Ditto.   “Perl Golf” is meant to be an idle amusement.   The best strategy is always to write code that is “abundantly clear.”   Make it obvious.   And, make it easily maintainable.   If I am, as in this case, “trying to calculate the cooking-time of a dish, with or without garlic bread,” then, please, don’t make me think about how you chose to say it.   Don’t introduce the risk that what you said is actually wrong ... or that, in order to make it do something else, I must put-at-risk everything that it is known to be doing correctly now.

One way or the other, the Perl compiler will do its appointed job.   It will faithfully put into action exactly what you have written ... be it right or wrong.   “Golf speak” merely makes it harder ... much harder ... to know that it is right.