Onion Soup Gratinée

These days the temperature in New York has been hovering around 20 degrees, with the wind chill making it feel more like single digits. Mornings have been rough to say the least, and the fireplace has certainly been kept busy. As a bustling holiday season was coming to a close, I decided to make a batch of French Onion Soup — or, as my father kept insisting, Onion Soup Gratinée.

Researching recipe upon recipe I quickly realized that, while they all matched in basic ingredients, each recipe was indeed very different from the next. Cooking onions, beef broth, Gruyère cheese and a french baguette aside, suggestions varied from white wine, red wine, sherry and vermouth to mushrooms, parsley and potato flour. Knowing my own cooking style and personal tastes, I printed out several variations and created my own recipe along the way.

Onion Soup Gratinée certainly is one of my favorite comfort foods, but I've almost always found it to be a bit too salty when ordered out. Creating this recipe gave me an opportunity to tailor its delicate flavor to my liking; likewise, you can play around with different spices and ingredients to personalize it however you like. Be aware, however, that the caramelization process is not a quick process by any means. In order to truly get that creamy onion flavor, you need to cook the onions extremely slowly on very low heat.

Onion Soup Gratinée

Makes 4 servings

2 tbsp butter

3-4 large yellow onions

Kosher salt

4 ounces dry sherry

1 bay leaf

1 quart beef stock, low-sodium

1 can (14-oz.) chicken stock, low-sodium

1/2 cube chicken bouillon

8 slices fresh French baguette

1/2 pound sliced Gruyère cheese (at least 12 slices)

4 oven-proof crocks or large ramekins

Begin by preparing the onions. Cut off both ends and then slice each onion in half lengthwise, from top to bottom. Once you have your halves, begin from one of the flattened ends and cut into thin slices. Set aside.

Go into the bathroom and dry out your eyes with a hair dryer. Stuff a couple tissues up your nose, pop a piece of gum into your mouth, put on a pair of safety goggles, and come back into the kitchen. It's ok — no one's home. If the mailman comes by, matter-of-factly explain that you're fumigating the house for dog-sized rats and that he should keep his distance. Trust me, he'll listen.

In a soup pot, coat the bottom with olive oil and set on medium-low heat. Add onions, sprinkle generously with salt, and toss to coat evenly. Add butter, toss to coat once more, cover and allow onions to cook, undisturbed, for approximately 20-25 minutes. This process will allow the onions to "sweat" and prepare them for the caramelization process.

Once the onions have sweated and released a good amount of liquid, add the sherry and cook on low heat, uncovered, for approximately 45 minutes. Check up on them every so often and you'll notice the unique golden color they begin to acquire while they simmer in their butter-and-sherry bath. Low and slow is the secret.

Now that the onions have acquired a creamy texture, add both broths, the chicken bouillon, and the bay leaf and bring to a gentle simmer. Cook for an additional 30 minutes, tasting every so often to adjust seasonings.

In the meanwhile, drizzle some olive oil in a separate pan over medium heat. Place the baguette slices in the pan and brown on both sides, sprinkling with kosher salt to taste and adding extra olive oil if needed.

Once the soup is done simmering, ladle 3/4 of the way into individual oven-proof crocks. Place two slices of toasted baguette followed by three or four slices of cheese. Place crocks in the oven and, setting to broil, allow the surface to become bubbly and slightly brown.

Remove and set aside to cool slightly before serving.

Mini Mushroom Cups

If you were to ask me to pick out one type of produce to eat for the rest of my life, I would without a doubt or single hesitation answer mushrooms. While I did not really acquire a true taste for them up until about five years ago, these days I love each and every bite. Mushrooms are extremely versatile, lending their buttery flavor to everything from omelets and quiches to soups and pastas, and play so nicely with many different ingredients.

I made these for Thanksgiving as a little pre-meal snack; the flavors of fresh thyme and pinot noir really team up with the sassy crème fraîche to put a spin on the traditional finger food. Since I use shallots and garlic pretty frequently in my cooking, I dice them ahead of time in a larger batch and keep the reserve in a (well-sealed!) container in the refrigerator with a touch of light olive oil. This way I can spoon out any amount as needed without the hassle of last-minute chopping. The mushroom mixture can be made ahead of time and refrigerated, and the phyllo shells can be kept frozen until needed.

