The green pencil thin curly stem like vegetable is the flowering head of garlic, called a garlic scape. We harvest the scape for two reasons. First, by cutting off the flower of the garlic plant we are forcing it to spend its energy making nice big garlic bulbs instead of flowers. Second, they taste great! When cooked they are like the texture of a green bean, but have a mild garlicky taste. You can mince the scapes and use in place of garlic or treat them like any other vegetable, cutting into green bean size peices and adding to quiches, soups, sautés, etc. and cooking until tender. You can also have them raw — garlic scape pesto is one of our favorite spring dishes.
Grilled Garlic Scapes