Pan Fried Delight

For the party last week, I made this delectable carmelized onion dip. The inspiring recipe came from the Barefoot Contessa and boy is it good. I mean really good. So good, in fact, that you'll be compelled to bottle it up and inject it straight into your blood stream for the sheer "YUM!"satisfaction. Uh huh, that good.

I love her. Don't you? She is one of maybe two cookbook authors that I know I can turn to when I need a home run dish. No need to cook and tweak the item a million times to make sure it is just right. Yes, it may require more ingredients than you'd prefer but if she wrote it, it will be perfect and people will love you for it. Because that's really why we cook, right? We want to cook things people love for the people we love so they will love us a little more in return. Or admire us. Or at the very least like us a little more.

Anyway, I worship the women. I watch her show and think about her perfect little 40 year marriage and her perfect little, I mean GINORMOUS, house in the Hamptons which is equipped with the perfect Versailles inspired garden and picture perfect fully decked Vikings kitchen and think: "If I can conquer the pan fried onion dip, that too can be mine." Funny how the mind works. Rationally, you don't go from cooking well to having a multi-kabillion dollar enterprise but it's a start, I suppose. To just be happy doing what you love and to have the side bonus of being successful at it is the true desire really.

I met her once....well, I stood behind her once...when we were in Paris two years ago. She was staying at the same hotel and I had just come back from a tour of Giverny (Monet's house and gardens where he painted Waterlilies a gagillion times) with a guide. The guide was yammering on about something to do with Parisian architecture when I saw her. And when I say, I froze, got clammy hands, and a dry mouth I am not exagerrating. I was star-struck. Here she was--my Food Network idol--standing not three feet in front of me wearing her signature button down denim shirt and I was at a loss for words. I think I forced out a pip-squeaked "Excuse me, Ms. Gardner?" but I said it so quietly that she didn't hear me and I lost my nerve. Man, I'm still mad at myself for missing the opportunity. Who knows? I could be her apprentice now had I spoken up but it wasn't meant to be. So ist das leben.

Where was I? Right, the recipe that will make you fall in love again with french onion dip. Make it and tell me you don't like me just a little bit more for turning you onto it. If you happen to gain 20 pounds in a week from eating all 2 cups of dip on your own or your guests stay well pass their welcome out of a desire to finish it off, just know you've been warned.