Je vous souhaite tous une bonne année! A very happy new year to all!
Those who know me personally will remember that I was a French major in college, and studied in Paris my junior year. As a result, I spent four years immersed in the plays of Molière, Giraudoux and Sartre; wrote thousands of words comparing and contrasting French philosophies of the 17th and 20th centuries; and have, among other things in my library, a copy of the complete works of Corneille which would be quite serviceable as a doorstop. 

During that junior year abroad, once we had passed the exam to obtain our Certificat pratique de langue française, we had the opportunity to enroll in classes at the Sorbonne or the Université de Paris. But most of our classes, our (extremely vital) mail delivery and all-around gathering spot was at l'Institut d’études européennes, located on an upper floor of a modernized building on the Boulevard de Sébastopol. At lunchtime, we would clatter down the back stairs and out the door that opened onto a street barely the width of a Citroën. Directly across the street was a tiny café the width of a double door and one wide, square window, in which stood, every day, a very large woman of indeterminate age. Wrapped in a voluminous white apron tied in front and wielding a huge knife, she chopped mountains of onions daily for the most delectable onion soup I have ever tasted. Bubbling browned cheese on top that spread into strings impossible to eat politely, and bread soaked with butter and dredging up spoonfuls of onion. Heaven.


She came to mind recently when I was looking for a winter vegetable dish to feature in the monthly feature, "In Season," in Milestones Newspaper, which I edit. I surfed around and somehow fell upon a YouTube video of the inimitable Julia Child making French Onion soup. I was captivated all over again. She spent the first ten minutes of a 30-minute show talking about knives. A sharp knife, she said, is the key to not crying when slicing the 1-1/2 pounds of onions called for in her Soupe à l'Oignon. "AAAL-ways hold the blunt side of the knife against your hand," she said, in that unmistakably up-and-down Julia Child intonation, warning matter-of-factly that otherwise it could "SLICE your hand right in half" as she rapid-chopped an onion into perfect thin slices.


I bought my mother a copy of Child's first cookbook, "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," in 1968, just a year after it was first published. My mother read cookbooks the way some people read mystery novels. She would sit up in bed, completely absorbed, tasting every recipe in her mind as she read. And then she would make us one marvelous dish after another, increasing my incentive to find yet another cookbook for her to devour. As a result, I now have a cabinet full of inherited cookbooks and a lifetime of culinary memories. 

I pulled out Child's cookbook and, out of curiosity,  my own copy of "The International Wine and Food Society's Guide to Soups by Robin Howe, also published in 1967. It was an illuminating experience. The latter is a glossy publication with beautiful full-color photographs, and over the years it has been my guide in making potato, lentil, cucumber and minestrone soup. But there's no comparison between the slapdash onion soup featured here and Child's. 

As Child explains, both in the video and in her book, "The onions for an onion soup need a long, slow cooking in butter and oil, then a long, slow simmering in stock for them to develop the deep, rich flavor which characterizes a perfect brew.  You should therefore count on 2-1/2 hours at least from start to finish." 

And that extra effort is more than worth it. As Julia would say, "Bon appetit!


 Soupe à l'Oignon
adapted from Mastering the Art of French Cooking 
by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck

1 1/2 lbs or about 5 cups thinly sliced yellow onions
3 TBSP butter
1 TBSP oil 
Cook the onions slowly with the butter and oil in a heavy-bottomed, 4-quqrt saucepan for 15 minutes

Uncover and stir in 1 tsp salt  and 1/4 tsp sugar - raise heat to moderate, cook 30 - 40 minutes, stirring frequently until the onions hav turned an even, deep, golden brown.

Sprinkle in 3 TBSP flour and stir for 3 minutes.

1 quart boiling water and 1 quart of stock or bouillon 
1/2 cup dry white wine 
Blend in the boiling liquid; add wine and season with salt and pepper  to taste. Simmer partially covered for 30 to 40 minutes.

French bread, cut 1/2-inch thick Bake i preheated 325-degree oven 15 mintes; drizzle with olive oil; bake 15 minutes more.

1-1/2 cups grated Swiss or Gruyere cheese

Preheat oven to 325 degrees; pour soup into oven-proof tureen; float toast on top; sprinkle cheese over it; bake 15 minutes and serve immediately.