Too Much Garlic? Apparently That's Possible...

Some foods are memorable because they're delicious. Others are memorable because they create a family story that gets told for years afterward. For me, that food was garlic chicken, and not because I followed a great recipe. It was because I used so much garlic that my dad could smell it before he even got out of his car.

I've always liked garlic. If a recipe calls for two cloves, I usually figure four or five would be even better. At the time, I was feeling especially confident in the kitchen and had decided to make garlic chicken for dinner. It sounded simple enough, and I was determined to make it taste amazing.

The recipe called for a few cloves of garlic, but once I started chopping, I got a little carried away. I kept peeling cloves and tossing them onto the cutting board. Then I added a few more. Before I knew it, I had a small mountain of garlic sitting in front of me. Instead of seeing that as a warning sign, I thought it looked perfect.

As I cooked, I added garlic to everything. Garlic in the marinade. Garlic in the pan. More garlic over the chicken because, in my mind, there was no such thing as too much garlic. The kitchen smelled incredible. At least, I thought it smelled incredible.

As the chicken cooked, the aroma got stronger and stronger. Soon, the entire kitchen smelled like garlic. Then the dining room smelled like garlic. Then the front entryway. If someone had walked in and guessed what I was cooking, they probably would have needed only one guess.

I was so focused on dinner that I didn't think much about it. I assumed that if the smell was getting stronger, that meant it was cooking deliciously.

A little while later, my dad came home from work. I remember hearing the sound of his truck pulling into the driveway. A few seconds later, as the front door swung open, I heard him yell.

"Kristen must be cooking! How much garlic did you use?"

As he walked into the kitchen, he laughed, "I could smell that from the driveway."

At that point, I started laughing too. I looked around the kitchen and realized that the garlic smell was a teensy bit strong. My dad kept joking about it as I finished cooking.

"Did you buy every piece of garlic at the store?" "Should we warn the neighbors?"

The more he joked, the harder I laughed. The funny thing was, I genuinely thought I had made a completely normal dinner.

When my family finally sat down to eat, the chicken actually tasted pretty good. It was definitely garlicky, but somehow still worked. Nobody pushed their plate away or complained.

The real entertainment, though, was my dad's running commentary throughout dinner. Every few minutes he would come up with another joke about the amount of garlic I had used. By then, it had become less about the meal and more about the story that was forming around it.

For the next several days, the garlic chicken incident followed me around. If someone mentioned cooking, my dad would bring it up. If we passed the produce section in a store, he asked whether I needed any more garlic. Any mention of garlic immediately triggered a retelling of the story.

Over time, it's become one of those family memories that never disappoints. You know the kind. Years go by, but someone mentions a certain food, and suddenly everyone is laughing at the same old story.

What I remember most isn't actually the taste of the chicken. I couldn't tell you exactly how else I seasoned it or what side dishes I made. What I remember is standing in the kitchen feeling proud of myself, only to discover that I had accidentally created a garlic cloud powerful enough to assault my dad from the front door.

Looking back, I probably could have used a little less garlic. Maybe even a lot less garlic. But if I had followed a recipe, nobody would remember that dinner today.

Instead, I ended up with a family story that still makes me smile. All these years later, whenever I'm cooking and reach for the garlic, I think about that night.

That's why it remains one of the most memorable things I've ever eaten, even though you'd probably never find "Ridiculously Over-Garlicked Chicken" listed on any restaurant menu. It wasn't a gourmet meal or a culinary masterpiece. It was just an ordinary dinner that turned into an unforgettable memory.