An Introduction

HELLO GENTLE READER,
Welcome to my blog! I am a reporter/writer on an indefinite parenting sabbatical, and this is my current creative outlet -- a page from the maternal arts (culinary division) for the kitchen-challenged: breakfast art.
  My wry, sweet, funny middle son was recently diagnosed with Crohn's disease, and in the months leading up to the diagnosis this fall, he lost a lot of weight he did not have to lose. It hurt too much for him to eat. It hurt me too much to watch him not eat. SO…as they say, necessity is the mother of invention, and I decided that I needed to create some added enhancements to get that boy to the table. I needed to make him laugh. Since french toast was just about the only thing he could reliably choke down with any consistency, I decided that this divine delectation from my own childhood would become my path to the laughs…and to a kind of white trash version of nutrition for my son (bread, butter, egg, milk, cinnamon-- practically health food :)).
Challah bread, the wonderful, squishy, eggy sacred bread of the Sabbath would be my artistic medium, my comic vehicle.
  The first few toasts went undocumented: a smiley face here, a kind of neanderthal man there. And then I decided to start taking pictures. I went lowbrow, appealing to the baser humor of a 13-year-old: I fashioned a tush out of the back to back "mirror" images of two lumpy pieces of challah. And below it, sliced and placed cris-crossed like logs in a fire, the work product of said tush. My son was mortified and delighted. He ate his breakfast just to "gross me out". I was thrilled.

The next day, I did this one, and called it "A Sunset in One Color". He bought it….or at least he ate it with a smile.

What follows, in the order they somewhat randomly uploaded, are the breakfast treats presented to my son over the next several weeks during the Polar Vortex era this winter. I am profoundly tech-challenged…so these are not in the order I made them. Above-- the efforts of a non-time-challenged snow day breakfast: the 7th wonder of the world-- the Taj Mahal. I printed out a picture of the gorgeous temple in Agra, India and tried to replicate the foreshortened angle, the cedars lining the road leading up to it, and the columns/turrets on both sides.

Other days were much lazier. Inspired by the "wonders of the world" theme on a day where I was scrambling to get the kids off to school, I went for the pyramids in Egypt.

Another day, supreme laziness and a fondness for landmarks combined with  deepest reverence yielded The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center…with the northern tower number one, the radio tower on the left.

I have always liked art and architecture with text- phrases like those by artist Jenny Holtzer or the names of "the greats" in various fields, like Plato, Euripedes, etc. atop a library.

Here, in a cross between "waste not want not" and homage to the arts, is my rather impressionist Guggenheim museum, made from the edges of the bread from another design.

This one is a nod to my son's favorite sport- America's pastime: Baseball. 

Eventually, I began to feel a little guilt about all those carbs, and his tummy became a bit better able to tolerate a slight variety of foods…so I expanded the medium beyond bread.

But not for long: As we labored under the deep freeze of the Polar Vortex, and farrrrrr too many school-free snow days.  Igloo 2.0 came soon thereafter.

Here, with the clip art sketch that was its inspiration.

Couldn't decide if it should have a chimney.

Tried to create a deeper doorway to the igloo with multiple layers of toast on the arched entrance. And then…for one of my own personal natural wonders, a downpayment on a promise to give him the Sun the Moon, and the Stars: the sun for my son. 

I started posting these French toast treats on my Facebook page, and got great reactions from my friends…some of them quite funny. Sarah R. said this looked a bit like a spidery sea creature…but when I explained my limited talent and lame-ish efforts to compensate for this with "lightening bolt-y rays", and concentric circles of French toast to create the orb effect, she bought the whole "Sun" thing, alien arachnid factor notwithstanding.

I began taking requests and suggestions. My friend Julie was really into the "Wonders of the World/landmarks" thing, and she threw down the gauntlet: "Do Stonehenge". I demurred…"I am not ready for a 3D tableau". 

    Back to fruit…"The Wink"

 In honor of the Olympics, and the mini-reenactment of the Russia vs. US miracle on unfriendly (Sochi) ice, "Hockey player with chipped tooth"

 And then "Hockey player with a black eye and a chipped tooth"

 And finally, when we packed up the kids and went to visit Julie and her family in Florida, I was ready to take on Stonehenge as my first collaborative effort. We clicked on a great image of Stonehenge, and then did a mockup on the counter pre-cooking, just to lay it all out and make sure we had all the bits and pieces just where we needed them. On this day, we traded in challah for ciabatta because the latter's flat shape and firm crust lent itself much better to recreating the shapes of the vertical, rectangular stones.

 To avoid the soggy factor, we decided to forego the French toast squish for the cinnamon toast crunch. Julie supplied the viking in a  total plunge into historical and scale inaccuracy. We really did try to put all the stones in the right places.

 The parthenon…an early effort.

 A witch, as interpreted by my son.

 And finally, the French Eiffel tower in French toast.

A bunch of friends have, generously, suggested that I get a gallery to do an exhibition of this edible art, or that I do a book out of it. Architect and college friend Shari M. has critiqued the structural soundness of the architectural monuments. Others, like high school friends Patti H. and Sean M., have peer pressured/encouraged/brow beaten me into starting this
blog, with Sean even kind enough to offer up a tutorial for the tech-challenged on how to do this. He had some great ideas for names for the blog, but in the end, it was former TV colleague Paul M. who came up with the title. (thanks guys!)
The title is TOAST OF THE TOWN, but that URL was not available, so…please look for this in the PLURAL as http://toastsofthetown.blogspot.com/2014/02/an-introduction.html  THAT's MANY TOASTS, not just one…toastSofthetown.blogspot.com.

My son's weight and appetite are back and so is his regular laughter, so I may just back off on the carbs for a while. But I'm sure I'll still have a thing or two to share…on a wide range of topics. Come back and check it out!
Sharon D.