Toast of the Town: March 2014

"Every child is an artist. The problem is to remain an artist when we grow up."- Pablo Picasso
(and he should know!)

When I spoke at my father's funeral, I focused on what he gave me that mattered most. Among many qualities that I treasured and admired, my father had, until his dying day, a child's delight in the absurd. He was like a comedy detective. Whatever dank coal mine of life presented itself to him, he'd put on his miner's hat and find what was interesting and funny in it, and if there was a toothless guy named "Clem" who worked there who knew where to find the best road kill soufflé in all of Appalachia. As I always say, "Everything in life is funny, and whatever isn't will makes a good story." Dad would have liked that one. In fact, I probably stole it from him.
As a parent, I often try to channel my father. My dad understood Pablo Picasso's challenge, and he met it each day. He was a childlike artist his whole life--not in any medium visible to the naked eye, but in the way he approached life. He was a life artist. If he were around today, you'd say "He wins at life." His artistry was to invent a new life hack each and every day and share it in an impish way with everyone in his orbit. He could squeeze joy from a stone. That was his art.
It is in this esteemed tradition, that I began the breakfast art…what we'll call my "petit dejeuner" period when I look back on this. (It's French for breakfast, and since the FRENCH toast is the primary medium, well, you get it.)

SO….what better homage to my Peter Pan of a father, than to be every bit as impish and immature with my own children, and appeal to their basest humor. OK, so this picture is a bit of a Rorschach test. HINT: If you are a potty-mouthed, bathroom humor kinda person, you will be at a distinct advantage in making the ID on this one. If this were "JEOPARDY", the hint would be: "It is two things that are related." Here's another angle to really make the point of a kind of cause and effect relationship between the two items.

It is a tush. (See the two lumpy "cheeks" back to back to make the crack?). And the longish rectangles plopped on top of each other in a kind of circular fashion below, those things that look like kindling logs in a campfire? They are the work product of the above tush.

I know. I'm sorry. I realize that this is the second unappetizing reference I have made in this blog about food. But I think I've gotten it out of my system now, and everything else will be incredibly dainty, refined, and highbrow.
After a bunch of smiley faces and a heart or two, this was the first piece of the eggy baked ephemera that I documented. In my house, with one person who has Crohn's and another with Ulcerative Colitis, bathroom humor is ever-present and a consistent winner. I wanted to make a splash and the tush ensemble was a triumphant success. My son gave me a beaming, smiling, head shaking, eyerolling tsk, tsk, tsk JUST like the one I used to give my dad. And then he tore into his breakfast…just to try to gross me out right back. It made my childish artist's heart sing.

THE SON THE MOON AND THE STARS

THE BACK STORY

In my last blog, by way of introduction, I shared an overview of my "breakfast art", a project that evolved as a creative response to a sick child. My middle son, my Malcolm in the Middle, in addition to dealing with all the younger brother/older brother slings and arrows of life, was diagnosed with Crohn's disease after months of pain and basically not eating . While we battled the demoralizing hardships of the prednisone he was given to first get this under control, I noticed that French Toast was the one thing he seemed to consistently be able to stomach. Now, my boy has a staggering, often stultifying tolerance for culinary repetition. At his peak of flexibility, he had a "go to" menu repertoire of about four dishes- pasta, pizza, hot dogs and burgers. But when he got sick, even these lost their dazzle. I was SO thrilled to find that he would eat the french toast, that I, even more challenged with cooking than he was with eating, decided to go long on the toast.

Now. I'll go one by one through the boy-friendly breakfast art, starting with today's contribution… and its motivation.

Last night was Methotrexate night…something he dreads each week. He is finally weaned off the Prednisone and this is his main medication to keep his mouth (he has oral Crohn's) and his gut (in addition to the regular kind of Crohn's in the small intestine.) Every Friday, he takes an anti-nausea pill, waits half an hour and then he gives himself a shot that he realllllllly hates. What usually occurs is a lingering nausea/queasiness that stretches over the weekend, along with a headache, but doesn't make him actually throw up. This shot was worse than usual for him for some reason, and he got up 5 minutes later and bye-bye dinner. All of it. Everything he ate the whole day by the looks of it. (I'd like to extend a quick apology to those of you who thought this would just be a yummy food blog..Note to self: try to avoid puking references in food-related blogs.)

Anyway, he was drained. SO…this morning, I knew this would be a good day to get back to some good old carbohydrate love.

Since I have had lots of people ask how I make these confections, I will include a step by step "how-to".

THE EXECUTION

1) Make a pile of Challah French Toast at once…a whole challah's worth at once. This is the constraint. It is the amount he will plow through in several days of French toast and it makes an interesting creative challenge. Like twitter's 144 characters…(is that the number?), I limit myself to whatever can be made with the toast this yields, like a little egg bread haiku. Now the non-lazy among you can feel free to make it as you go, but I don't do that…too little time in the mornings, too many pots and pans to clean.)

Here is this morning's yield.

A few weeks ago, I offered up this baby (below), and told him it was a downpayment on my promise to give him the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars. (For those of you who thought this was some sort of freaky spider, it is THE SUN)

This one was done "freestyle". I took the biggest piece of challah from the center of the loaf and cut out what was the closest approximation to a circle that I could manage. Fearing the mistaken identity with members of the insect or crab family, I tried to cut out the "rays" like individual lightening bolts. When possible, I cut these out of the scraps from the central orb of my sun. Then came two more concentric circles, stacked on top of each other, to try to create the 3D illusion of roundness. Then, more lightening bolts cut out from what remained of those smaller slices. Obviously, timeliness was of primary concern, so the total creation time was about 10 minutes.

So this morning, I decided it would be a good day to go for the second part of that promise. I'd make the moon and the stars. This was much easier, because it mostly allowed me to cheat and use stars from my abundant cookie cutter collection, and I didn't really have to do anything freehand. Only the smiling moon and one profoundly unimpressive star were done without a mold. See if you can guess which one. It looks a little like the talk bubbles from cartoons where words like ZAP and POW are written.

I tried to block out the stars with the most efficient use of the french toast real estate. (See below)

And once, I stuck one star inside another to create a cut out effect.

The moon was my best effort at cutting out a crescent from the largest piece of the toast, and then making a smile, eyebrows, and eyes from the scraps that remained.