Onion Soup

Once upon a time I owned a café. I bought a going – well, limping – business in a street where swanky Dublin 2 glares at iffy Dublin 1, separated only by the murky Liffey and by differing aspirations. The connecting bridge is named after a religious fanatic who enjoyed the peculiar hobby of hanging himself in chains and, boy, do I know how he felt. With the benefit of hindsight, before I bought I should have set out a folding chair and a sleeping bag on the pavement across the road, the better to observe the passing trade but life’s not like that. Not for a catering Quasimodo, handicapped by the hump of optimism.
The kitchen equipment listed in the schedule of fixtures and fittings wouldn’t have found a buyer off the back of Del Boy’s van. The deep fat fryer was a death trap, its innards a well of congealed oil only a spark short of a bonfire. I paid well over the odds for the good, I mean ill-will.

The previous owner was a storyteller, in the J.K.Rowling league. He told me he’d built up a prosperous business from scratch. Now he wanted to take a year off and breed tropical fish before launching an operation that would make McDonald’s look like a backstreet chipper. Yeah, right. The sub-text went something like this: “I’m working longer and longer hours just in case someone rocks up. My libido is wrecked; my wife has shacked up with the guy who installed the sprinkler system. Only person who eats here is my bank manager – to make sure I don’t do a runner.”
Still, location, location, location and all that. I glowed with self-approval as one of the world’s largest accounting firms and a substantial bank moved into palatial headquarters round the corner. I re-equipped and refurbished. Alas, I hadn’t reckoned with the proximity of the heroin treatment clinic and the fact that we were on the natural route between the run-down tenements and shoplifters’ Valhalla, Grafton Street. Teapots, condiment sets, even the odd chair walked out the door. We had to resort to drilling minute holes in the teaspoons so the ‘brass monkeys’ wouldn’t nick them for fettling coke – and I don’t mean cola. Knowing as much as I do now, I’d run a marathon before I’d sign the lease again. Still, I’m glad I had the courage to put my foodie money where my foodie mouth was. As the song (Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered) says “I burned a lot and learned a lot.” I still meet a few of my old customers who relished my quixotic attempt to make the chargrilled aubergine Ireland’s national dish; who loved my bespoke breakfasts; who sussed my cappuccino was the best in town. These same aficionados usually ask for the recipe for my onion soup. I always demur…

Ah, what the hell. I’ve put the recipe up.