O, O, Onions

#AtoZChallenge

Onions.  The staple of spices in our house.  Onions are put into everything I make.  I never thought about them as I grew up one way or the other.  Onions in our food was just another fact of life.  I didn’t mind them in the food.  It was the getting them in the food that was not my “cup of tea.”  I didn’t even know that there were different kinds of onions.

Course, I didn’t do any of the grocery shopping until I was on my own.  I went with the parents when they shopped.  The only thing I was interested in was making sure I got my favorite cereal. Oh and the candy.  Mom and Dad bought the stuff.  I wasn’t in the produce aisle til Sis and I had our own apartment when we were eighteen, nineteen.  And we found the stuff that we’d learned to cook.  And onions was part of it.

Now, when I cook onions, I don’t measure by the cup, spoon or stuff like that.  We go by the size of the onion.  So, I guess I learned to just do whatever my mom had done which was probably what her mom and grandmom had done.  Hmmm.  On second thought, I guess I did measure, it just wasn’t the store bought measuring stuff.

Cause I just thought of the spoon that I’d use.  It was one of those big spoons that are used for stirring the food in the pot.  And there was this drinking cup that had broken.  I remember thinking “Now, what am I gonna do?”  I’d learned to use these things as I wasn’t able to “look, see, measure” like my mom did.  She did everything by eye.

Heck, when she was trying to teach me to drive, I just could not visualize the car, the road underneath and where the tire was.  Least not til a couple years ago when it finally fell into place.  What is that?  Spatial?  Something clicked at any rate.  Mom and I were able to work together on projects then.  Well, there was the last project, a crazy quilt she had planned.  Ahh, I digress. What’s that comment from the peanut gallery?  Ahh….

Fact, I’m completely off the subject…ya think?

Well, not really.  Cause measuring and onions go hand in hand when cooking food for my family.  There are a few who plain, just Do Not Like onions in any way, shape or form.  And we even have one who is allergic.  And then there are those who Love, Love, Love onions, the stronger, the better.  So, what does one do in a case like this?

If it’s for a family dinner where everyone is present, one must slice the onion in great big chunks, so that the onions can be picked out and handed over to the onion lovers.  And a small portion of the food must be set aside in a smaller dish before one even adds the onions.

So, I grow them in my garden and they can pick them themselves.  Or not.  Cause nowadays, unlike my parents and grandparents, we can’t make kids eat something they don’t like.