JULIA AND ANGELA, OUI!

Yes, that bowl has a nose.

This week's soup was French Onion. Oh la la and très délicieux and savoureux beaucoup!
Did you know I took French in high school and college?

In the spirit de cuisine français, I listened to Nouvelle Vague while I cooked. Except during the onion preparation, I paused the iPod and instead sang the song the French cook sings in The Little Mermaid, only I changed it to onions instead of fish - Les oignons, les oignons, Hee-hee-hee, HAW-HAW-HAW!

Englishly speaking, this has been the easiest soup to make so far.

I started out using a recipe I found online, but it called for five pounds of onions and I got tired of slicing onions after about two pounds worth. And I started to get anxious that I was losing my concentration and I DID NOT want a repeat of the onion-fainting incident. Hee-hee-hee, HAW-HAW-HAW!

So I went to my trusty Joy Of Cooking cookbook and found the recipe there that thankfully called for only two pounds of onions. Fantastique!

The recipes were very similar, so I incorporated ingredients and instructions from the online recipe into the book recipe, for instance adding a bit of brown sugar to the onions as they caramelized. I like it because my cook book now has notes written in the margin. I hope to some day have a cook book full of handwritten notes.

That's pretty much all you do for this soup. Slice onions, put in pot with butter. Watch as they magically produce sugars and colors and smells from deep within. Add a pinch of this and that, plus chicken stock. Simmer. Top with toasted bread and gruyère. Melt, et voilà!

At the last minute, Aaron suggested we invite our neighbors over to share the soup with us. I was a tad nervous because I had no idea how the soup was going to taste, so when I called to ask them to dinner I added that we might all end up eating chicken nuggets and green beans off their two-year-old's plate.

Ah, mais oui, ca c'est toujours delish!