simple french toast
french toast, especially challah french toast, is the kind of thing that people see on a menu at breakfast or brunch and swoon LOUDLY about it. by "people" i mean me, and what's strange is i usually don't end up ordering it because i know someone else will get it. this sounds selfish — to assume i can take a bite — but i actually think this is the beauty of the french toast: it goes a long way. you know it's gonna go over well with crowds whether there's a lot or a little, and while it's not precious, it is special.
you'll need
a sturdy loaf of eggy bread, like challah or even potato bread — ideally it isn't sliced so you can cut it yourself: about an inch thick
half a dozen eggs (can range from 5–7 depending on how big/small the eggs are)
about a cup of milk (literally whatever you've got: half and half, heavy cream, regular cream, 3/4 cream, cream and a half, 2 percent, .000002 percent, whatever). the thicker the milk the more custardy and decadent!
a pinch of cardamom
a pinch of nutmeg
a pinch of cinnamon
a dash of vanilla
butter or ghee
on you go
preheat oven to 250 degrees. 275 if you're on mountain.
slice bread about an inch thick, and place on the oven racks— if that's difficult or tenuous, a pan is just fine — to heat up and dry out. this will help it absorb the good stuff! i hadn't known about this technique until recently and it makes a huge difference — i bet it improves absorption in standard pre-sliced bread which can often be too just a touch too soggy-leaning.
heat a cast iron skillet over medium heat with a generous tablespoon or so of butter or ghee.
whisk eggs, milk, spices, vanilla thoroughly in the biggest bowl you've got.
remove bread from oven, and place as many slices as can fit in the bowl (perhaps 1, perhaps 2, perhaps 3) to absorb the mixture: about 30 seconds–1 minute. they should be heavy and wet, but not falling apart. place on skillet for 2–3 minutes or golden crispy, and flip for the same amount of time on the other side. keep going til it's gone! if you have mixture left over, this is a shining moment for any stale bread you have laying around!
keep in mind, you may need to add more butter after the first batch, like pancakes.
top with maple syrup, any fresh fruit you have on hand, more butter, or whatever you'd like!
your workhorses
cardamom | it's a pricier spice, but a delight to add to coffee grounds you're about to brew, warm milk at night, cakes and convections (pistachio or chocolate types especially), sweet-leaning breakfast foods like pancakes or french toast. a little bit goes a verrrrrry long way — just a pinch, really, no matter what. so i think the price levels out a bit, and i believe it makes a difference. also, it's supposed to help with indigestion. lots of wins for the tum tum.
soundbites
nostalgia is the perfect accompaniment to french toast, is it not?
this week's playlist is recovered from a march 2011 mix cd. shout out to dear friends and neighbors meredith and matt young who not only abided by obsession with buying cd-roms en bulke from staples and immediately dumping music onto them, but also swapped new music and mixes and great humor with me at an early age — i really wish neighbors like them upon all of the world. thanks for kicking this piece of history back to me. and now, to all of you!
this mix leads with a strong i'm going to college next year and might study anthropology vibe, peppered in with complicated crush on all of the decemberists. it concludes with a chart topping b.o.b. song that i'm 99 percent sure was ironic at the time, but lands squarely for me now, so... safe to say that life takes us on crazy rides: spotify
piece of power
While the World's Best 50 list is one of many listicles/rankings/awards round-ups known for blatant exclusion and a huuuuge budget, the SF Chronicle is oppositely one of many publications doing the work to level up (and ground in reality) the game of food criticism, right here right now.
"These restaurants not only serve delicious and meaningful plates of food, though that's a big part of why they're here. They also exist as community spaces that anchor neighborhoods, employ thought leaders who are helping evolve the Bay Area's food scene, and are places we'd want to return to again and again. For us, "top" means all of those things."
Soleil Ho for the San Francisco Chronicle's Top 100 Restaurants list
Soleil's weekly newsletter round-up for the Chronicle, Bite Curious, is great (she always shares the best song she's heard in a restaurant — my favorite part). Read her most recent, on all of the above, here.
*important correction: in my previous newsletter i misstated poet joy harjo's name as lisa harjo — a bad mistake. i didn't know this at the time of my sharing her poem, but it came as a beautiful surprise to me that joy harjo is our newest poet laureate, and the first native american u.s. poet laureate. i can only hope my mistake and correction will bring you to more of her work — perhaps even this brief npr interview.