Morning, Gang!

Holly has a nice breakfast lined up, and we have a couple words to explain why things are a little crazier than usual this morning.

First, it is New Year’s Eve!

Or, at least it is for those of us who spent portions of our lives wandering through the budget furrows of the Federal Government.

At midnight tonight, FY26 disappears and Fiscal Year 2027 arrives. The last digit changes, the ledgers roll over, and hundreds of billions of electronic dollars begin another annual journey through the machinery of government.

It seems a little strange to celebrate New Year’s Day on October 1, particularly since the rest of America still has three months left on the calendar.

There is a reason.

For much of the 20th century, the federal fiscal year began on July 1. Congress changed that with the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, giving lawmakers more time to work through the President’s budget, hearings and appropriations before the new spending year began.

Naturally, Washington needed a transition.

After FY1976 ended on June 30, 1976, the government created the wonderfully bureaucratic Transition Quarter—three months from July through September that belonged to neither the old fiscal year nor the new one.

Then, on October 1, 1976, FY1977 began, establishing the October-to-September fiscal calendar we still use.
We don’t know where those original three months eventually went. We assume they are stored in a federal warehouse somewhere and will be returned when convenient.

Which brings us naturally to onions.

The October five-pound sack of Vidalias is inbound, while the remnants of September were still occupying valuable Galley real estate.

Deirdre considers that a logistics problem.

Holly considers it breakfast.

Meanwhile, Up in Alaska…

We still read the Post, just in case something is going on out there, and this morning it introduced us to another fellow who apparently takes breakfast as seriously as we do.

Meet Backpack Bear 89, named for his antics as a cub some twenty years ago by climbing on his mother’s broad back.

He is one of the substantial participants in Alaska’s annual celebration of bears doing what bears are supposed to do before winter:
Eat.

A lot!

The objective isn’t culinary elegance or Galley inventory management. It is survival. Alaska’s brown bears spend the productive months packing on the reserves that will carry them through their winter dens. At this particular moment of the year, an impressively expanding waistline is evidence that the system is functioning
exactly as designed!

Backpack Bear 89 appears to have gotten the message.

He shares the field with Female 910, the “Dancing Queen,” another imposing representative of the annual salmon-to-bear conversion process.

Both provide a useful reminder that our modern obsession with counting calories is not universally shared throughout the animal kingdom.

The bears are counting them, too.

They just want the number to be higher.

Which caused Holly to look at the remaining September Vidalias, the eggs, sausage and hash browns waiting in the Galley and announce that, at least for this morning, we are siding with the bears.

Eggs, Sausage & the Great September Onion Clearance

There are certain moments in Galley management when cuisine, fiscal policy and Seasonal Bear logistics become indistinguishable.

We have a five-pound sack of genuine Vidalia sweet onions on automatic monthly replenishment. One normally jostles us through most of the month, with Whole Foods across the street if the Crowd gets unexpectedly enthusiastic.

The arrangement works, sometimes a little too well.

September is disappearing today, another sack is on the way, and we still had onions in the locker.
So:

Eat the evidence.

That brought us to an old Southern trick that has acquired the slightly alarming modern name “Onion Boil.”
There isn’t actually any boiling involved.

Think instead of a whole baked Vidalia transformed into its own little butter pot.

This is simple enough for the youngsters to assemble but elegant enough for Holly to dress up on the breakfast platter.

Take one large Vidalia per person. Trim the root just enough to let the onion sit upright, peel away the papery skin and hollow out a little bowl in the top. Don’t tunnel through the bottom. You want the onion itself to hold all the good stuff.

Into the hollow goes a generous dab of butter, some bacon bits and whatever spices happen to inspire the Galley crew.

Score the top of the bulb in a shallow criss-cross pattern and work a little more butter down into the cuts. Salt, black pepper and garlic provide the baseline. A shake of Old Bay gives ours a Chesapeake accent.
A little beef base or bouillon tucked into the center can push the whole production toward French-onion-soup territory.

Wrap each onion tightly in foil, set it upright in a baking dish and give it about an hour at 365°F, until the layers are completely tender.

There is a useful trick buried in the collective wisdom: give the onion 15 or 20 minutes of heat before adding the butter mixture. That starts relaxing the layers so the seasoned butter can work its way farther down rather than simply sitting on top.

The interns handled the assembly last night before taps.

That meant this morning’s job consisted mostly of preheating the oven, sliding the little foil packages inside and settling down while the aroma began filling the Galley.

When they’re tender, carefully open the foil and give the exposed tops a few minutes under the broiler. Stay nearby. We’re looking for a beautifully browned Vidalia, not another discussion about Galley fire policy.

Then breakfast becomes easy.

Put that great steaming onion in the middle of the plate with two sunny eggs, browned breakfast sausage and crisp hash browns. Spoon some of the buttery onion juices over the potatoes, or peel away one of those sweet translucent layers and wrap it around a bite of sausage.

Holly and I agreed it would be terrific beside steak or ground beef, and frankly it would work with almost anything in the refrigerator requiring attention.

Which brings the morning’s disparate threads together rather neatly.

Washington is storing dollars.
Backpack Bear is storing calories.
Deirdre is desperately trying not to store onions.

That will take care of September—and the first of the New Years we intend to observe.
Sometime around the weekend, another five pounds of October will arrive at the door.

Deirdre Note: This is inventory control you can eat.

Copyright 2026 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com