Jeff, the A.D.D. Chef

This post is for the onion-challenged. Yes, you know who you are. You try to slice up an onion and when it completely falls apart only then do you realize that you’ve sliced it the wrong way. One way to slice it so it doesn’t fall apart is to slice it in half along its “equator,” then in half again along its north/south axis, then flip it and again cut it along its “equator.” This sounds worse than it really is and the photos below should help you to understand the gyrations of the onion.

Let’s start with a peeled onion¹ with the black line representing the north/south axis and the gray line representing the “equator.”

The first cut (see image below) is along the equator.

The second cut is along the north/south axis. In the photo below, I cut in half the bottom half of the onion. Notice the light brown “nib” indicating the north/south axis (the black line in the very first photo).

Take one of the halves and flop it onto its side (see photo below) and start cutting.

The slices are made on what is left of the “equator.”

If needed, you can cut these semi-circles into smaller pieces.

A note about the color of the photos: Photographing an onion, which is almost translucent, against the background of a white cutting board turned out to be a formidable task.² Therefore, the images have been manipulated to enhance their contrast. Despite noticeable visible differences from one image to the next, I certify that it is the same onion used in all of the photos. The differences are a result of digital manipulation. Additionally, I certify that no onions were hurt during the making of these photos.

1. Peeling is really no more than removing the outer brown layer. If you don’t like the way that layer looks, remove another layer. As Shrek once said, what’s under an onion layer but yet another layer. [↩]
2. Formidable when you using an ordinary digital camera with no special lighting. [↩]