Would you be­lieve that this food­ie used to avoid gar­lic in her cook­ing? (I should be spanked, right?) Don't get me wrong... truth was, I feared gar­lic. As a child, my nose was su­per sen­si­tive, and while there were cer­tain com­bi­na­tions of herbs that I loved (chadon beni, Span­ish and reg­u­lar thyme, chives, etc) and sniffed to near crack-head ad­dic­tions, I left gar­lic alone be­cause it was so in­tense. When­ev­er Granny pound­ed it to add to the heat­ed oil to start her cur­ry, I would say, "Granny, you have to use that?" She would watch me and shake her head in the af­fir­ma­tive. "How you ex­pect the cur­ry to have taste?" I'd watch her grate it in­to her cut up chick­en and stick cloves of them in­to a large cut of beef – which she would lat­er roast – and the per­fumed meat would scent the en­tire house. It wasn't un­til my teens that I be­gan to ap­pre­ci­ate gar­lic, and in bread of all things, and I didn't even mind my mild gar­lic breath af­ter­ward. To­day, I use gar­lic in near­ly all my foods (and for the cu­ri­ous, I even have my own per­son­al recipe for gar­lic sauce). As an adult, I ap­pre­ci­ate gar­lic, both for its health ben­e­fits (low­er­ing high blood pres­sure) and its com­plex flavour pro­file. So, for this week's Eye Food I'm pay­ing homage to the gar­lic bulb in its most sim­ple form – in gar­lic bread! En­joy!

Soft Gar­lic Bread

In­gre­di­ents

• 2 small loaves of day-old "but­ter bread"

• 1/2 cup un­salt­ed but­ter, soft­ened

• 2 to 3 large cloves of gar­lic (about 1 heap­ing ta­ble­spoon), smashed and minced

• 1 heap­ing ta­ble­spoon of fresh pars­ley, chopped fine­ly

Method:

• Pre­heat oven to 350°F.

• Mix the soft­ened but­ter, minced gar­lic and chopped pars­ley mix­ture un­til well blend­ed.

• Make 1-inch thick slices in­to the loaves of bread, but do not go all the way through, just to the bot­tom crust.

• Spread a tea­spoon or two of the but­ter mix­ture be­tween each slice.

• Wrap the bread in alu­mini­um foil and heat it for 15 min­utes in the oven.

• Re­move when done and peel back the foil to ex­pose the love­ly, fra­grant bread slices.

(TIP: For an ex­tra kick, rip off a slice and sprin­kle on some fine­ly grat­ed sharp ched­dar cheese and dip that in­to a lit­tle mari­nara sauce. You will LOVE it!)