We have to admit we don't take the Stinking Rose --"a garlic restaurant"-- too seriously: the only time we went there was on a Valentine's Day, and our date was with a group of people without dates. The choice of the Stinking Rose, Beverly Hills branch, of course was intended as irony. We were free to eat garlic that evening. Lemons, meet lemonade.

Having garlic infused drinks, garlic spread on your bread, garlic appetizer, garlic entree and garlic ice cream: we fancy all these once in a while. But stringing all these into a meal sounds to us more like fraternity hazing than gastronomy. If there was a Gimmicks Gone Overboard series, it would be episode one. They say "Follow your nose, to the stinking rose." We add: you'll have a garlic overdose. Man, you stink, turn on the hose. I see that you are bulbose, but it ain't me that you arose. That smell makes me comatose. Take that stench away, or I'll get bellicose.

So we were actually delighted to receive the Stinking Rose Restaurant Cookbook: we don't have to be a sourpuss raining on the garlic parade of patrons of the restaurant, we can now cook one garlicky dish as part of a meal, and put onions in our gibson instead of garlic cloves, and be perfectly happy. A clove a day to keep the doctor away, that's all we need.

We can cook, we say, but you can too: the recipes are a breeze. There is one exception, one recipe which contains eleven bullets, and it is the only recipe without garlic in it: a chocolate mousse. Most other recipes are as easy as one-two-three. Plus they are presented in a charming manner, with a humourous little intro, and nice, helpful cooking tips. They seem pretty much foolproof.

And, while they all contain garlic, none of the sixty plus recipes feel artificial or gimmicky. Well, none but the garlic ice cream and the garlic encrusted rack of lamb (which, we rush to add, we haven't tried and might be delicious; we knife whole garlic cloves inside a lamb roast, so why not making a crust?) Garlic is part of the Mediterranean cuisine, along olive oil and tomatoes, and you'll find in the book classic Italian and San Francisco recipes. Garlic Dungeness crab, or cioppino, or caesar salad, or chicken cacciatore, or a good aioli, a nice pesto, or a homey lasagna: these are good, useful recipes to have in a book.

The books is written by the Stinking Rose executive chef, Andrea Froncillo, with the help of Jennifer Jeffrey: they make all the right jokes about garlic properties. They cover vampires, aphrodisiac characteristics, health benefits, and historical anecdotes, but they never get preachy or teachy. We admit having fun reading the book, and while we most likely won't make a whole meal from it, we definitely will keep the book handy. We'll start with the hummus recipe; we got all we need in the pantry.