DOH!

Yesterday, I had a "DOH" moment and I would like to share it to show that all us cooks get goofy sometimes.  I spoiled a wonderful pot of onion soup by not following the recipe carefully.  I was salivating as I again tried to duplicate Julia Child's great recipe for onion soup (Mastering the Art of French Cooking, page 43).  I bought all the ingredients and cleaned and cut up a large leek (a small digression), six large yellow onions, a few garlic cloves (another improvisation) and was sauteing them in butter and olive oil in a large Le Creuset pot.  Now, I noticed that Julia calls for adding three tablespoons of flour after the onions are well cooked down.  I cut this critical corner and added the flour near the beginning of the process.  Needless to say, the flour burned and, not only spoiled the soup, but I had to spend almost an hour cleaning the Le Creuset pot.  (It's still not perfect.)

The moral is -- sometime, but not always, recipes mean what they say.  (Perhaps critical steps need to be in bold type?)