Onion Goggles

Over the years I have heard of many remedies to prevent tears while cutting onions. Many of them were quite amusing chewing on a matchstick while cutting (must be wood), others sound like they could work, run the onion under water for several minutes before cutting and other sounds weird just to try at all and with your goggles firmly in place light the incense, place it next to your cutting board and chop away.

For me, the solution was discovered not by taking old tales of woman as a fact, but simply through trial and error. You see, when I was much younger and starting work in kitchens and I'd have pounds and pounds of onions to slice, dice, julienne and chop them by the chef. With my youthful ambition to dive and I do exactly as he asked, standing on a cutting board for hours just as cutting onions. I liked this kind of menial tasks that many of my colleagues scorned. They saw them as boring and non-educational. I have also saw them as a challenge and an opportunity to improve my skills knife. I weigh onions equal weighted groups at every opportunity and the time to see me if I was growing fast.

Sometimes I wish I was too focused on my head time and would pass and compare the inconsistencies in my julienne slices, he said, "Hegeman, slow it down! This tranche is three times the size of it. I want them all to look like it ", as he did to one of my few perfect slices.

I agree, "Yes boss" and reluctantly pick up my knife again and cut the remaining onions much slower.

I digress, but what I am getting at is that I spend all this time, works hard to resolve, cut and chop the onions and do not give a second thought to tears.

However, on my days off I often strikes a meal at home and after cutting half an onion I was balling like a teenager in the 1960s at a Beatles concert. I wondered what I was doing different and I saw nothing that I was different at home and at work. I peeled the onion of the same, I had the same plastic cutting board I was even using the same knife as the workplace, (I always took my house with me on tools my days off). I could not understand why I cry at home but not at work. Is there an unconscious part of me to keep my tears at bay for fear of tearing to the head and the other guys at work? I could not understand, but I was happy, I've never had more than 1-2 onions cut at home.

I discovered later that he had nothing to do with what I was doing but what was the kitchen. You see the work there were 6 huge extractors in front of me, there was also a major corridor that leads down to a huge reception door behind me that was open to fresh air. At home, I had the windows of my apartment and closed the ceiling fan off tiny. So the answer I discovered is essentially ventilation. The next time you are cutting onions, just make sure to have a good circulation, the air being drawn in and outside the kitchen. Try to cope or be as close as possible to your exhaust fan and open some windows and doors to allow air to circulate.

If you do not have any windows near your kitchen stove has no fan, try taking the board side, fresh air should have the same effect of traffic fumes and dilute before reaching you. I worked in commercial kitchens for many years and this simple method that keeps me from paying an onion tears. So next time you need to cut onions, leave the goggles in the pool matches in the drawer and just turn the fan on and open a window. Good chop.