Still Life, With Cats

This morning I eyed the remains of the first batch of Black Friday Bread I had made. It was starting to get a little stale, plus there are two more loaves waiting to be eaten, so I needed to use it up some how. So in a move that will shock every single member of my immediate family, I decided I would try making something I have actively avoided my entire life: french toast.

In theory I should like french toast because it is made of a collection of lovely things – bread, cinnamon, eggs, milk. But the problem with french toast is that it takes all those lovely ingredients and then goes horribly wrong. It wants to be toast, which should be crisp, except that french toast invariably is disgustingly soggy in the middle. Combine that with the usual eggy overtone, and no. Just….no. Shudder.

But as I am wont to do (with varying success, because I am constantly trying to challenge my own innate picky-eaterness,), I decided to see if I could find a way to make it so that I would actually *like* it. And when it comes to french toast, this means using a sturdy bread so it won’t go mushy, thinning the batter to keep it from being overly eggy, dipping it lightly enough so that the inside remains the lovely toast it was always meant to be, and the gross soggy middle is avoided.

I found a promising recipe and mixed up half a batch, and sliced the remains of the bread into thick slices, and then dipped it and plunked them onto the pan. A few minutes later, we sat down to plates of french toast. I took a tentative bite, and hey, what do you know, I ate french toast and I liked it.

I suspect I’m always going to continue to be extremely picky about french toast in general because the rest of the world fully embraces the soggy middle thing that has put me off it for so long, and I don’t see that changing any time soon. But at least I’ve found a way to make it palatable for *me*.

‘Tis the season for Holidailies.