Garlic is a magical thing. Everybody knows that.But most people have no idea how magical it is. I didn't know until three years ago, when I got my first garlic scapes out of a farm box.

I'm not sure of the exact life cycle of garlic, and I'm too lazy to look it up on Wikipedia, but I can tell you from observation that the sprouts that come out of garlic bulbs if you let them go too long eventually grow into long stalks that develop their own rudimentary bulbs.

If you dig up the sprouting bulb, it's green garlic. If you just cut off the stalk with the baby bulb, it's garlic scapes. Either way, they have the indisputable taste of garlic, but in a mellower, sweeter, fresher, and greener form.

I don't know why they don't sell these in grocery stores. Maybe they don't store well. Maybe they don't travel well. Maybe they don't think people want them. I don't know. All I know is that I treasure every bit of green and fresh garlic I get out of farm boxes. Scapes are the main reason I keep getting CSA boxes. A lack of scapes is one of the reasons I left my last CSA.

So what can you do with them? A lot of the time, I just chop them finely and use them as a straight-up replacement for crushed garlic and just enjoy the more complex, springtime flavor. But just the other day, I used green garlic in a yogurt sauce to top lamburgers on a Monday gaming grillfest. If you want it, you'll need:

• One small container of Greek yogurt. However big the small tubs of Fage Greek yogurt are. One of those. I used the 2%.
• Zest of one lemon
• One tablespoon green garlic
• Pinch of salt
• 1-2 grinds of black pepper

That's it. Just chop the green garlic really fine, stir everything together thoroughly, and let it stand in the fridge ideally 24 hours before you need it, so that the green garlic and lemon flavors can move through the yogurt. It's incredibly fresh and bright, and an incredible contrast to a seasoned lamb-beef mixture. This would make an excellent variant of or substitute for tzatziki in a gyro, for example.