so, french onion soup, huh? the fancy dish everyone claims is just so comforting. you know the one: warm broth, gooey cheese, golden caramelized onions, a chunk of bread floating like it’s about to be crowned king of the soup world. except when i tried making it, it was less “comforting” and more like a scene from a food horror movie. like, i’m over here just trying to make dinner and next thing you know, i’m crying over a pot of sad onions and burnt bread. is that what this dish is supposed to feel like? it’s a damn tragedy, is what it is.
first of all, i don’t know who told me caramelizing onions was easy, but i need to find them and have a word. because they lied. you know how they say, “just let the onions cook slowly until they turn golden and sweet”? well, let me tell you, they turn golden alright, but they also turn burnt if you blink for even half a second. it was like the onions were in a race to see how quickly they could burn and make me question all of my life choices. i followed the recipe, set my timer, but somehow, i managed to scorch half of them. so, i’m standing there with a pan full of blackened sadness, trying to salvage what’s left, and i’m already thinking, “maybe i should’ve just bought the damn soup.”
but i’m stubborn, so i push through. i try to salvage the onions, dump in the broth, and then we get to the bread part. do you know how difficult it is to get the bread to the perfect state of soggy-but-not-soggy enough-to-collapse? apparently, i do now. i threw my slices of baguette on top of the soup, thinking they’d soak up just the right amount of broth. but no. not today. the bread started sinking, like it was auditioning for a role in the Titanic remake. first, it floats a little. then it starts to absorb the broth too much and becomes this mushy mess. and i just sit there, looking at the sinking bread like, “this wasn’t supposed to happen.” i’ve never felt so betrayed by a piece of bread before.
so i put the whole thing in the oven to melt the cheese on top, and i’m feeling a little better. i mean, come on, you can’t go wrong with cheese, right? wrong again. i left it in a little too long. i mean, i thought i had set the timer for exactly the right amount of time, but as soon as i opened the oven, i saw that golden cheese had become dark, burnt patches that reminded me of the worst possible kind of burnt toast. you know, the kind you scrape off the pan and pretend it never happened. yeah, it was that.
now the soup is bubbling over the edges of the pot like a volcano of sadness, with the cheese burning into an unappetizing, crispy mass that’s so far gone, i don’t know if i should laugh or cry. i pulled the pot out, trying to save it, and then it hits me. the ladle. it’s sticky with the broth, so thick you could feel the failed attempts at “gourmet” wafting through the kitchen. i couldn’t even scrape the gooey mess off the ladle. it just stuck there, a grim reminder of my ineptitude.
so there i am, sitting at the table, staring at the soup. it looks like a disaster. the onions are too caramelized, the bread is too soggy, the cheese is burnt, and the broth is too thick. it smells fine, but we both know it’s a lie. there’s no way that mess is edible. i mean, i should’ve known, right? i saw the signs, like when the bread started sinking and i ignored it. i should’ve known it wasn’t going to work. but i didn’t. i just kept going, convinced that everything would turn out okay in the end. and honestly, i don’t even know why. i knew this wasn’t going to be perfect. i knew i wasn’t going to be the french onion soup master.
so i guess the real question is, why the hell did i try to make french onion soup when i knew it was going to end like this? is it really worth the stress? i don’t know, man. i think i’m just going to leave it to the pros from now on. i can handle a grilled cheese, i can handle pasta, but i think i’m done with onions. at least, for a little while. because this? this was a french onion soup disaster, and it’s going to haunt me for a while.