Onion soup holds terrifying nostalgia. I grew up eating “glop” or stews of chicken and beef combined with whatever else happened to be expiring, looked suspicious or only to be consumed by boiling the hell out of it until fear of poisoning burned away. Most of the time, it was good, and I credit such catastrophic flavors for creating a versatile palate.

My childhood refrigerator was stuffed with so much food that grabbing a stick of butter could trigger an avalanche of ingredients to fall at your feet. A science experiment laid within every shelf. Soups left to ferment in the back, cheese aging with fuzzy mold and carrots left to rot in their own goo. We never went hungry and were rarely sick, perhaps because our bodies were constantly fighting off infection.

Onion soup is my father’s specialty. It is the best I have ever had and no snooty French restaurant, nor the streets of Paris have one better. The soup, as you’d guess, is an enigma. The secret is in creating your own stock and using a variety of onions, as many as you can find, chopping them all day and sweating them all night.

On one unfortunate occasion, my school bag was left beside the cutting board to absorb every onion tear and fume. Sitting on the bus the next day, I remember smelling a strong scent, similar to body odor and I recoiled at its strength. I smelled myself. It wasn’t me. And then, I glanced at my bright orange L.L. Bean bag, lurking in the seat and spewing out the onion scent like an animal in heat. My book bag, with Noelle embroidered across it, was now holding my barely beating self confidence in its fabric.

I had no choice but to carry it, the equivalent of the smelly kid riding on my back. I watched as people whispered, gaged, horrific expressions on their faces, teachers fainted, nuns pointed condemnation and projectile vomit followed my path. I wanted nothing more than to scream, “it’s not me!” and stab my onion-soup cooking father repeatedly.

Nevertheless, I survived, but learned a very good lesson — cook onion soup at someone else’s home. Trust me. My parent’s house smells like onions…still. But the soup, the soup is great, if not the absolute best. Anything that can make you feel joy and terror with just one taste was worth all those therapy sessions.

Check out Simply Recipes for a great basic onion soup and offer to make it at your folks house.

Michelada sounds like a painting or a sexual position, not a beer and hot sauce concoction. As I do tend to worship the Bloody Mary, this tantalizing drink looks lovely or rather really dirty. This is the type of brew you’d crave the morning after a drunken bar fight, the taste of blood in your mouth and sand in your hair. Or at least that’s my fantasy…

Check out this recipe from Israel Prado of El Chile Cafe y Cantina in Austin:

1 lime wedge wedge
chile with salt and lime seasoning (such as Chilimon)
Ice Cubes
2 Tbls. fresh lime juice
1 dash hot pepper sauce
1 dash Worcestershire sauce
1 12-ounce bottle Dos Equis lager

Run lime wedge around rim of 20-ounce glass to moisten. Pour seasoning onto small plate; dip rip of glass in seasoning. Fill glass with ice. Add lime juice, hot pepper sauce, and Worcestershire sauce to glass. Add beer. Sprinkle with more seasoning and serve.

My beautiful American Staffordshire Terrier, Tesla (named after scientist, not band), is my best friend and nutritionist. If she were a woman, she would be on that Bravo TV show WorkOut; she’s completely ripped and wild. In order to keep portions down, I give her roughly half of my lunch, and part of every meal thereafter. Everyone’s happy, including my abs. Lose weight, get a dog at your local SPCA.

Times are hard and I’ve been thinking about going back to work for the Man. 9-5 brings stability in the financial sense, a consistent paycheck for food, gas and a pair of William Rast jeans.

Every now and then, I look back on my ranting emails during the cold, corporate days of receiving notes on my desk like, “You were 4 minutes late this morning,” or “re: 5 minutes late coming back from lunch.” I smell waves of breakfast pizza and stale coffee. It’s terrible.

It’s been 9:45 for the past three hours. I am sitting in what appears to be a prop chair, red leather and dark wood reeking of a library. I just stare at my computer screen with a slight inquisitive look. I am frozen in this position.

My only correspondence has been from Stretch the balloon artist, and even he has blown me off for a balloon twisting class in Minnesota. I’m working my first job as an event associate. My experience thus far has been two feelings, one of mild retardation and the other of atrophied muscles… as if my twenty-something body has begun to take shape with the chair.

“Noelle, Bongo the clown on line 2″

I have nicknamed myself the clown pimp. I need face painters and the like for this specific event; they make more money an hour than most people I know. Clowns are the secret business of the elites. The power house hidden beneath make up and a red nose, where the true aristocracy runs through waves of rainbow colored hair.

Dance monkey dance.

I’ve considered lying on the ground in the fetal position until someone notices.

The IT guy just walked by — I don’t even want to mention him for fear of cliche. But it’s all there, even down to the robotic wave hello and curious smell.

I’m on serious edge.

