Voice-loss and onions--any correalation?

I've lost my voice. This illness I've had for the past week or so keeps morphing into new and strange symptoms, and laryngitis seems to be the latest ailment. But I think of the one line in the prayer of St. Ephraim:

"A spirit of idleness, curiosity, ambition and idle talk give me not"

Sometimes when I'm not making any progress in my faith, it's nice to get a physical ailment to help me remember what is it I should and shouldn't be doing. Who knows how long this voice-loss will last, but I'm actually really thankful for it! I've only been up for 2.5 hours (I'm sick, I slept in!), and I've already realized how many idle words I say in a minute, an hour, a day. Oh well, that doesn't keep me from "idle typing"... Lord have mercy.

Onions

Well, yesterday I bought an onion for the first time EVER! Ever. Ever. Ever. As some of you might already know, I hate onions. I omit them from all of my favorite recipes, when they call for them. But, the other day one of my friends encouraged me to try it in my cooking. Normally I would have laughed--hahaha! NEVER! But, the more I cook, the more I realize that my soups and other recipes are, well, missing something. I use common lenten recipes for meals, etc., but when I go to church potlucks, the same dishes always seem to have a little more oomph to them.

I realize that I probably eat onions more than I think. I'm sure my mom snuck them into our dinner entrees growing up. I would cautiously examine my food each night, and rage if I found something of a translucent disposition... not realizing that onions took on a different taste and texture all together when cooked and masked with other ingredients.

My friend encouraged me to use onions processed in a food processor, diced into tiny, tiny shreds. I don't have a food processor, but last night when making some minestrone I had Job chop them up really fine (I couldn't chop them myself... I would have surely lost my nerve and frantically tossed the ball of tar into the garbage). Anyways, Job fantastically chopped the onions!

I then proceeded to sautee the tar out of the minced giblets, to rid them of their poisoned crunchiness. Let me just say that the onions made an immense difference in the flavor of the soup, and you know what? I didn't even taste them.

Now, to all my loved ones and family-- this does not mean I fully embrace the way of the onion. In their original form, they still make me heave and choke with digust. When not properly sauteed, and when used in mass proportions, I will probably continue to refuse to eat them. When sliced into anything larger than the head of a gnat or fruit fly, I will probably still pick them out and place them to the side.

There are plenty of things which an onion should never touch--namely, the cheesy surface of a pizza, the inner-workings of a soft bean burrito, the yellow flesh of an omelette or an egg dish, or baked it into the yeasty goodness of a well-crafted bagel (nasty!).

For now, though, I will try to make "baby steps." Buying an onion and incorporating it into my meal was a huge step, and it might be the only step I'll ever take.

I am just thankful that onion appreciation is not vital to my salvation.