The Salt of Odin

My roommate and I live by a very simple food mantra: onion salt makes everything better. Everything. It’s magical flavor fairy dust, bringing salty bliss to every dish. And, as a college student, it’s a great way to spice up any cheap, poorly executed meal. Toss some on your popcorn, sprinkle it on a salad, pummel any bland plate in a hailstorm of onion salt. It will improve your life.

Stop what you’re doing. Forget all other plans you've set out for the day. They’re meaningless now. Go to your closest grocery provider, stumble impatiently into the spice isle, and pick up a shaker of onion salt. Throw the indicated amount of money at the cashier and sprint the hell out of there. Pat yourself on the back. You've done well. Take a minute to soak in the moment. From this point on, your life will be radically better, more significant. Now get back home and begin infusing yourself with the salt of Odin. You will continue this process until your muscles become jerky. Don’t settle for less.

Incorporating onion salt into your life is actually very easy. Just follow three simple steps. 1) Locate onion salt in the myriad of unorganized cabinets in your college apartment. If you’re like me, this is the most difficult step. 2) Fiercely slam the shaker against your counter top  Smash the sucker with all you've got. Don’t hold back. Onion salt has a pesky habit of aggregating into an unusable hunk. This tends to be infuriating. Step two reestablishes the salt’s powdery consistency and relieves the anger caused by this annoying penchant. 3) Open the shaker, invert, and salt your sustenance to taste.

 Several simple recipes can benefit from the addition of a little onion salt. It goes great on fried eggs or on sliced tomatoes with a little bit of olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  One of my favorite recipes is cheese-less cheesy bread. Simply drizzle a little olive oil on some ciabatta bread and top it off with onion salt. The combo results in a distinctly cheesy flavor with much less saturated fat and cholesterol. Olive oil and onion salt also goes great on run-of-the-mill toast and provides a healthy alternative for butter or margarine. If you’re in the mood for a simple Mexican dish, grate Chihuahua melting cheese onto a yellow corn tortilla, fold, and pan fry in your favorite oil until the shell is crispy and golden-brown.  Top it off with onion salt and a little chili powder. Now feast on the perfect quesadilla.

You can use onion salt in place of table salt whenever possible. Get creative! Forget the irreparable damage to your arteries brought about by the dangerous spike in blood pressure that will occur if you actually take my advice. Live by the onion salt and you will achieve gustatory nirvana.