Motivation to keep freelancing…

Just the title of this recipe coats my mouth with desire. Mussels, butter, sake and chiles — what a beautiful combination created by Bon Appétit. I couldn’t have painted a better dish. Stir things up tonight with this Asian take on a classic French cuisine — be sure to have some crusty bread on hand to dip in the broth.

Ingredients

5 tablespoons butter, divided
2 1/2 cups chopped green onions (about 10 large)
1 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 cup sake
6 Thai bird chiles with seeds or 3 small serrano chiles with seeds, sliced crosswise into thin rounds
2 teaspoons soy sauce
3 large garlic cloves, pressed
2 1/2 pounds mussels, scrubbed, debearded

Find preparation details here.

Sunday, I drove to Buffalo, NY to visit the family and cook a pot roast (at my grandmother’s request) for mother’s day. My parents have 8 cats and 2 dogs, Thelma and Louise, one is blind and the other looks like she smokes a pack a day. They’re happy.

My grandmother, Maga, is 92 years old and recently purchased a hearing aid. She hasn’t had one because she felt “this was her last Christmas” and hearing aids aren’t useful when you’re dead. After ten years of screaming at her, “HI MAGA! HOW ARE YOU TODAY?” and then whispering, “holy fuck! I can’t scream like this the entire time,” she decided it was time to upgrade her parts. Now she tells me to quiet down and get her a Tom Collins.

Later, I went wine shopping with the folks and decided to splurge on a $15 bottle of Cabernet, among my favorites, Joel Gott. It is a rule of mine to always drink a good bottle first and after that, it hardly matters. Sometimes the first bottle is so delicious, the second isn’t necessary. We spent a solid hour and a half drinking that bottle, appreciating its deep red color, its fine legs and swirling it on our mouths like the flavor held a secret.

Our conversation turned from Burning Man, to recreational drugs, to the movie P.S. I Love You. The latter by the way, had me crying from start to finish; it’s pure manipulation the way filmmakers rip out your heart and leave it still beating on the table long after the credits have passed. I’ve been listening to Irish music ever since…

The smell of boxed cake mix is like an orgasm for my nose. Suddenly moist supreme takes on new meaning and I can’t help but be drawn to the magical goo. Who knew there were so many sexual innuendos in the baking aisle?

I am making Oreo buttercream cupcakes for a birthday party this evening. That is if I can stop licking the bowl — what is it about boxed cake mix batter that is so much better than anything I could make from scratch?

There has to be a special substance in there that has me so incredibly intoxicated by its scent, that leaves me wanting more and quite frankly, all hot and bothered.

Here’s the movie’s plotline via Wiki: Frustrated temp secretary Julie Powell (Amy Adams) embarks on a yearlong culinary quest to cook all 524 recipes in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. She chronicles her trials and tribulations in a blog that catches on with the food crowd. The film also covers the years Julia Child and her husband Paul (Stanley Tucci) spent in Paris during the 1940s and ’50s, when Paul was a foreign diplomat who was eventually investigated by Sen. Joseph McCarthy for alleged communist ties.

Julie & Julia is currently filming and is slated to be released in 2009. The film is based on Julie Powell’s memoir Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen. Directing is Nora Ephron, whose film credits include Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail and Bewitched. Dave Annable (Brothers & Sisters) and Mary Lynn Rajskub (24) also costar.

I read a bit of Julia Child’s memoir and she sounds like a party. Honestly, there’s no one I would rather be in Paris with at 3am with a bowl of onion soup and a glass of red wine… pouring the wine in the soup at the end. Sigh. And what a cast this film has - can’t wait to see it.

I’ve made it a habit to check in on Randy Pausch through his blog. It’s on the days I may have a tinge of self pity, whether from fucking up a recipe (last night’s baby artichokes were a complete failure) or when my cynical side starts to crawl through my nostrils like garlic and butter joining in a pan.

May 2nd, 2008 - Cancer Spreads

Yesterday’s PET scan showed that I have very tiny (5mm or less) metastases in my lungs and some lymph nodes in my chest. I also have some metastases in my peritoneum and retroperitoneum cavities (basically, inside my abdomen).

This is unfortunate, but we knew it would happen sooner or later, and we’ve been able to stave it off much longer than anticipated, so I’m very grateful for that.

My current strategy is to continue to recover from the heart and kidney failure, and once I’m strong enough, then we’ll either do the SIR-Spheres or some systemic chemo, depending on the relative growth of the liver and non-liver tumors.

It’s a sad day when your cereal has lost that crunch. I can still remember when my Rice Krispie Treat Cereal failed to snap, crackle, pop back in ‘96.

I assumed these things just happened, that is until I found the EatMeCrunchy Bowl.

The eatmecrunchy cereal bowl was developed to have a unique shelf-design that keeps your cereal dry - meaning you’ll never have soggy cereal again.

I feel better about the world already.