Two-Faced French Toast

This morning I had a revelation, somewhat coincidentally based on an old joke from my high school french class. And it was this: One egg is not enough. (an egg = "un oeuf") At least when it comes to French Toast batter.

So I crack my medium-sized egg into a shallow bowl. Something horrible happens--what comes out is not the usual viscuous, clear-ish white with an orange-yellow nucleus of yolk, but some half-addled grossness, an egg over developed in the womb, or burnt by the harmful UV rays of the sun, or left out to curdle and then siphoned somehow back into the shell by mysterious new technologies in osmosis. The white is yellow and chunky, the yolk is not set apart and floating but one and the same with the aforementioned abomination. It leaves streaks in the white bowl when sloshed around. No more description is necessary here. I fear the horrid chicken that produced such a spawn: gnarled claws, mutant beak, feathers pre-dipped in tar. Maybe it was fed ketchup. Who knows.

But none of that is what I wish to discuss. After thoroughly rinsing the bowl, I cracked another egg over it--now we're talkin'. Poured in a bit of milk (8th continent vanilla soy milk... wasn't sure what the soy would do, but I was willing to take the chance), a few generous dashes of cinnamon, and whisked away. Dropped in a slice of Cinnamon Burst bread, medium thickness, poked it around the bowl a few times, and let it soak. I heated up the skillet, an 8" Emeril pan I got for Christmas. (I didn't have the heart to speak my gut reaction out-loud to my mom, giver of the Celebrity-endorsed product: 'Emeril!? Why... why did you choose to get me a pan with Emeril's signature carved into the stainless-steel, stay-cool handle? I want my pancakes to cook in anonymity... I want to pan sear my Boca Burgers in a teflon surface without identity, faceless, eager to distribute heat evenly, not shout and throw garlic over a plate of linguini.' But by then I would have lost her, and she would've felt bad about what was actually quite a nice gift, and what do I honestly have against Emeril? Nothing, really. The pan's been great so far. Bam. Whatever.)

ANYway, I drop some magarine in the pan (again, this is entirely my mom's fault, this penchant for fake butter.... I'm slowly trying to ween myself off of its partially hydrogenated fakeness, but Parkay is in the fridge, so Parkay it is), throw the soaked bread on the sputtering surface, and go make my coffee. Flip the bread, a lovely brownish eggy crust formed, the bits of cinnamon from the bread peaking out, eyeing me. Our apartment is cold, so I place a plate on top of the pan for about 15 seconds, to take the chill off, then spatula the French Toast onto the room-temperature plate, slice it into the requisite 7-8 vertical columns to allow for ideal syrup absorption, and take a seat with my Boston Globe Sunday Magazine.

Here's where I approach my "point." I had readied my second slice of Cinnamon Burst bread to engorge the leftover batter, but there wasn't enough in the shallow bowl. So, hoping to stretch out, or extend, what I had, I took my "Vanilla Nut" CoffeeMate creamer and dripped a little into the bowl to mix with the remaining batter. Dropped a tad more soy milk in there. Whisked it up. The mixture was lighter, more "milky" (quel shock) but I lay my bread in the bowl and let it sit while I enjoyed the first cooked slice. I read a cover story on Bill Cosby's dissertation on how Fat Albert can save the plight of Black America and their children. Interesting stuff. I myself watched the show as a kid, and though I didn't know much of racial inequality at the time (nor my privileged position as a middle-class white kid living in a suburb of Detroit), holy cow did I want that squeaky magical pen that talked. You know the one. But I'm growing more tangential by the moment. Pardon the ever-furtive gaze; the periphery is always an alluring subject. Not sure why this is. I welcome your suggestions.

So, the bread soaks up all nice and yellow on one side, but the other side is half-coated in a strangely bright white coating--surely this is not Toast as the French intended. I cook one side to a lovely eggy brown, but the other merely crisps, as it would in the toasted. So I do what I do on toast: spread the crispy side with peanut butter and a raspberry jam, half the bread, and dunk it in my coffee. French Peanut Butter & Jam Toast sticks, dunked in coffee, eaten over an essay on the enduring lesson of Fat Albert. 'Twas a good second portion, but, as I found out, when making French Toast batter is concerned, one egg is not enough.