"Onions?"
"They're not very exciting", you're probably saying to yourself.
"Shouldn't David be writing about chocolate?"

During the heat of August, most of the chocolate shops were closed (and the bakeries too) as Parisians split for les vacances and Paris becomes an uncrowded paradise, bringing to mind the saying...
"There's only one thing wrong with Paris... it's full of Parisians!"

So I thought I'd write a bit about the darker, less-sweet, but multi-layered love of my life: onions and garlic.

I've been writing about the butter-packed cakes and pastries of Brittany for the past few weeks (and my expanding tummy), so I thought I'd introduce you to the other superstar of Brittany (and no, not superstar Brittany Spears, with her expanding tummy...although I suppose if I mention her name a lot here I'll get plenty of Google-ing from teenage girls searching for news of her impending delivery.)

The rose-colored onions of Roscoff, a small port village off the north coast of Brittany, which faces England. Beginning back in 1828, French farmers would load up boats with these pink onions to sell them from their bicycles in England, where the farmers were affectionately dubbed "johnnies" by the Brits.

When I arrived in France a few years ago, I was a surprised to find that red onions are rare and they were four-times the price of yellow onions. I reasoned that although French cuisine uses lots of onions, most often they're cooked to enhance their sweetness, and they become an essential backdrop for braises, stews, and casseroles...and most-notably in French Onion Soup.
Almost never will you be served raw onions served in France, and certainly not in Paris, where there is a distinct aversion to uncooked garlic, which surprises many Americans, who don't realize the people in Provence eat quite differently than Parisians. (Like the people in Chicago eat differently than people in, say, Hawaii or Texas.)

Most of the appreciation for raw onions belongs to Americans (North, South and Central) and the British. And since the sweet red onions that I like so much are not only rare here, but expensive, on a recent visit to Roscoff, I lugged back to Paris a hefty 10-pound sack of the famed pink onions, recalling my Costco hoarding days, I suppose...(what the heck was I going to do with 10 pounds of raw onions?)

The first thing I noticed when you cut open les onions roses, is that they're quite firm and fresh, with a appealing crispness with none of the softness common in yellow onions (compare cutting into a farm-fresh, crisp-art apple versus a soft, commercial apple, like the kind you buy at the airport, and you get the picture.)

So what was I to do with my fragrant, onion-y windfall?
When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade.
But Onion-ade didn't sound very appealing so I opened one of my favorite books, The Zuni Café Cookbook (which everyone should own) and turned to the recipe for Red Onion Pickles (page 270-271.) Since the Zuni Café is 6000 miles away in San Francisco, I have to make do with Judy's superb book in my efforts to recreate her dishes, with much success. I've been craving a hamburger for the past few months, I figured if I made the pickles, somehow a decent hamburgers would eventually find their way to me...right? A recent experiment making Salmon Burgers and trying to make American-style homemade buns (you try finding hamburger buns in Paris...) confirmed that when you really crave a hamburger, you should have a real hamburger, since anything else just tastes like a fishy substitution.

The Zuni Café's Red Onion Pickles

(Adapted from The Zuni Café Cookbook by Judy Rodgers)

Judy's recipe calls for 1 pound of red onions, peeled and sliced into rings. Make a brine with 3 cups white vinegar, 1½ cups of sugar, cinnamon stick, a few cloves, allspice berries and peppercorns. Add 2 bay leaves and a small dried chili, then bring it all to a boil in a 4-quart non-reactive saucepan.

The most vexing part was reading the instructions, which seemed to embody her philosophy of asking yourself, "Is there a more difficult way I can be doing this?"
Her instructions at first seemed complex (and since I'm an impatient cook, as you may notice, most of the recipes in my books are 1 or 2 pages, maximum), but when broken down into steps, her recipe was quite easy and took very little time but a bit of diligence.
The goal here is not to overcook the onions, preserving their crunch, sweetness, and delicate pink hue.

Simmer the onion rings, in three separate batches (that means, one-third of the onion rings at a time), for 20 seconds each (20 seconds for each batch) in the brine. Remove onions to a baking sheet using a slotted spoon to drain them, and let cool.

Then you do it again, simmer the onions in three separate batches, for 20 seconds each. Drain them, and cool.

Then you do it again...simmer the onions in three separate batches (yes, have you memorized it yet?... 20 seconds each...then drain them and let them cool.)

Finally you chill the brine thoroughly. Once chilled, add the onions and store in the refrigerator.

Sure enough, like all the recipes from Judy Rodgers, this one was a winner and tasted just like the Red Onion Pickles from Zuni in San Francisco.