Nothing a bunch of onions and butter can't fix
The ACBN Friday Newsletter has the cure for a kitchen injury
I have a lot of kitchen gadgets.
This is a known fact about me, and one that I’ve written about at some length before:
There’s not a tool, device, utensil or gizmo that I won’t happily add to my overstuffed kitchen drawer, a habit that’s only gotten worse in the years that I’ve had this newsletter as plausible cover for buying things I already wanted to buy. They all have a purpose, and I love each of my gadget children in their own wonderful way.
Except for one, that is.
There’s one kitchen gadget that I don’t love; instead, I fear it.
It is a gadget of incredible utility but great danger, one whose output is tremendously satisfying but whose use is utterly terrifying.
I speak, of course, of The Dreaded Mandoline Slicer.
For its intended purpose—rapidly and efficiently cutting vegetables into thin, equally-sized slices—there is no tool that can compare. Unfortunately, it is also a kitchen tool that knows its own power, and demands a regular blood sacrifice in return. Once every 12 to 18 months, I will forget this. I will become too comfortable wielding the awesome power of the tool, and fail to pay the proper respect to its dangers. It is at these moments that I must learn The Lesson of the Mandoline Slicer anew.
This is all to say that I am typing today’s newsletter with a bandage on my thumb.1 The mandoline received its sacrifice for 2023, and a fresh lesson was learned by all involved.
(Only me, and I guess maybe my son, who heard me yell a curse when I did it.)
Fortunately, there’s no small kitchen injury that can’t be fixed with a few onions and crapload of butter, and after I cleaned myself up and washed the cutting board, I was right back to exactly that business.
Friends, it’s Friday on The Action Cookbook Newsletter.
The leaves are turning, the sweatshirts are back out of the closet, and I’m steering us straight into Deep Fall here today. Today’s newsletter features:
ONIONS AND BUTTER
A Continental spin on a classic cocktail that’ll suit you well in the months ahead
Chill music, a fascinating book, some great comedy
The Internet’s Best Comment Section (that’s you!)
Pets, and more!
There’s no time for tears. We’ve got onions to cook.
7) [Bill Raftery voice] ONIONS
Lately, in my idlest of scrollings, I’ve seen a lot of content about pastas made with caramelized onion. Some of them bill it as “French Onion Soup Pasta”, others stick to a literalist description. I enjoy both onions and pasta a great deal, but it being a full-fledged Food Trend presented me with a dilemma.
Do I swim with the tide, or against it?
As I considered this, I realized that I’d had something adjacent to it flagged in my Friday Planning Document for more than half a year, something I’d thought about in the too-warm months and bookmarked for just this time of year: Haluski, a traditional Polish dish that consists mainly of butter, onions, cabbage and egg noodles.
As the days grow shorter and the breezes get chillier, a dish like this is exactly what I need, and I’d have plausible deniability about just riding the wake of social media trends.
(Or, at least I would’ve had it, had I not laid all my cards on the table like this. I just can’t lie to you.)
Haluski
(serves 4)