Yes It Smells Like Vinegar

Last night I sliced up and sauteed an onion for dinner.  Well, I had more than just an onion... it topped our hamburger patties along with some cheese...  Anyway, when I went to bed I could smell it, the onion not the patties (no, not the panties, either), in our bedroom. The smell seemed to be at one with our bedding.  Certainly a most unwelcome bed partner.  Then this morning I put on my jacket to run an errand in town.  It reeked of those sauteed onions with the added depth and texture of "stale".  So, upon arriving home, I searched the internet for instructions on "how to remove odors from the house".  The one I found, and chose, suggested simmering water and vinegar together with a slice of citrus peel for the pleasant fragrance.  Right now, two hours later, the onion smell is gone but the sharp vinegary, poke-in-the-nose stench has spread throughout the whole house and the citrus fragrance is nowhere to be smelled.

I should have known after all the times I rubbed vinegar on my teenage sunburns.  Each time they convinced me the smell would go away but it always hung around like a  stinking sulfur cloud.

Then there was the time a friend gave us a pound of fresh ground venison with the instruction to soak the meat in vinegar, squeezing out the excess, before cooking, to remove the game-y taste.  We were wild-game babes then, inexperienced.  The awful smell permeated the house. We could have run the venison through multiple extract cycles in the washing machine and not gotten all the vinegar out. Sad to say, even the dog wouldn't eat it.

So, I've had enough of this unruly odor and have replaced the pan full of that odious vinegar mixture with a nice roast in a fresh, clean pot with seasonings and garlic and bay leaves, my current rediscovered favorite, along with a generous splash, or two... okay three generous splashes, of Sherry. Not the cooking stuff, the real stuff, it adds such richness to a good piece of meat.  Now, delicious and tempting aromas waft through the house.  And, thankfully, when Ron gets home from work tonight, he won't have to ask the obvious question.