Onion Harvest

My onion harvest is dried. Time to store them in the basement. This is the biggest bonanza of onions i've ever had: a harvest of 225. I am ready for winter.

I particularly like the looks of the Redwing onion--a deep red northern onion.

Our local taco truck offers pickled red onions as a topping, so i've been pickling my own red onions. When a pickle jar is empty, i slice red onions into the pickle juice. That way, i always have my very own pickled red onions ready to chop into any salad.

Although we like to preserve things for the future, these things age and die, just as we do.

My onions will last until spring. Then they will sprout and be ready for their next incarnation.

P.S. Send me your favorite onion recipes.

Sweet and Sour

Hot maple syrup poured over snow
so it becomes like taffy.
Served with a dill pickle.

Did i tell you that the sugar-on-snow church dinners include a dill pickle with the maple syrup drizzled on the snow? Sweet and sour, New England style. Sweet and sour--like life.

The 8 Vicissitudes sum up sweet-and-sour perfectly.

Gain and loss,

Pleasure and pain,

Praise and blame,

Fame and disrepute

come and go like the wind.

Stand like a great tree 

in the midst of them all.

As much as we only want the sweet of life, the sour is often served up soon thereafter.

When i am praised, i don't take it seriously, because i can guess what's coming down the pike--today, next week, or next year. Blame. Ouch!

Take the sweet and sour together, and you have the whole world.