Caramelized - Sept. 19, 2025

Right now, I’m being attacked. Out of the kitchen, fumes from cut onions plume into the air. Hovering above this fuzzy page, it feels like an assault of mustard gas. My eyes sting and weep. I tissue-blot the drops. I know I can’t write in the middle of any battle.

As the onions start to caramelize, the air clears, and I sense the conflict is being resolved. These are for tonight’s hamburgers, he states. Yeah, I figured I bark back. Oh, and the airborne onion cloud doesn’t bother him at all. Of course it doesn’t.

I’m not sure I’ll ever win this monthly assault that takes place every summer. It’s more of a survivable surrender, as I wipe my stinging eyes one final time. Though I will say when dinner’s over, it won’t feel like a loss either.