“Life is like an onion. You peel it off one layer at a time; And sometimes you weep.” ~ Carl Sandburg

Slap me with a wet noodle.

The other day, for the first time in 30+ years of married life, I ran out of onions. Of course I discovered this serious lack of forethought right around 5:30 p.m., when I was ready to start dinner.

I mean, who runs out of onions? Nobody, that’s who. I was doomed. Elizabeth Robbins Pennell’s words rang out loud and clear:

Banish (the onion) from the kitchen and the pleasure flies with it. Its presence lends color and enchantment to the most modest dish; its absence reduces the rarest delicacy to hopeless insipidity, and dinner to despair.

No, I was not about to run to the grocery store during rush hour. Drivers here would eat me alive, don their smoking jackets, then gnaw on my windshield wipers. Goodbye, chili! Goodbye chicken soup! Goodbye veggie stir fry! There is simply no cooking without onions. Despair, that’s my middle name. Insipid is my game. Even worse, Julia Child chimed in: “It’s hard to imagine civilization without onions.” Add to my resumé, “savage Neanderthal.” *hangs head*

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