How Do You Like Them Onions?

I believe we all have that certain thing that we see very clearly, more than others. Some people can look at a color and tell you that it's a blend of orange and blue, with a touch of green thrown in. 

Some people can look at a shrub or a tree or a flower and identify it and tell you how to plant it or prune it or trim it. 

And some people can sip wine and tell you what sort of grapes got stomped on to make it, and what sort of "notes" it has.

My particular odd skill is that spelling or punctuation errors just leap off a printed page and make me yelp.

It does take all kinds. 

Take Ernst de Witte. He is a chef and a visual artist who went to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam last year to look at some of Vincent's works. He spied something wrong in an 1887 still life that Van G called "Red Cabbages and Onions."

Mr deWitte knew those were not onions in the painting! Without so much as a sniff test, he was able to say that those objects in the foreground were not onions at all, but, rather, garlic.

And as head chef of Restaurant Feu in Utrecht, Netherlands, he knows his onions! So he sent a message to the museum to tell them how wrong VVG was.

And the museum took it seriously!

De Witte also knew that in 1889, Van Gogh painted another masterpiece called "Still Life With a Plate Of Onions." The museum brought in a biologist and confirmed that "Red Cabbages and Onions" has been misnamed since it was first exhibited in 1928.

“It was a euphoric feeling, and also confirmation that I have a chef/painter’s view of things,” says de Witte. “There is a big cross pollination for me … The painting side of me helps me a lot with my color use and the composition of my dishes.”

The museum has officially changed the name of the painting, and de Witte whomped up a dish inspired by it, featuring "poached red cabbage and a smoked garlic creme with a vinaigrette of lemon balm, tarragon and absinthe."

I'll take mine to go, please. Hold the cabbage, garlic creme, vinaigrette, tarragon, and absinthe, though. Just make it a cheeseburger with fried onions.