Monday, November 8, 2010

The Onion Ain't So Bad

Soul Food and Southern Cooking told me tonight that by overcrowding the pan, I would be hampering my efforts to succeed in my vegetable medley sautee.  Never mind that, at 25 years old, I needed to look up online, how to sautee vegetables.  I read this teaching point long after my vegetables were nearly finished, crammed in their pan.  Naturally I thought I had ruined them and that the outcome of my dish was going to be horrible because of this hiccup along the way. This idea completely parallels my run today!

I thought I would look super chic in running in my signature lime-green sweatpants that my roommates back home have come to despise, and probably wonder how I manage to wear them nearly every day and still consider them 'clean.'  I snagged my matching headband and hit the streets.  Worst. Idea. Ever.  It felt like I had weights attached to my legs. And on top of that, it started RAINING as soon as I hit the board walk.  Now, I was running in soaked, cotton, pants.  Talk about hampering your efforts.  Thoughts raced through my head, "If you can't run with a little bit of extra weight, how are you ever going to make it 13 miles!"  I was frustrated. I did NOT feel like happy-go-lucky Sally Mae in the white dress.

This vegetable medley is part of a potluck lunch we're having tomorrow at work. I'm bringing veggies and garlic, red-skin, mashed potatoes (mhm!)  As I chopped my peppers, zucchini and squash, I figured that I should probably throw some onion in as well. Now, I despise onion in many, many things.  I would never have thrown that in if it was my own dinner.  But, I realized that a lot of people enjoy the flavoring that an onion can bring into a dish, so chop chop chop I did, and into the pan it went.  As I watched those red onions sizzle and pop into a gorgeous, crispy brown, the room filled with a fantastic aroma.  And it occurred to me: Those onions maybe be 'bad' to me, but they're creating something much bigger and better than I had originally planned.  They're going to flavor the dish, and everyone else is going to love them. 

I didn't plan to appreciate my rock-weighted cotton pants, elongating every step.  But upon reflection, and with this new onion thinking in my mind, I realized that there was a bright side to it.  I thought of how easier it will be to run on Tuesday, without the pants.  Without the extra weight.  This was an unforseen benefit of the drudgery of today to be witnessed only after the fact.

I guess you're always going to have an onion or two in your day.  But I bet you... for reasons understood now or later... that onion probablyyyyy wasn't so bad after all!

1 comment:

  1. mmmm....onions. just make sure you brush your teeth please.

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