French Toast

I’m pretty sure my wife ultimately chose to marry me because I made her french toast one morning.

I had just joined her in our move to Louisville, and we were living together for the first time in a very shitty 500 square-foot apartment (at least the neighborhood was nice). I asked her what she wanted for breakfast, she said she didn’t know — a regular dance of ours. And I suggested french toast.

If I recall correctly, she looked at me a bit suspiciously as if to ask if I knew how to make french toast. I assured her that my father had taught me at a young age, and that it was really quite simple. She said OK, and we were off to the races.

I grabbed the white bread I had forced her to buy at the grocery store the week prior and had predictably yet to be opened. It was a bit stale. Perfect.

I mixed some eggs with a splash of milk, cobbled together some mix of sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg, stirred that in and transferred it to a glass pie pan for lack of receptacles (remember, 500 sqft.).

I dipped my bread in the mixture, added it to a hot pan with way too much butter in it, and repeated the process until I had a nice stack of french toast, about three pieces each.

I grabbed my Steen’s, she grabbed her maple syrup, and we enjoyed one of our first breakfasts together as a co-habitating couple. I didn’t think much of it until she took a bite, looked at me, and said “Tyler. What the hell. This is incredible.”

“Really?”

“It’s like a diner.”

And just like that, living together seemed like a natural fit.

I loved french toast growing up. I’m pretty sure the reason my dad taught me out to make it was to get me to stop begging him to make it ever weekend.

But when he shared that piece of information with me, I never considered it would have the kind of impact it would have on my marriage. That’s the beauty of loving someone. The smallest things can mean everything such that the big, scary things in life seem like irrelevant sub-notes of life.

I like to cook. I make a lot of meals for my wife, most of which are far more extravagant and difficult to make, and all of which she loves (I think).

But none of it compares to french toast. French toast rocks.