Hacker News Reader

Comment by mr_gibbins | Hacker News Reader

Just a quick note, something my dad taught me. Break apart the garlic into segments, peel them then use a broad, flat kitchen knife and crush the garlic with the heel of your hand. Once crushed, gather together and finely chop.

I've never gotten along with garlic crushers, they leave too much of the garlic in the tool and washing them is difficult.

View on HN

>Just a quick note, something my dad taught me. Break apart the garlic into segments, peel them then use a broad, flat kitchen knife and crush the garlic with the heel of your hand. Once crushed, gather together and finely chop.

Thank you for the suggestion. I am already aware of that method (as well as several others).

It's not that I find mincing fresh garlic onerous. Rather the taste difference (feel free to disagree, I don't mind -- please do exactly what you want to do) for me isn't big enough to compensate for the convenience (and lower cost) of dumping a couple spoonfuls of pre-minced (in water, not oil -- although if you prefer oil, then have at it) garlic and off you go.

> feel free to disagree, I don't mind -- please do exactly what you want to do

Meta: I think it goes without saying that readers will do whatever they want to. You telling the reader explicitly that they should do what they want can come across as passive-aggressive. Paradoxically, you _are_ telling them how they should behave by writing that.

Not GP but I just see it as preemptive defense as is so often needed online. "I like it this way" will often be interpreted as "I like it this way and if you disagree you're wrong!" leading to pointless flamewars.

To me it seems that people who take "I like it this way" and extend it in their minds to include "…and if you disagree you're wrong!" when no such intent is likely are just actively looking for any excuse for an argument. Those people aren't worth engaging with further in my opinion. Just wasted energy/effort, and unwanted/unnecessary stress.

>>> feel free to disagree, I don't mind -- please do exactly what you want to do

>Meta: I think it goes without saying that readers will do whatever they want to. You telling the reader explicitly that they should do what they want can come across as passive-aggressive. Paradoxically, you _are_ telling them how they should behave by writing that.

It's funny (as in disturbing -- at least to me) that you took my statement that way.

I intentionally used those words to point up my main thesis WRT this entire discussion:

  What I think is what *I* think, and is *not* a prescription
  (or proscription) for others.  Rather, it's my take and I 
  have no interest in telling *anyone* (nor should others do 
  so) what to do, think or say.

The idea that I thought I was giving folks permission in some form or fashion doesn't make much sense (IMHO) unless you assume I'm one of the people I decry in my initial post[0] in this thread, which is not assuming good faith on my part.

I'd be offended if I cared what you think/do/say. In fact, I'm only responding as it appears you think that I'm somehow acting in bad faith.

If you find my writing to be "passive aggressive," please note my username and ignore (or downvote) everything I write.

I wish you health, happiness and success. Have a good day.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=nobody9999

> If you find my writing to be "passive aggressive," please note my username and ignore (or downvote) everything I write.

I'm playing armchair psychologist here at 1am (not the only one), but this kind of comment is the definition of passive-aggressive.

You started on a good samaritan stance but upon being challenged, their comment is 'disturbing', doesn't make sense, and is in bad faith. Then you say you don't give a shit, but evidently you do enough to write a long response, ending on sarcastic good wishes for dramatic effect.

    "Passive-aggressive behavior is a pattern of indirectly 
     expressing negative feelings instead of openly addressing 
     them. There's a disconnect between what a person who 
     exhibits passive-aggressive behavior says and what he or she does."

If you really cared about people doing whatever they want, one would expect you to happily chat about their preferences and findings; instead, your default answers read dismissive and as a polite "fuck off". In that case everyone would be better off by not commenting at all. What are we here for anyway?

This:

  I wish you health, happiness and success. Have a good day.

Was not sarcastic at all.

I have no issue with GP that would cause me to wish them ill.

In fact, illustrating that was the reason I wished them well.

> If you find my writing to be "passive aggressive," please note my username and ignore (or downvote) everything I write.

I admit I haven't really looked to see if this already exists, but I've occasionally considered writing a filter for HN that would allow users to blackhole other users. And not just hiding with a thin layer, but making them cease to exist. In a hierarchical enivronment like HN it would have the effect of blackholing other people by extension, if they reply, but it's the ultimate way to curate your bubble.

Now I'm wondering if I would give it the option to auto-downvote. Ha! Call it the Spite List.

Though I do wonder if HN voting algorithms are able to recognize voting patterns like that and discount them. More than just saying "You only get X actual downvotes per day, beyond that the value of each existing downvote decreases as you add more." It should be easy to notice that user X has downvoted user Y multiple times, especially in unrelated conversations.

I don’t think Hn’s algorithm would take kindly to that kind of downvoting behavior.

I didn’t intend to disturb you. I almost never assume negative intent, so I gave feedback in case you want to take it up and prevent readers from getting that impression.

Thank you.

I think it's useful in the context of the original article, which is about it being okay to disagree about cooking methods.

I didn't take it that way. My interpretation is that GP is acutely aware of how comment sections quickly devolve into back-and-forth arguments about why one person likes their own way better. People seem to constantly forget that most of what we do is subject to differing opinions.

So preemptively reminding people that he doesn't want to argue it, because he doesn't feel like it merits an argument ... well, that's totally understandable IMO.

Huh, I always crush with the knife edge _before_ peeling, then the skins come off easy as pie.

This is after washing the garlic segments I plan to use, then I save the skins along with other washed refuse from carrots, onions, celery, etc and use that when I make broths with bones I've collected.

Then from those broths you can reserve the fat layer that accumulates at the top and use that to sautee veggies, mm mm mm!

You're sounding a lot like a right proper cook. All the great tricks granny taught…

Not much greater a compliment I could ever expect to hear in this lifetime :-)

There's one company (Joseph & Joseph) which makes a garlic 'rocker' and with a soft silicone spatula you get all the garlic back, from a device which is as easy to clean as any normal utensil.

Yup, grew up with garlic crushers and have one in the kitchen but mostly do this, it's not much longer once you factor in the time to find the garlic crusher.

> they leave too much of the garlic in the tool and washing them is difficult.

if you peel the garlic first you can just scrape the rest of the bit into the dish and while it's not as finely crushed and separated as the other parts... it tends to meld in just fine(mostly) and you don't waste anything.

i find that lightly crushing the garlic before peeling helps separate the skin and makes peeling easier.

also, touching stainless steel helps remove the garlic scent from your hands.

I started using garlic crushers when I learned that you don't need to peel the cloves to use it. Plus, if you don't peel them, clean up is actually pretty easy. As for leaving garlic behind; yes, that's true, but garlic is also cheap, so you can just crush more.

This is actually the same method I was taught, and I find it simpler and faster and just generally better all around over using any "special tool" made for the purpose. Lay the flat of the blade across a hunk of garlic, smack you're done. Fast and easy.

You can also do this: turn the blade so that it is facing you and "chop" the garlic with the backside of the knife. It will crush the garlic into bits.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com