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.