Garlic, Can You Smell It ??????

This is a Vegas related post of sorts. You know that as a Foodfanataholic one of my favorite things to do is to go to the grocery stores in places I am visiting. If you have never traveled, or never done this, you would be amazed at just how different grocery stores are across the country.

In upstate New York, our grocery stores have a predominance of Italian Food products. There are entire aisles of Pasta, tomatoes, and other gourmet Italian Products. When I was in Las Vegas, there are hardly any choices for Pasta, the tomatoes are limited, yet, there is a preponderance of Spanish and Mexican themed food products.

Since Lauren wanted me to make escarole, I headed out to the Grocery store to pick up the supplies. Of course, I needed to buy some fresh garlic. Now, I confess, unless I am planning to roast the whole head of garlic for a specific recipe, I always buy my garlic already peeled and ready to use.

The first time I saw this, it was at BJ's Wholesale, and of course, as expected, the jar was quite huge. At the time, all the kids were home, and it was a rare occasion when I didn't finish the jar before the expiration date.

After the kids left for school, that jar was just a waste as it always started to turn moldy, the garlic would discolor, and get very moist. I was lucky to finally locate a small jar of garlic that I could buy.

However, even then, I noticed that sometimes, they sat on the shelf in the store and if you didn't carefully check the dates, they would begin to mold quite quickly once they were opened.

There were times, I even noticed the mold right in the store, and alerted the produce manager.

I was looking for the peeled garlic in Albertson's in Las Vegas, and couldn't find a jar of peeled garlic. I was just about to buy a bulb of garlic when lo and behold, I saw a bag of peeled garlic.

I thought, great, I'll buy it and be on my way.

When I got the garlic home and opened the bag, I was so surprised.
The cloves were vacuumed sealed, four to a pouch. What a great idea.

This way, if one clove starts to go, the rest of the package will remain untouched. I love this concept and I'm hoping that my local grocery stores will be able to locate the product so I can buy it here at home.

I would encourage you to tell your local grocery stores about this as well...

The product is called Global Farms Premium Peeled Garlic.
Here is their information:

Global Farms Enterprises, Inc.
1217 E. 6th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90021
Tel: (213) 624-4555, Fax: (213) 624-6555
Toll Free: (877) 50GLOBE

They have a great garlic sizing
chart on their webpage, great as a reference.

The garlic was delicious, the escarole was the bomb!