Tricky Wondalund…

 Life has a strange way of presenting options. I turned 31 last week, and in the midst of the euphoria surrounding learning how to snowboard, navigating through serious discount sales and realizing that the job market is absolutely shite because no one can send out 30 job applications and have no callbacks…unless, my resume just isn’t stellar

 
Alors, I decided that if nothing is going to happen for me, then i shall make…French Onion Soup! This isn’t related to any particular event (or rather, non-event in my life being Far more plausible), but I thought it would be a good effort on my part. Beats trying to force my way into yet another KFC in Paris. 

One begins by chopping onions, as so. Pan-frying the onions in a pot with a chunk of butter, a tad of sugar and a tablespoon of flour. Looks good, doesn’t it? 

The magic ingredient is red wine, or sherry. I got a 2 euro bottle of red stuff, where the wine colour was probably colouring and the taste of alcohol was artificially introduced by some enzyeme. My soup turned immediately a dark shade of red after I poured the wine in. After stirring religiously for 15 minutes, my soup turned….grey. hiyah.

Secret ingredient #2 — one beef cube to add robustness to the grey soup.

Last step is to take some ready made pastry - best would be to get your hands on filo pastry to make a little cap for the soup bowl. Sadly, i couldnt find the right kind of filo pastry, but made do with tart pastry instead, which is a tad thick. And of course, since I didn’t know how to use a French oven, i could not estimate the heat too well. But in any case, the finished product looks like…this. Ok, not so handsome…but the taste is pretty good. This is what i call, “ugly till it’s nice” - especially set against the crazy table cloth and the cheap-looking blue bowl. Hiaks! Comical food? I say! 

All in a day’s work…as hard and effortful a day CAN be in my situation!

Ciao from France…