【Watch A Sexy Wedding Planner Online】

Essentials Weekspotlights unexpected items that make our daily lives just a little bit better.

I remember the crackling the most — then comes the smell that sits in the air for hours,Watch A Sexy Wedding Planner Online clinging to your clothes. In my grandmother's kitchen, chopped garlic frying in an olive oil bath was almost always on the stove.

If she was making white rice and black beans, she'd fry garlic and onions in olive oil as the rice boiled. To start her tuco, a red pasta sauce popular in Argentina, she'd drop olive oil and garlic in the pot. For meatballs, she'd toss tiny specks of the pungent white stuff in a bowl of ground beef, eggs, and breadcrumbs, mixing the squishy mixture together with her hands.

My grandmother, who died in 2010, taught me how to cook and bred in me a love of garlic. But while she'd always have garlic bulbs sitting in a basket on her countertop — she also had plastic bulbs that hung as decoration on a wall near her fridge — I have opted for a simpler way. I always keep a jar of store-bought minced garlic in my fridge.

I can see her clucking her disapproval at me now (she made everything from scratch), but I have reasons on my side! Chopping garlic is no fun. First, the cloves are hard to peel, and second, the undersides of my fingernails stink when I remove the thin skin. This also takes time I do not have. I like to cook, but when I get home from work after a long commute, the last thing I want to do is pick away at garlic's papery shell.

Sure, the internet is full of hacks to peel garlic. You can microwave cloves for a few seconds, pour hot water over them and let them steep while you do other prep work, crush a bulb with the flat-end of a sharp knife (an accident waiting to happen!), or shake cloves vigorously in a covered bowl. But opening a jar and doling out a few spoonfuls of pre-chopped garlic? No hack can beat that.

Several years ago I started picking up the minced garlic in a jar that grocery stores keep in the produce section, usually on a bottom shelf below a bay of fresh vegetables. Why is this kitchen necessity so hidden, store managers? I keep it in the fridge in a top-shelf compartment as if to say, here, you'll be treated with respect. While its neighbors on that side-door shelf — the jellies, the mustards, the hot sauces — never seem to empty, I'm buying minced garlic every few weeks.

The brand, and there are several of them, doesn't matter to me. You can find generic ones at Trader Joe's and Costco and brand-name picks at your local grocery store. Just don't confuse minced garlic with the crushed garlic that also comes in a jar. You want small chunks, not a paste, to compare with the fresh stuff.

One tricky part is that recipes often call for cloves of garlic, not spoonfuls of garlic. When you're in such a bind, you can use this general rule often found on minced garlic labels: Half a teaspoon from the jar is equal to a clove. Keep in mind, though, that not all cloves are the same size, and cooking isn't rocket science. I find myself using twice as much when substituting, but I like garlic. Play around. Start with a half teaspoon and then go up from there. You can always add more, but it's hard to pick those garlic bits out once you've started.

As much as my grandmother taught me how to cook, I also learned a lot from watching hours of the Food Network. One of my favorite celebrity chefs is Ina Garten. She's graceful, always has a friend over, and her recipes aren't hard to follow. And she's forgiving. On her cooking show, Barefoot Contessa, when she's whipping up something that many viewers would never do (like make their own breadcrumbs), she has a soothing message. "Store-bought is fine," she remarks as she flips on the food processor. I interpret that as, "Don't be ashamed. Go ahead and buy that minced garlic." You don't have to do everythingon your own to be a good cook.

Sorry, grandma.