Tips and tricks come at you when you least at expect them. Just last week, I was unwinding from a hard day of hacking food with an episode of the new Queer Eye, when food expert/T-shirt aficionado/new Ted Allen Antoni Porowski told whatever straight dude he was working on (they all blend together) that a little coconut oil would de-stink even the most garlicky hands.

This is the season when we send our kids off to school with shiny new backpacks, and every year, they bring home the same thing: The first round of back-to-school colds. In our house, with a two-year-old intent on drooling on everyone he touches and a six-year-old still perfecting her personal hygiene practices, pathogens are passed out like hugs, and it's only a matter of time before the whole family is sick.

A fried allium is the perfect finishing touch. Whether on top of a medium-rare steak, a creamy potato soup, or a gooey bowl of macaroni and cheese (or like, a salad or something), fried onions, leeks, garlic and the like provide crispy texture and salty, umami-rich, slightly pungent flavour. In short, they are desirable. They also just got a bit more convenient, thanks to this microwave method from Cook's Illustrated.

Some of us may have heard that horseradish and garlic supplements help ease cold and flu. (Maybe your mum or dad used to give you a raw clove to suck on when you complained of a sore throat.) But is it actually effective at easing colds? Let's take a look at the science.

Garlic is great in all of its many forms but, like most plant parts, it is at its absolute best when roasted. Roasting garlic mellows its pungency and tempers its aggressive bite, but it also intensifies its sweetness and creates new, deeper flavours through that lovely little Maillard reaction. It's also a freaking cinch to make.

Garlic skins have always been my least favourite part of peeling garlic. They either stick to my fingers, or float about the kitchen, carried by slight breezes before making their home on random appliances. But I resent them no more, my dears, because it turns out they make a kick-arse broth.

In terms of complex, funky flavour, it doesn't get much better than fermented foods. If you want to try your hand at fermenting, but are a bit intimidated by the process, just relax; this recipe only has three ingredients.

I love a good salad dressing. I also love a good dip, and I adore a good marinade. As fate would have it, Munchies has a recipe for an easy-to-prepare elixir that performs perfectly as all three.

It's easy to end up with tons of unused garlic, especially if you work in a restaurant or grow your own. If you or someone you love is overrun with the pungent bulb, there is a simple solution: confit it.

Garlic is an indispensable ingredient in all sorts of cuisines, but its tacky, smelly nature makes it a pain to peel and chop. To make your life a little simpler -- and hopefully a little less sticky -- we've rounded up our most popular garlic tips, and given each one a thorough evaluation.

Roasted garlic is somewhat magical, but leaving the oven on for 50 minutes or so isn't always feasible (or desired in these hot-weather months). If you want to mellow out the pungent allium without heating up the house, turn to your skillet.

Edamame (unshelled soybeans) are a quick, easy snack that's pretty good with just a little salt, but if you want to punch up the flavour of the soybean pods, look not further than your cabinet.

Having bad garlic breath is the social equivalent of uncontrollably breathing fire. But fear not, garlic lover, there might be a cure. A recent study suggests chewing on some raw lettuce or apple will help reduce the odour.

A bad case of garlic breath can ruin a date, even if you both have it. These foods, if eaten after a garlic-y dish, might be able to save the day.

When making meatballs, you want small pieces of garlic to be evenly distributed throughout the ball, otherwise you could end up chomping down on big, raw chunks. You could chop the allium into tiny little pieces, or you could just grate it in.

Mincing garlic isn't difficult, but if all you have is a knife, this method from Cook's Illustrated is easy and produces a fine, smooth paste with no overwhelming chunks of garlic in the mix.

If you have a bamboo steamer basket and not much storage space in your kitchen, make your steamer basket pull double duty by storing onions, garlic and shallots in it. Here's why it's perfect for the job.

Roasted garlic is a beautiful thing, and roasting it for a while in the oven will probably yield the best results. You can get a similar level of tastiness in a shorter amount of time, however, with the help of a pressure cooker.

I love the sound and smell sizzling garlic, but tossing it straight into a hot pan can take the delicious alum from "perfectly fragrant and golden" to "burnt and acrid" in a matter of seconds. This problem has an easy fix: start with a cold pan.