National French Onion Soup Day

It is National French Onion Soup Day. Let's make some before the cool weather ends completely. The story behind the dark, slightly sweet, aromatic onion soup, served in a crock with a cap of cheese on a floating crouton, was that it was first served in Les Halles, the gigantic marketplace that once was in the center of Paris. Like all such markets, it opened very early in the morning, and it could be cold. One of the vendors began cooking an onion soup covered with enough cheese to keep the soup from cooling quickly. The cheese would re-seal itself after every incursion of the spoon. (So it's wrong to eat the cheese first, at least if you want to be entirely traditional.) Although French onion soup lends itself to cold weather eating, it's pretty good all the time. I make a version that involves using six different onions and six different chili peppers (small ones).

Onion Creek is a small farming town forty-seven miles south of Dallas. It was at one time a station on the Rock Island Railroad; a main line of the Burlington Santa Fe still runs through it. The town is on the creek of the same name, which flows twenty five miles (creating two reservoirs along the way) before it flows into Chambers Creek, a tributary of the Trinity River, a few miles south of the town. This is cotton-growing country and has been for a long time. The nearest restaurants are six miles north in Ennis. Among them I like the sound of Lety's Tortilleria Y Taqueria.

cebollitas, [seh-boy-EE-tass], Spanish, n., pl.--Grilled whole green onions, including the bulb, stalk, and leaves. They're marinated briefly with oil and seasonings (Creole seasoning works perfectly), then grilled until brown here and there. Cebollitas are usually served as an appetizer, but they're also familiar and tasty accompaniments for carne asada or grilled fish.

Always buy one or two bunches of green onions when you're at the store, even if you don't have any explicit plans for them. Having them in hand will make you slice them up and use them somehow, and that can't help but make your meals more interesting.

The six-bottle carton of Coca-Cola was introduced today in 1923. They cost less than the price of six bottles bought one at a time--usuallly the price of five bottles, so you got one free. The bottles themselves held seven ounces of the drink. Compare that with the refrigerator packs of Coke and other soft drinks today, which hold twenty-four cans at twelve ounces each. Ah, these are the good new days! (Or, come up with your own conclusions.)

San Juan de Dios--Saint John of God--was born in Spain today in 1495. Today is his feast day, too. He is the patron saint of alcoholics, many of whom he cared for in a house in Granada that he ran for the sick.

The New Orleans branch of the U.S. Mint began making its first coins--dimes--on this day in 1838. A dime could buy a lunch in those days, but there were no restaurants as we know then around to sell it to us. Antoine's would not open for another two years. Vendors in the French Market would sell you at least a dozen oysters for a dime, though.

Cheryl James, "Salt" in the all-girl rap act Salt 'n' Pepa, was born today in 1964. . . Pop singer Cheryl Baker got the beat today in 1954. . . Jim Rice, an outfielder who won Most Valuable Player in the American League in 1978, came to life today in 1953. . . Baseball pitcher John Butcher had a less successful career in the majors--just seven years--but that's not nothing. He was born today in 1957.

"Happy is said to be the family which can eat onions together. They are, for the time being, separate from the world, and have a harmony of aspiration."--Charles Dudley Warner, American journalist of the late 1800s.

“In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is Freedom, in water there is bacteria.”―Benjamin Franklin.

Deft Dining Rule #161: When eating raw or near-raw onions (as in a salad, cebollitas, or onion rings), it's probably a good idea if your date also eats them, preferably in larger quantity than you do.