Onions and Orchids

 The title is from the headline in a daily feature of the newsletter we received every day during my one-and-only week at summer camp.  Onions were the items listed as things the camp counselors didn't like; orchids were the things they did.  My footie pajamas made it on the orchids' side.
  This week has been a collection of onions and orchids.  Onions, literally, as seen here, draining from the Preserve Kitchen steam kettle.  I cooked these two cases of sweet onions--from Peru, not Vidalia, Georgia--all day yesterday, trying to get them to cook without color.  Dear Readers, I hesitate to tell you the truth, but I'm afraid I must:  these onions are for a dessert.  Every year, the Farm hosts a fund raising dinner for the local art museum.  The last four years, we've featured a guest chef.  This year, the guest chef wrote a menu of difficult recipes, weird food pairings and a dessert from his pastry chef that makes me want to wear a bag over my head.  Neither the chef nor his pastry chef, who shall both remain nameless, are making their food.  They've sent recipes, and I've talked with the pastry chef over the phone to clarify the recipe.
   These onions have now be gelatinized and are chilling.  Today, I will cut the onion gel-oh into squares.  Tonight, I will place a square of melted-then-hardened sugar over each square and, using a blow torch, will remelt the sugar.  Then, I will place a hemisphere of hominy ice cream (yes, you read that correctly) on top.  Next to that, I will place a cylinder of buttermilk panna cotta.  So, white onion gel-oh, white hominy ice cream and white panna cotta.  Light brown-to-beige sugar melted.  No sauce, no garnish, white plate, no change in texture, onions, onions, onions in a dessert.
  And at the end, we will all be asked to come out to the dining room to greet the guests, 250 of them.  In the other three times I've participated, we've been greeted by a standing ovation.  I'll be ashamed to go out tonight.
  But the job is going better, in spite of the onion unpleasantness!  And the rest of my life is very nice, indeed!  It's been a beautiful week, after the deluge of Monday, and I was able to go hang out with my weaving tribe, the Tuesday Weavers!  I gave Dustin the baby blanket and he loved it.  I've been knitting some nice things, too.  Here is a scarf I'm knitting from the Alpaca yarn Mom gave me for Christmas, in a pattern I got a couple of years ago from the Yarn Haven, a LYS in Cedar Bluff.  
  I've made several false starts on the socks, but I keep trying.  I am in search of a startlingly beautiful lace pattern that will show up in this dark variegated yarn.  The yarn is merino-alpaca-silk, and it's so very luscious!  It feels good to knit, but I need to stop reverse-knitting soon and get down to business.
  Well, I'd love to stay and chat but I have onion gel-oh to cut!  Have a lovely weekend!