The champion of breakfasts: toast!

Sliced bread is truly somethin'.

Cinnamon toast, plain and simple

So is fruit, when it is sauteed in butter, and placed on toasted sliced bread.

Butter-sauteed bananas on toast with a light dusting of cinnamon

Add some gooey smoked gouda, too? Okay.

Broiled toast with smoked gouda, topped with sauteed gala apple

Or perhaps you fancy the summery and savory: sauteed tomatoes with thyme and oregano and fresh bread crumbs, say. (This one is a definite favorite. I'll be pairing this with eggs and avocado, guaranteed.)

Oh, and then there's milk toast. There is no older-fashioned breakfast than this. It reminds me of sleepovers at my friend Jessi's house, when her mom would serve us warm milk steeped with vanilla just before bedtime. So rich and milky (warm milk always tastes like butter to me), it was definitely just a sometimes treat. For milk toast, you heat the milk on the stove, whisk in a pad of butter and a spoonful of sugar off heat, pour it over toast, cover for 5 minutes, and then sprinklecinnamon and/or nutmeg on top. It's like uncooked French toast, and a great use of stale bread. If you're sensitive to food texture, you won't like it. I'm pretty sure about that.

The key for all these decadent toasts is undoubtedly butter. Marion Cunningham would like you to butter your toast before adding all the butter-sauteed toppings, but most of the time I kept the bread dry, ready to soak up the other stuff. Otherwise, each toast breakfast contains upwards of 2T of butter per serving. I have my limits, \especially when I'm on a strict toast-for-breakfast diet. But if you've been good all week, then by all means, do not hold back on the butter.

I'll keep updating my Flickr set as I sample the remaining suggested toasts from The Breakfast Book. Stay tuned!