I’ve been to France. More specifically, I’ve been to Paris twice and Versailles once. Also, I worked as a camp counselor one summer in college with this French chic, Judith. During another college summer that I spent in England, I had an underage French admirer (read stalker.) I do a cheesy French accent learned from Pink Panther cartoons. Lastly, I love French toast.
Let’s start with the French toast. My dad made a mean batch of French toast with a hint of cinnamon on a Saturday morning with Pepperidge Farms’ or Arnold’s old fashioned white bread. I like to add a little sugar and vanilla to the egg mixture and sprinkle the grilling toast on one side with a little cinnamon and sugar. And I can’t abide French toast made with whole wheat bread, no matter how much healthier. Interestingly, though, I have an old friend in California who despises any trace of cinnamon on French toast. I guess to each her own.
About a year ago, I ran across a recipe for Pecan French Toast using slices of French or Italian loaves (the kind you find in the grocery store’s bakery for a dollar or two.) It has orange juice in the egg mixture along with orange zest on top. It’s a recipe that you soak the bread with the egg mixture overnight, transfer the bread onto a buttered cookie sheet, top with pecans and zest and bake. Oh, my goodness! Or, rather, Ooh-la-la! To my delight, Jack even loves it. He must have ‘zee’ French chef in his biological pedigree somewhere!
Before I share the recipe with you, I thought I’d also enrich your lives with three random, short stories of French people. For your added enjoyment, perhaps, read the italicized statements in your best French accent.
Un
The summer camp I worked at was positioned at least 300 feet up a hill above a lake and was heavily wooded. At night, sounds carried up from the lake. One evening, we were all awakened by a strange beeping that really could only be described as UFO noises. I'm sure it was from a boat, but without being able to see the lake and not really wanting to venture out from my tent, the loud, unrelenting, high-pitched beeps left me expecting to encounter little green men at any moment. As the counselors exchanged banter such as “what is it?” and “this is strange,” we carefully didn’t get too animated so as not to wake up the campers. Well, all the counselors except the aforementioned Judith, who, by the way, quite vocally hated camp and the accompanying dirt since day one. Judith began to repeatedly and loudly lament “I am so a-fraid…I am so a-fraid.” After several minutes of Judith’s hysteria, my stiff-upper-lip British friend Christine silenced her with a stern and stoic “Judith, we are all afraid! Now, go to bed!” Oddly, Judith never returned after our day off following the first camp session. I hope she wasn’t abducted by aliens.
Deux
The following summer was spent in England, where Karen and I were guests of Christine. We obtained student work visas and we both worked opposite shifts at a beachside arcade, making change for the tourists. The walk to work was a half hour, and since the town was reported to be quite safe, I walked home at night after my shift alone in the dark. One night, a French exchange student (whose name I don’t recall anymore,) clearly still in high school, decided to join me on my walk. He introduced himself and asked me all about myself, all in quite broken English. He expressed his desire to go on a date and insisted on following me home so he could visit the next day. This made me so nervous that I offered up a plan to meet him in town the next day (which I never did) and purposely turned up the wrong street and said goodbye. I ran into him and his anger later in the week, but he just sulked and left me alone, thank goodness. The humorous part of the story was one of his pick-up lines, said with a thick accent: “But, Lisa, I am so beautiful!” I tried with all my might not to laugh, but do remember thinking that he had a long way to go on learning his English verb conjugations before he ever had much of a chance on finding an English speaking girlfriend.
Trois
My last, and most colorful, story is borrowed from my friend Brian. When his sister was vacationing as a young adult on a French beach, this good Mormon girl didn’t care to follow the local custom of topless sun-bathing. A friendly French male stranger encouraged her to join in on the fun with “Set them free, they want to be free!" Such a sentence is never forgotten.
***************************************************
Okay, so maybe these random French people stories aren’t so funny to you-but I have to promise you that all three sayings are deeply imbedded in my conversations and thoughts, always with the accent. So, now you’re scared of me, but I promise that you have no need to fear this recipe. Bon appétit!
Baked Pecan French Toast
4 large eggs
2/3 cup orange juice
1/3 cup milk
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/2 loaf Italian bread-cut into 8 1 inch slices (if your bread is smaller, just cut enough slices to squeeze into a 9x13 pan)
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup chopped pecans
2 tbsp grated orange zest
In a large bowl, beat eggs with orange juice, milk, sugar, vanilla, nutmeg and salt. Place the bread slices flat and side-by-side in a wide baking pan. Pour egg mixture over bread, cover and refrigerate overnight.
The next morning…preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Coat a rimmed baking sheet with the softened butter. Place the soaked pieces of bread apart from each other on the baking sheet. Sprinkle evenly with pecans and orange zest. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes until golden brown. Serve with butter and warmed syrup. Makes 4 servings.
