Well, slap my thigh and call me Martha!

I have always been fascinated by American food. Not the put-cheese-on-everything/giant hamburger variety, but the creations that had their origins in the likes of the Little House on the Prairie books. One of the things I discovered while on my career break is that I find cooking relaxing. Not baking - it's far too technical - but the instinctive, flavourful and noisy cooking that involves sticking your finger in the sauce and seeing if you need to add an anchovy. My comfort zone is bold Italian and Mediterranean style cooking, so I'm trying out some new things.

Travelling around the States (although not quite like Laura Ingalls Wilder) I like to collect cookery books. Today's experiment - braised onions - was from a New England cookery book that I bought in Portland, Maine.

It involved boiling some large onions, cooling them, peeling them, shoving out the insides and then stuffing them with a clove and cinnamon flavoured bolognese, before roasting them. The flavours were delicious, but preparation of the onions involved considerably more elements of midwifery than I had anticipated. Now I know where baby onions come from.