I like cooking, but I don't tend to do it that often. This is for two reasons. Firstly, I live alone and can't be bothered to cook for one. And secondly, onion hands.

Onion hands, the lingering smell of onions on one's fingertips after cooking. Sometimes even if you haven't cooked onions. It lingers for days, enduring hand washing, scrubbing and ill-advised use of caustic cleaning products without gloves or adequate ventilation.

While the smell is unmistakably oniony, it's not the pleasant scent of fried onion, the odour of a nice onion soup, or the complete un-onionness of cheese & onion crisps. Rather it is a harsh, almost sweaty smell. A constant reminder of the leftovers slowly festering in the fridge. A guilt-ridden spectre of the excessive portion of chilli from the night before. A...smelly...thing.

Sometimes I wonder how people who cook regularly cope. How can a chef tasked with daily onion chopping live with the constant stench on their hands? Permanent onion hands would be a terrible affliction to bear.

And what of their relatives? Do they start avoiding these onion palmed unfortunates? Do faces turn sour when they walk in a room? Do they start becoming known as "the onion guy"?

Then again, they'd probably get used to it. And who honestly goes around smelling their friends' hands?