I thought.

Ohmigods.

No longer does the garlic burn: it's now like a kiss. Everything else tastes pallid by comparison.

So here's your chance to make your own. Just be sure to let it ripen well.

Yes, I know, I'm a son of Northern Europe living in Minnesota, and this is an Asian recipe. But you know what they say about warlocks.

We sure do get around.

Old Warlock's Kick-Ass Pickled Garlic

“Such a smell of sulfur!”

(Glinda the Good)

Witches stink.

No, that's not some sort of paganophobic slur. Seriously, take a whiff. Can you smell it? That little hint of sulfur?

Yes, sulfur. Like god, like people, you might think. Well, yes, that's true, and in a bit I'll tell you the story. (There's a story for everything in the Craft.) But what it really comes down to is the old saw: you are what you eat.

What witches eat are lots (and lots and lots) of the king and queen of sulfurousness: onions and garlic. They're our favorite vegetables.

Food has to get flavor from somewhere. The gentry use meat; well, they can afford to. As for the rest of us, meat is expensive and mostly only for firedays. Most of the time, our food gets its savor grâce à that Royal Couple of the Underworld: you know who I mean.

When the Horned our god came down from heaven (but that's another story for another night), they say that where His left Hoof struck ground, garlic sprang up. (Old Hornie being Old Hornie, of course he landed Left-Hoof first.) Where His right Hoof hit, onions grew. To this day, you'll note that each clove of garlic still looks like half a miniature cloven hoof. Now you know why.

“Steve, are you on AZT?”
It was a hot, steamy summer back at the beginning of AIDS. AZT was the first in the long line of drugs that the researchers cooked up to treat folks with HIV.

At festival after festival that summer, I'd been fielding indirect questions about my health from well-meaning people: “Steve, are you...OK?” Ah, the pagan rumor-mill. Well-known (and beloved) public gay guy, therefore, must have AIDS, right?

My current boyfriend was the last person from whom I expected to hear such a question, though.

“Gods, Don,” I say, a little miffed; I felt as though my integrity were being called into question. “We've been sleeping together for weeks. If I had HIV, don't you think I'd have told you by now?”

He apologizes handsomely. (He always was good at making up.) Still, it seemed an odd kind of question.

“Why do you ask?” I ask in turn.

“Your sweat smells like guys' on AZT,” he says.

Well, it was—as I'd said—a hot, steamy summer that year, and between the two of us we had indeed been working up a good deal of sweat. (“Is it possible for two men to have a baby together?” goes the world's oldest gay joke. Answer: “Theoretically no, but...they sure do keep on trying!”)

Still, it wasn't until long after the relationship was over that I finally puzzled out the answer to Don's question.

Many of us probably ate too much over the holidays. It's easy to do when party potluck invitations bring out people's desire to celebrate with good food.  There is a temptation to try "just a little" of every dish and that includes the usual array of desserts and tasty treats special to this time of the year. Salads don't tempt most appetites and hearty soups do, however, what really makes the tongue sit up and take notice are sauces and condiments that can enliven jaded appetites.