Onions

This morning I woke up and I thought about onions. A somewhat strange thought to start a day. There is a story behind onions as with most things in my life and I do love a good story.

I have always been a picky eater. Growing up my pallet was limited. I ate peanut butter and honey sandwiches until grade 7 when I switched to ham and cheese. I stayed with that sandwich until an onion broke my stubborn eating choices.

My mom used to make spaghetti and meat sauce at least once a week. I did not understand that an important ingredient in spaghetti sauce is in fact the onion. What ever the reason, I would spend as much time as needed to pick out every visible onion I could find in my mom’s spaghetti sauce. This could take up to 5 min before I was ready to eat.

Then I went to Lithuania. After a few months of eating local dishes and more potatoes than ever, we were craving some kind of food that reminded us of home. At just the right time we discovered a pizza place. We each ordered our own. I had a thin crust pepperoni with mozzarella cheese. The smell of our pizzas cooking was intoxicating. We could not wait.

Our pizzas came to our table and to my horror, there was an entire onion sliced up and all over the pizza. I think I almost cried. My two friends started eating and I started to pick away. Using my fingers, I slowly picked each slice of onion off my pizza. My friends were almost done eating and I had yet to take a bite. Embarrassment and hunger finally took over and I started eating.

The first few bits were delicious. Then I hit an onion. The texture almost made me stop. But after 3 months, it was too good to refuse. I had for the first time in my life eaten onion slices and survived. Two weeks later, we were back at the pizza place and this time no picking, just eating. Onion after onion was chewed up and swallowed.

Now I love onions.