After morning yoga, Michael and I started our multi-hour process of caramelizing 25 lbs of onions. We set up an assembly line: Michael chopped the onions in half and took the skins off, and I fed them into the food processor and added them to the pots.
Right now, the two very large pots on the stove are filled with softened onions bubbling away happily in their own juices. We look in on them from time to time between other tasks: picking up our CSA, buying a few more kitchen towels and some slightly larger piping tips, and making the first course (Hint: It involves mushrooms. And rosemary).
Unsurprisingly, the whole house is filled with the smell of simmering onions, and the kitchen is warm and steamy from the cooking. It's very cozy. We'll keep letting them cook down slowly over the course of the next few hours, until all that will remain of that gigantic box is a pile of sweet, mahogany goo. Sometime later tonight, we'll add water and salt and some other spices to make it into soup.
In the meantime, I can catch up a bit on reporting what we were up to yesterday on the Thanksgiving front. In the morning, I went to work and we had the house cleaned while Michael went downtown to DiBruno Brothers and picked up this year's complement of cheese. We got a huge amount of Gruyère as per usual, to melt on top of the onion soup, and a few other assorted varieties for other dishes. This is Rich, one of our favorite cheesemongers, cutting us a piece of Queso de Mano:
We'd originally wanted Manchego, but Rich convinced Michael that this would be better for our purpose. Who are we to argue with the experts? We also got some Cantal and Montgomery's Cheddar, for as-yet-undisclosed culinary purposes.
After I got back from work, we had a quick bite of lunch and went to Moore Brothers to get some wine. We bought nine bottles of red and three of white (case discount!), as well as a gorgeous bottle of cognac. Some of that will be for the cooking, but most of it is just for drinking during the cooking. :)
The afternoon was spent cleaning. Michael polished the crystal and ran the new silverware through the dishwasher. Unfortunately, since our water is so hard, there are a few spots and stains on both the crystal and the silverware, so I've taken it upon myself to do some touch-ups later today. I also washed the china that we'll be using. As I said before, we don't have a complete set of any one type of plate, but I was able to find some websites that are selling odds and ends, so perhaps we will be able to build up a full set soon. Just not before Thursday.
We're pretty much where we want to be with our schedule, which is good news. The rest of today will be spent doing some of the heavy prep work and making things that don't mind sitting for a few days to let their flavors meld. I'll check back later with an onion soup update. The anticipation is mounting!
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