I was in the navy when we were first married and after only ten days of wedded bliss I had to go out to sea for 14 days. Sandy asked me what I would like to eat when I returned. She wanted to have a special dinner so I told her that my favorite dish was spaghetti and that my mom had a great recipe.

Well I was gone for the 14 days and when I returned on that Friday afternoon and pulled into the parking lot right in front of our little apartment I could smell that spaghetti cooking! When I walked into the place I was overwhelmed by the smell of garlic. Sandy had the table set with candles and a bottle of our favorite red wine and a huge plate of spaghetti smothered with a cover of steaming red sauce was on the table in front of my place. Well we sat down to eat and upon first bite I knew something was wrong but was not sure what. It must have shown on my face because Sandy asked me right away if I liked the sauce. I said something like well it tastes a little spicy. She said "well, its your mother`s recipe, I called her in New Jersey to get it." (We lived in California and 35 years ago those calls were expensive). Then Sandy proceeded to tell me what she put in the sauce. When she got to the three cloves of garlic I knew I had found the answer. Sandy had used three BULBS of garlic, not three cloves. Her mother never had used garlic and so....... . We still laugh about it. The funniest thing was that we ate it all and after the initial burst of pain it was tasty. At least thats what I remember. I also remember Sandy saying something like "It sure took a long time to peel all that garlic.

I never said a word, I just ate it, and it was wonderful!
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