Ode On A Spanish Onion

It is a late and closeted hour in Hanover. The once verdigris sky has contracted into a nebulous hole of steamy depth. I come home desultory and slavering. My key clicks and I wander into my kitchen, craving a disparate flavor. Dear God. Give me something new. I need novelty. I need something more than the pomegranates of the malevolent earth. My mind is drenched in trivialities, my temples beating like a sodden shrew's boiling heart. Were it not for my cell phone ringing out in desperation, I would fall on the floor like a oven grate, burning and jangling and hissing its final miseries in a sweaty linoleum coffin. But here we have a surprise. Pete has been shopping and has called to inform me he will be home soon -- oh make it soon -- with the bounty of the co-op, pretentious and predictable ingredients from euphemistic and charming aisles, fresh and supple delectables to nourish and sustain my woefully empty soul.

Upon his arrival I am struck though with one scintillatingly subtle purchase -- the spanish onion. What masterful creator could have flashed such a thing into existence? What enigmatic evolutionary feat of Dawkinsian mettle might unearth the superlative root vegetable of Isabelle? For what meal begins without the peasantlike addition of an onion? What cast iron is motivated to conduction without preemptive carmelization? Not this one. I begin to slice, my freshly sharpened blade effortlessly quartering and exhuming æons of trigeminal sensory modification into my flooding eyes.

The sizzlesnap of evaporation and the gentle coo of the heat induced reformation from harsh and spicy to saccharine and earthy plays like an orphean lyre, causing my bloodfilled ears to swoon and wrinkle. My vegetables and meats are enriched by the grilled passion. I could take my nose anywhere from here. A sprig of thyme, allons-y. Knobbly spatterings of ginger, konichiwa. Habichuelas? muy bueno. Ah but that is beauty. The onion is not elite, it is not choosy. It loves its saute partners, and in contra they mingle and rub elbows and never skittish, encouraging and inviting the wallflowers, they have made me a believer -- and dinner.