French Onion Soup

Everyone loves french onion soup and it's very easy to make. Of course, you're supposed serve it in these fancy little bowls with the lion faces on them, but I don't have any of those.
So here's what you need to do:
Melt 1/2 a stick of butter in a large pot over medium heat and add 3 lbs of sliced onions. Cook the onions, stirring periodically, until they turn a deep, rich brown. The importance of reaching this state cannot be over-emphasized. Browning the onions coaxes out the sweet, caramely flavor from the onions' natural sugars. As they cook, they will decrease in volume considerably as all the water evaporates. Once they start changing color, you'll need to scrape the brown bits off the bottom of the pot when you stir. This is about what they should like--it will take about an hour.

Once the onions are browned, add 1 cup of dry sherry (I know, back to the liquor store-if you leave it out, it will turn out fine, but adding it gives it depth and richness) and 2 quarts of beef broth (always buy low sodium broth if you can--it just tastes better). Bring it all up to a boil and let it simmer for 10 or 20 minutes.

At this point, you have delicious soup, but if you really want to make it wonderful, then toast some slices of baguette, place a toast on top of each bowl of soup, and cover it with some grated cheese (gruyere, emmentaler, or any swiss) and pop them under the broiler until the cheese is melted and starting to brown. Before doing this make sure your bowls are oven-safe. Alternatively, you can use a torch to do the job. Of course, in most people's kitchens, oven-safe bowls are probably easier to come by than blow torches.