most of my life i have not liked onions. at all. ever. only in recent years have i come to appreciate them in certain circumstances. subtle onions to add flavor are acceptable. onions that are well cooked and cut in appropriate shapes and sizes are also acceptable. small little crunchy bits of onion in something that is not supposed to be crunchy is bad. this applies to both uncooked and really-not-cooked-well-enough onions. raw onions are never acceptable. large pieces of slimy crunchiness--also not acceptable. stringy somewhat crunchy onions--ew. too many onions--also bad. but, the other day was momentous, when i bought an onion of my own free will to cook with and that i planned to eat myself (not cooking for someone else, although it's to my credit that someone else also ate the finished product and found it acceptable--i can now make a pretty awesome potato broccoli soup!).
let me tell you how i cut an onion. by myself. with no one helping. (this was also a first.) take off the papery stuff on the outside. cut the onion in half. cut the onion into thinner sections. then cut those up smaller so there are a bunch of little pieces. about half way through this process, lose most of my vision, be physically unable to keep my eyes open, try to keep one eye open, try blinking a lot. leave the room and recover and come back maybe 20 seconds later. quickly cut the rest of the onion, put it in a bowl. start cutting other things. still having vision loss and involuntary eye closure. cover the bowl with a plate. dispose of all onion not being used. rinse off knife and hands. then everything was ok. apparently i am really really sensitive to onion in the air. i knew this already. last time i tried to cut an onion, my roommate had to finish because i literally couldn't keep my eyes open. other people tell these stories about crying while cutting onions. for me, there are some tears, but then it's also like these muscle spasms in my face that i can't control. it's not possible for me to stand there crying and cutting an onion. i stand there blinking furiously and hoping that i can see what i'm doing. onions are dangerous.
aww, welcome to the world of onions! I don't like them much either, but they taste really good in cooking. :) I also cry a lot when I cut them up. I've found that if I stick the onion in the freezer (or refrigerator if you don't have a freezer) for about 10 minutes, you don't cry so much. It chills the liquid in the onion, so it doesn't spread so far.
ReplyDeleteGood luck! Keep up the yummy cooking! :)
~Audra
I have a handy-dandy mini-chopper that saves me from having to cut onions. Well worth the investment and storage space. I once had to put on my glasses and cover my face with a bandana so I looked like a four-eyed bandit in order to finish chopping an onion, and even then I think I cut my finger because I couldn't see through the tears and eye squints. Good times. -Stacey
ReplyDeleteGreat story. The ending "Onions are dangerous" was perfect. We battled you and Daniel in the onion wars for years, but even though we may have lost every single battle, maybe we finally won the war.
ReplyDeleteDaddy