If you know me, you know that my cooking isn’t the best and I am not the most confident person in the kitchen. No one should be surprised when I say my favorite cut is the “rough chop.” Every other type of cut is an inferior type of cutting because it would take me too darn long to do and wouldn’t work out anyway. Or I would accidentally chop a finger off.
The rough chop is the best chop.
Unless I’m cutting onions. Then I dice them like a pro because at one of my jobs, my former boss insisted that I learn to dice an onion “properly”. Mostly because he saw me dicing onions one day and I think it terrified him with how bad I was with a knife. So he showed me how to dice an onion and then stood over me while I perfected my onion dicing skills. Apparently it was imperative that all onions be nicely diced so they would look pretty on a burger bun.
Presentation is everything, after all. Even when you’re working in a tiny burger joint that thought blue cheese was a good idea to stick on burgers.
But that’s another story because I definitely threw up when I learned how blue cheese was made.
Anyway! Back to onion cutting.
Cutting onions makes me cry. It makes a lot of people cry, but it especially makes me cry because I use my onion eyes as an excuse to let any and all emotions out. I’m crying anyway, so I might as well make it a good cry, right? Right.
But sometimes I want to ignore my emotions. I also mostly don’t want that horrible stinging pain that you get in your eyes whenever you cut onions. It’s not a fun feeling because it’s hard to get rid of. Sometimes I’m an idiot and rub my onion juice covered fingers in my eyes and I make it worse. Other times I try splashing water in my eyes and that just makes a mess that I won’t clean up. Then other times I try putting my face in front of a fan because a manager once told me that a cool breeze will help dry onion eyes out. And I believed him so I still do it because the pain is so bad that I’m willing to believe anything even though I quit that job years ago. In my opinion, there is no winning with cutting onions.
UNLESS YOU CLOSE YOUR EYES.
Which is exactly what I do. My former boss made me cut so many onions that I’m basically a pro at onion cutting now. I could win championships if there were championships. I am so good at cutting onions that I can cut them with my eyes closed. Literally.
First I chop the ends off and then peel the skins away and cut the onion in half.
Then I just close my eyes and think of England while I chop and dice my onions to perfectly diced pieces. Nothing bad ever happens. I make sure my knife is sharp so the cuts are easy and clean and I just carefully move everything around until the job gets done. I’m confident, I’m positive, I’m upbeat, and gosh darn do I love onions so I need to be a pro at cutting them anyway.
Nothing says professional more than “I can do this with my eyes closed.”
Honestly, cutting onions is one of the few times that I feel truly confident in the kitchen. Which might be why I try to use them in every recipe that I try. Plus they’re tasty. They might be the one thing that adds a little pep to a potentially bland or poisonous meal. I mean…I still have no idea how to use spices, but at least I know how to add onion to almost anything that I make?
We all have our super powers and cutting onions is one of mine.
That and setting fire to soup.