Tantalizingly Salient Observations Regarding Onions and Calculus

The other night, the kitchen was redolent with the scent of onions.

Isn't redolent a great word? It's sophisticated and elegant. It just wants to be used more than it is, but, sadly, it's just not all that usable in casual conversation.

"Hey, how are you?"
"Redolent!"

I accidentally used the word salient during my last Gospel Doctrine lesson. I do not get stage fright speaking in front of large groups of people, but I do get an adrenalin buzz. The odd side effect is that my mind goes curiously blank trying to come up with applicable words, and then some $10 word like salient or corpuscular pops out (ha ha, no. I can't think of the last time I used corpuscular during a Gospel Doctrine lesson). When words like that pop out of your mouth, people start thinking you're intelligent. Hey, I don't mind at all. The truth is that I love words and have always had an easy time with spelling and definitions (the same can not be said, however, for mathematical concepts. During my calculus final in my freshman year of college, I spent most of the time figuring out how low a score I could get and still pass the class. I had a lot of time because I was pretty much clueless about how to solve many of the problems on the test, even though I'd just spent a semester trying to wrap my brain around the concepts. I did pass with a "C," which was much higher than I expected.) and so I'll often unconsciously use a $10 word instead of a 25 cent word that would do just as well.

Still, some words can't be substituted. If I said, "The kitchen was smelly with the scent of onions," it would have an entirely different nuance. You would wrinkle your nose in disgust and wonder at my cooking abilities or even my personal hygiene (yes, you would!). Never mind that people use onions all the time, and usually in the kitchen area. Smelly is just not elegant. Odorific is slang. Permeated might do, but even that word connotes a lingering stink that has become imbued in the very wood of the cabinets.

But why are we arguing about words here when the real question is why there was so much onion activity going on? Is this a normal occurrence in our household?

Well, to be honest, there is just as much garlic activity. Yum. But I digress.

I was experimenting with making onion blooms. For that purpose, I bought three large white, sweet onions and followed the recipe for the Outback Steakhouse Bloomin' Onion with two of the onions. The results were less than stellar, to my mind, although the onions tasted pretty good. They kind of reminded me of deep-fried tarantulas, to tell you the truth. I don't know why. The third onion I turned into onion rings, which were fabulous and disappeared very quickly as the kids came in to ask me what I was doing, why the kitchen was redolent with the scent of onions, and could they sample one or two of the onion rings?

My brother found a good use for the onion blooms. He piled the petals on top of his tuna melt, where they added their tantalizingly complex caramelized onion flavor to the tuna and cheese, transforming the lowly tuna melt into a gourmet delight.

Okay, he thought it was pretty good, but no one used the word tantalizing. That's another word that should be used much more often.

"How was work today?"
"Tantalizing!"