Mini Mushroom Cups

Makes 30

INGREDIENTS

1 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp butter

1 1/2 lb fresh white mushrooms, cleaned and finely chopped

2 shallots, finely chopped

3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

3 tbsp pinot noir (or other dry red wine)

1 1/2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

3/4 c crème fraîche

2 tsp fresh thyme, chopped

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

2 packages frozen mini phyllo shells (2.1 oz each; 30 total)

Preheat oven to 400°F.

In a large skillet, heat oil and butter over medium-high heat. Stir in shallots and garlic, sautéeing until slightly transparent. Add mushrooms, toss to coat and, stirring often, cook until edges begin to brown.

Add wine and stir, allowing all liquid to be absorbed. Stir in vinegar, crème fraîche, thyme, salt and pepper. Stirring every so often, allow mixture to simmer until it takes on a thicker consistency.

Spoon hot mushroom mixture into shells and place on a cookie sheet. Bake at 400°F for 8 to 10 minutes.

For Nonno

Summer is long gone and winter is just around the bend, the smell of snow and burning wood lingering in the air. Labor Day gave way to Halloween and the beautiful fall leaves that once shivered with laughter have made their way to their earthy graves. Thanksgiving has just passed and I though it only fitting to incorporate a nice theme of — well — thanks into this blog post.

I feel that I've been rather absent these last bunch of months, as I take a look here and see that my keyboard has gathered the kind of dust that only comes with the passing of a season in what feels like the blink of an eye. I've been taking a lot more photographs these days than I have been putting my thoughts into words. I don't know if this fits here, but I suppose it's as good a place as any to talk about my grandfather.

I'll never forget the day, about 5 years ago, when I went over for Sunday dinner to find him not feeling well. I'll never forget when we found out he had Parkinson's. I'll never forget the day he went into the nursing home, the day my grandmother realized she couldn't care for him anymore by herself, the day she sold the house full of my childhood memories. I'll never forget the day I allowed myself to fully realize what was happening, breaking down in my mother's arms in the kitchen, absorbing the fact that the day I had been dreading was rapidly approaching. I'll never forget celebrating his last birthday with him on October 11th and then walking into his room on October 18th to visit him only to find my grandmother, mother and uncle standing over him as the priest read him his last rites. I'll never forget telling him about all our amazing memories and that, yes, it was ok for him to go. He needed that permission and I knew it. I'll never forget my grandmother standing over him, pulling his barely conscious body into her arms and saying, "It's time, Berto. Go to sleep now...it's time. I love you."

And I'll never, ever forget getting the call at 2 o'clock in the morning on October 21st that it was finally over.

The next couple of days are some sort of a blur in my memory, clear and yet not. It happened pretty fast as he passed on a Wednesday, the wake was on Thursday and he was buried on Friday. I held my 8 year old cousin throughout the entire funeral mass and burial, her 13 year old brother by my side. I will tell you one thing: when we all arrived at the church, his reaction as they pulled the casket from the hearse broke me. He buried his face into his father's chest and wailed. As we went through the day I watched my whole family — cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews. I studied their faces, watching as the veil of grief settled into their individual features. I looked down at the youngest ones and, all I could think was, I only wish they had gotten a chance to know their grandfather as I knew him, young and vibrant and smart and sassy. Hahaha, what a wise ass! I miss him so much.

This was not the post I set out to write, and yet somehow this is the post that came to be. There's a part of me that wants to erase it all and write about what I originally came here to write, about Thanksgiving and yummy treats and wonderful family, but the bigger part of me is letting this be as is. Because, in truth, this is a post about Thanksgiving, about giving thanks for all that he was to me and all that he still is. Every time the wind picks up and whips through the empty space around me, I know he's there.

Everyone had their thing: my grandmother buried him in his favorite newsboy cap (so typical of an Italian immigrant), my mother put a photo of him as a baby surrounded by his four siblings, mother and grandparents, and my aunt held on tight to his masonry trowel. I wanted him to be buried with the photo book that I had made the previous Christmas, one for him to keep in the nursing home and one for Nonna to keep with her at home. It held pictures of all of us, young and old through the years, with an inscription in the very beginning that read:

Siamo tutti angeli con una sola ala, possiamo volare solo se ci abbracciamo l'uno con l'altro.

We are each of us angels with only one wing, and we can only fly by embracing one another.

He's there now, buried under the shade of a beautiful and grand oak tree. We've been back several times to visit and each time my eyes find his spot, that hole in my heart burns, like wind on embers, with as much intensity as it did that early October morning. I guess that's how strong a love like that operates.

I love you.