Hot on toast

I'm really sorry that I didn't take a picture of the French toast I made last Sunday morning. The week before I purchased The Breakfast Book by Marion Cunningham (finally), and it was my bedtime reading for at least two nights. So Saturday night, I saved a leftover baguette-half for her recipe for French toast for Sunday. It's nothing new or novel, just a good standard formula. No syrup, no vanilla. Just eggs, milk, cinnamon and nutmeg, a pinch of salt and the subtle addition of orange zest. I sliced up the rest of the orange, fried up some turkey bacon, fixed the hot bevs, grabbed a tray, turned on Errol Garner and took the whole spread outside. I stirred a little cinnamon and sugar together for sprinkling over the toast (I was out of powdered sugar). Cinnamon and orange are great friends. Anyway, a photo of the whole affair was the last thing on my mind. But I assure you it was just the way you'd hope to spend a sunny morning on the porch.

Later that day I made bread. While the dough was proofing, I went back outside, where Sunday was doing what Sunday does. Here are some reasons to give your dough extra time to rise.

The flower beds are weeded, the pots are planted.

Chives!

Back to my freshly-baked loaves. I'm ready for more toast. Ms. Cunningham has all kinds of breakfast recipes for soufflés and cinnamon rolls and coffee cakes and baked fruit, but I'm inspired to start basic. When she writes things like "Why in the world did we ever abandon milk toast?" and "Though cinnamon toast comes and goes in one's life, it is always welcome as an old friend," how can I disagree (and not chuckle over love notes to food, just a little)? I am inspired to make every single darn toast in her book: starting with the milk toast, then the cinnamon, then to the apple and cheese, the banana toast, tomato toast, smoked salmon toast, and the greatest mystery of all, Welsh Rabbit.

The recipe for Whole Wheat Bread with Wheat Germ and Rye was from the Best Recipe cookbook (too tired to type it all out, but someone else made this here).

Adventures in Toast begins now.