My super power is cutting onions with my eyes closed

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.

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I shouldn’t cook topless

I don’t have a whole lot of body confidence. Which is weird because I dislike clothes and love being naked. I will wear flip flops year round unless there is at least an inch of snow on the ground and I will traipse around my home in as little clothing as possible. It’s more comfortable and just means less laundry for me. If not wearing clothes means I get to be comfy and do less laundry then I am all for it. Plus being naked is just all kinds of decadent fun.

It’s not so great for cooking though.

Ever.

No matter how often I think that it’s ok to cook in only a sports bra and shorts, it never is. I used to have some scars on my stomach from an unfortunate bacon cooking incident and a burn mark from a run in with a hot pan. I’ve burnt my hands, my chest, stomach, shorts, and even my hair and…sometimes I learn from it. Very briefly I learn my lesson.

Except I forgot all of those lessons while making soup the other night. I still have scars on my person, but I still decided to ignore them and traipse around in my kitchen in a sports bra and sweats. I had been cooking without incident for several months and was confident in my mad kitchen skills.

Everything was smooth sailing on my potato soup making adventure. Bacon was made with no incident. Potatoes were chopped and put in the pot with broth with no incident. In fact, I had followed the whole recipe without incident. I had cut, measured, and done everything with care as the recipe told me to do.

Or at least I had until I realized that I had forgotten to add celery to the pot. The pot that was now full of piping hot liquid. The pot that was almost full to overflowing because I should have used a bigger pot. Of course I didn’t think of any of this then. The recipe said to add the celery so I was going to add the damn celery.

Without any thought, I picked up the cutting board covered in celery, grabbed my knife to scrape it in, and pivoted to start carefully scraping the chopped and crunchy green bits into the pot. Cutting board in one hand, knife in the other, everything was fine. I can cook now. I don’t need adult supervision. I carefully slid little bits of celery in a little bit at a time. I gently scraped and pushed those crunchy green bits in, bit by bit.

Or at least I did until being careful was taking too long. Patience is not one of my virtues. I’m also not known for thinking my thoughts through. At this point I was a kitchen wizard and nothing could hurt me. So instead of continuing to carefully add the celery to the pop full of nearly boiling liquid, I tipped my cutting board up and dumped the rest in with an audible scrape and SPLASH.

A splash that sent a tidal wave of potato filled, scalding broth flying up into the air. A splash that caused hundreds of tiny drops of burning liquid to spatter across my stomach and always ample cleavage. A yelp of pain and terror escaped as a line of burning liquid burrowed its way into the abyss of my chesticles and I immediately dropped my cutting board and knife to try and claw the liquid away from me.

Let’s read that sentence again.

I IMMEDIATELY DROPPED A SHARP KNIFE TO THE FLOOR TO TRY AND SAVE MY BOOBS FROM BEING BURNED.

As soon as I let go of the knife I let out a yelp of terror as I jumped back from the falling blade.

Then I just stood there. Potato soup spattered across my chest and stomach like some weird porn, knife and cutting board on the floor, and the smell of burning potatoes that had escaped into the element slowly filling my kitchen. There was really nothing for me to do in that moment. I just stood there and admired the mess that only I could make while trying to make soup.

Really good soup too, I might add. I eventually finished making my soup and it was darn delicious even though my cleavage was a bit sore from the cascade of hot broth that jumped down there. Now for at least the next few months I’ll cook fully clothed despite loving nudity and hopefully I’ll cook with a little more care and patience.

I mean…probably not, but a girl can hope right?

RIGHT?!