Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Onion Soup Will Make You Closer

Sometimes even failures can bring people closer.   Especially when they are experienced together. 

I love soup. All kinds of soup.  I love chowders, stews and bisque. All of it is delicious. 

I found this recipe for "Smoky Corn Chowder" that looked right for my culinary skill level.  I cooked bacon crispy and removed it for later. Cooked onion with spices. Added corn, chicken broth and half & half. Simmered together made for a wonderful chowder.  

I tend to add more of the ingredients I like. I added extra corn and onion and bacon. 

I made the chowder knowing that T was coming for dinner. I made extra, bought a fresh loaf of sourdough bread and it was going to be a nice dinner.  

What I did not count on is T not really liking onions. Damn. I made the onion pieces larger so their flavor was even more pronounced. While he politely ate the soup, he did not take seconds commenting that there was a lot of onion.  

In fairness, I did just about double the amount of onion and if you don't really care for them, it probably was pretty awful.   Now, more than a year later, you would only have to look at T's comment on my last posting to see that he is still giving me crap about it.  help 


Rewind to the winter of 1992

I love Boston. I am not a fan of big cities in general, but I love Boston. 

K and I had been together a short time.  A matter of a few months, and we took a trip to Boston for the day.  Because only crazy people drive in Boston, we too the "T".  We parked at Riverside station took the Green Line into the city.  We got on this train:





What I didn't know at the time was there are 4 branches of the of the green line.  You will notice this one is the "D" train.


After a nice day in the city, we were ready to leave.  We returned to the subway and go on this train:




You will notice this is not a "D" train.  So we got on the wrong train.  Once we realized it K thought we should get off and get get on the one that goes back underground where can can get back on the right train.  I must have been feeling adventurous, and I said, "Let's ride it out and see where it goes."


As we went on, the ... let's call it the quality ... of the neighborhood was going down.  The we hit the end of the line and had to get off.  So we got off, in a strange neighborhood, with no coins (needed to get back on the next train) and, oh yeah, it was starting to snow.  


For the next almost twenty years when ever I make a decision that K thinks is not the right one she will tell me, "Oh Yeah.  Let's just ride it out and see where it goes."  It is a signal for me that I might need to re-think my position.


These kinds of stores become part of a couple's shared experiences. It draws them together. Even though both of these stories are at my expense, I look at them as fond and treasured memories that bind me to the people I care about.

7 comments:

T said...

I thought it was a new recipe for French onion soup...I'm sorry...
The reason I didn't have the second bowl was because we also had onion rings for appetizer, onion sandwich for main course, and onion pudding for desert.
:)

jim said...

I have never tried onion pudding, but I did make a Sweet Onion Pie.

Thomas (Tom) Rimington said...

Jim: One of my favorite snacks is a peanut butter sandwich with sweet (raw) onion sprinkled on top of the PB...

Cubby said...

I loved your "ride it out" story. Greg and I go on adventures like that sometimes when we have plenty of time of kill. Exploring new places is always fun, even when you know you've taken a wrong turn or made some kind of mistake.

T said...

Jim likes to tour around New York, too...He likes to take a few hours circling the traffic... :) He has a whole backyard full of onions.

jim said...

Yes, T and I had a GPS malfunction that led to an unplanned tour of NYC.

RB said...

Post the recipe! Sounds delicious