French Onion Soup

Yesterday Lauren and I cried and cried. Not because Noah turned 10 months old (see below) but because I sliced 5 pounds of onions for some French Freedom Onion Soup. The whole back of the house filled up with a finely atomized onion fog from my lightning-fast chopping blitz, and I had to open the windows. Noah, asleep, didn't miss much.


Why so much? Onions are a pretty frugal way to luxuriate in an enormous amount of something, and I love it when the onion to broth ration is about 50/50. When onion soup is really good, it is tough to beat it on so many levels - the richness of the broth, the softness of the onions, the mellow blending of the white wine and dijon mustard in the muted background, the pomposity of the author.


I don't really have bowls that are safe under the broiler, and frankly I hate cleaning browned cheese off of anything, so for lunch today I broiled the cheese toast separately and dropped them in boiling soup. Same effect, zero mess. One of those rare times it came off as envisioned. Here's the recipe I used.