French Toast of a Breakfast Past

I wish I could bake everyday. Or cook, though I'm really nowhere near as good at that. I don't think I'm really a great baker or anything, I just know how to follow recipes. And I love what I'm doing enough and have gone through so many recipes that I can't help but tweak things to be just the way I want them. Anyway, I wish I could be in the kitchen whipping up something lovely everyday. But for that to work out the way I'd like it would have to be the only thing I really did. Sometimes I volunteer to make dinner on a school night or after work or something and that's really never an awesome idea because I get stressed too easy and when I feel like I have a time limit to making something wonderful it turns into something very unwonderful, the experience that is, and usually the food too cause like I said I'm really not a great cook. I want to be in the kitchen everyday and I want to have all day to it. I don't need all day to make a cake or pie or bread or soup or whatever, but it's feels so wonderful to pour over something for as long as you'd like, with as much precision as you'd like, giving it as much attention and detail as you want, without seeming to have any other pressing matter to attend to. Have you seen the movie Waitress? You should see it. I love that scene where she's in the kitchen with the doctor singing her little pie love song with the sun shining through the windows, not caring how long it takes to make the pie she's making and forgetting about her awful husband. That's probably one of my favorite movies. Because of a number of things, including that picture perfect scene and the relaxed happiness in the end when she owns her own pie shop that really probably couldn't happen because to serve that many pies you'd have to work your butt off. But if she can do it, maybe I can, too. Then again, I like to work my butt off, for a some of the time. But I think that's what I'd really like, that scene, everyday. I don't think I necessarily need a doctor there, but sunshine in the windows for sure.

I started this post to talk about French toast and haven't gotten there yet... But I began with good intentions. I'd like to be in the kitchen everyday, right? But I can't. Which means I can't post things as often as I'd like, because even when I can get in the kitchen, if I'm feeling time pressured, writing about it is usually not on the top of my to-do list, let alone higher on the priority list than homework and such. In the past, however, I happened to take photos of some of the things I made and I think I'll share them with you when I hit a lull. I know I posted just a couple days ago, and really nobody is reading this blog anyway, but I came across pictures of my mother's last birthday breakfast and really wanted to put them up. The pictures are great, but the food was beautiful. I really like things that have deep, rich colors, and really rustic appearances. Food should not be neon, nor should it be pale. What's really tantalizing are golden browns and deep greens and purples and being able to see the textures before you can taste them. And this had most of that. It was a birthday breakfast, as I mentioned, so I wanted to do something special, something different, and of course, something challenging. I'd made this "almost fat-free french toast" once or twice that was pretty bland because, well, read the title again. French toast sounds pretty in itself, doesn't it? Maybe just because everything about France seems to sound pretty. Except I heard from a number of people that once you get there it's really not as pretty as you'd hoped, but maybe they were just having a bad day. So I decided to make real french toast. I had seen.... I think it was Tyler Florence make this one day while I was running and thought it looked fantastic. I was right. It was Tyler Florence too, now that I really think about it, because it was very "Ultimate." I don't remember what it was called, and I really don't care enough to look it up (I'm sure it's on the Food Network website) but it was very unconventional, in my eyes at least, which was probably why I was drawn to it. I remember cooking apples and dried cranberries in a caramel like sauce, then covering them with custard drenched challah bread and baking it in the oven. It was so good. So good. I suppose since the pictures were what made me think I should bring it up, I might as well show one to you.



I feel like I could write much more, but I really don't think the purpose of blogging is to sit down and write a novel. And I'd hate to bore you to tears so I suppose I'll just have to find time to relax in a sunshine filled kitchen to make something else to post, or maybe dig up more old photographs.