Fabulous French onion soup recipe: Day 15

Virginia MacDonald

I thought it was time for our new roommate—an 18-year-old student from Winnipeg who is also my sister-in-law—to pick a recipe from the cookbook. I almost sighed when she chose the Fabulous French onion soup. There is not one word in the title of that dish that could possibly disappoint. I remember being her age, going out to dinner with friends and ordering French onion soup. I felt so grown up. I even made sure to dip the spoon into the bowl and away from me before bringing it back to my mouth, as that is proper soup etiquette, you see. I can’t say I always do that at home, and I also can’t say that I always sit at the table and savour my food, rather than hunch over the kitchen counter hastily shoving a few crackers in my mouth. Ah, adulthood.  

I do not usually have issues cutting onions. In food preparation, I always volunteer to cut the onions as nary a tear has fallen from my eye while performing this task. I believe it is due to the fact that I wear contact lenses, whereas my 20/20 visioned husband often has to leave the kitchen to regain his sight after slicing an onion. For this dish I had to slice six small onions and I was surprised to find myself getting teary-eared by the end of it. I guess I had never cut six onions in a row before.   

We do not own any heatproof soup bowls (nor do I think we need them), so I put the soup into a round casserole dish in order to broil the cheese in the oven. This works quite well but you must be careful when removing the soup from the top rack. I saw a flash of flame and thought that the soup was on fire but then realized (i.e. was informed by my husband) that the thumbs of my oven mitts had skimmed the top of the oven. Oops. I will have to put ‘oven mitts’ on my shopping list, I think.   

Well, the soup was so delicious that even our toddler was asking for more (mind you, he did not eat the strings of onions, just the broth and the cheesy toasts). The cookbook advises that the soup will keep in the refrigerator for up to 3 days, but it definitely won’t last that long in this house!