Can we get you something, something soft?  Jell-O? Okay. The lime kind, and Donald? Sure. You just wait right there.

That’s right.  When in need of true comfort, dental or otherwise, we call on The Donald.  Promise not to tell her friends; she’d kill me.  With the spoon.

Anyway, as soon as you could say Tylenol 3, the two full days of Jell-O, soup and yogurt made her bored with movies, sick of codeine, restless and newly charged as The Crabby, Hungry Thing.   She was starving, she said, we were starving her. I believe that’s called taking care of you, I said.  You wanted Jell-O.  Well yeah, but now – now she was just mad to have missed the whole weekend, sure that she was wasting away, and maybe she would like a large steak.  Or a dozen buffalo hot wings.  And celery.  The dog leaped off the bed, and the spell was broken.  She was feeling better.

Not wishing to undo the surgeon’s work, I nixed the chewing, but offered real food.  How about…French toast?

Eh.

I looked around the kitchen.  A banana in the fruit bowl straightened, hopeful.

Okay. How about French toast…with caramelized bananas?

Ooh.

Aha! Soft for the mouth and sweet on the tongue.  Now we were talking, and even better, healing.  There’s still Jell-O in the fridge, and sore mouth or not, she’ll eat it.  Me, I’ll wait for the fever.

Caramelized Banana French Toast

This method lets you use one pan for both the French toast and the bananas; just make sure it’s good and non-stick.

8 slices bread (I like to use stale baguette bread, cut on a thick angle)
4-5 eggs *
1/4 cup milk or cream
splash orange juice (optional)
dash of cinnamon
dash of nutmeg

1 tablespoon canola oil, or butter, for frying

1-2 bananas, in thick slices
1 tablespoon butter
1 1/2 tablespoon sugar
splash orange juice

In a large bowl, whisk the eggs, milk or cream, orange juice, cinnamon and nutmeg until smooth. Add bread slices to bowl, turning pieces to coat with egg mixture. Leave slices in the egg mixture 5-15 minutes (thick, dry bread can take longer) or until bread is soaked through, but not falling apart.

Using a large, non-stick frying pan, melt oil or butter over medium-high heat. Add soaked bread slices and cook 1-2 minutes per side, turning, until evenly browned. Remove French toast from pan and set on a paper-towel lined plate.

Leaving heat at medium-high, immediately add sliced bananas and tablespoon of butter to the same non-stick pan, shaking pan as you add to keep bananas moving. Sprinkle sugar over bananas, then the splash of orange juice.  Keep the pan moving as they cook, using a heatproof spatula to help turn bananas fast.  Both sides of bananas should brown quickly, melting the sugar and juice together, about one minute total cooking time.

Set French toast on plates, spoon warm bananas over the top, and serve.

* so, what’s with “4-5 eggs?” Well, eggs will vary in size, volume, and how long they’ve been in your fridge.  Start by whisking up four – if there’s enough liquid to generously cover the bread, stop there, and if not, add another.

serves 3-4, depending on your own Hungry Things

“Are you hungry?”

No. I am in bed.

“Should we go out to breakfast?”

Maybe. When I am out of the bed.

Cleo stared at me, her fixed brown-eye seal stare, feed me.

Know what I’ve learned from one kid, three dogs, restaurant kitchens and a work-at-home guy? There is no me in meal.

I didn’t feel like cooking, and didn’t want to wait in line at Milton’s. “I’ve already read the paper,” said Josie. “I don’t want to wait in line at Milton’s.”

Ha! Now, not even my thoughts are not my own. Spoiled I said, smoothing her ponytail, doesn’t want to waaait – but the echo gave me a private little smile that pulled me up and out to the day. It was sunny but not sweaty – a good omen – so we walked to a compromise two blocks down. If you get to WheatFields early enough, the line’s not too bad, the bread is to die for and the croissants shatter in a warm, buttery heap.

This week brought some lovely gifts.

A pick-me-up pillow arrived by mail from the wonderful, handyman-challenged Jean. Is there a better kind of pal than one who sends you something for no reason? What do you think, Moose Country meets The Who? Britannia meets Martha? Maybe Ralph Lauren invades Liverpool – whatever it is, it’s awesome.

Produce from my friend Pam at summer’s end. Cucumber salad, anyone?

In other news this week, I was lucky to receive a few too-kind awards: one from baker-to-be Susan at Slice of Sueshe, one from the endlessly creative Theresa of T Does Wool, and an E for Excellence from Beach House’s inimitable Modernemama. Thank you! You’re supposed to pass these things on – and as soon as I’m not paralyzed by indecision, I will.

The week saw a successful start to junior high – new haircut, new alarm clock, and a locker that finally opened. We also had cooler temperatures, Free State’s heirloom tomatoes, a good laugh at the unbelievably poor-taste and totally hysterical Tropic Thunder, kind words from friends near and far and tonight, barbecue at Arthur Bryant’s. Not too shabby. All that…

…and a sunny breakfast with the papers.

How was your weekend?

Remember these?

Somehow, a few caramelized bananas escaped Josie’s ice cream bowl, and let me tell you, that’s no small feat. They sat in the refrigerator quietly until Sunday morning, when I whisked them back to the counter…

…and pressed them into service. Literally.

At first glance, a handful of formerly sizzled bananas don’t look so hot – but after a toss through batter and a trip through the iron, they look delicious. They look like Caramelized Banana Waffles, and Sunday morning suddenly recalls the sundae last night.

We bite into the creamy-crisp bananarama’d waffles and I realize…they’re gone. No more toasty bananas. Oh, it will be a cruel, cruel summer and now I’m getting misty about the leftovers. Clearly there’s only one thing to do:

Make more!

My friends, sometimes coffee is not enough. Sometimes you must start the day with more than one shade of brown.

Just a little something. And at the end of the day, maybe a little something again?

——————————

Chocolate Breakfast Muffins

makes 12 full-sized muffins (or 24 minis)

2/3 cup (2 oz.) cocoa, Dutch-process or natural
1 3/4 cups (7 1/4 oz.) unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups (10 oz.) light brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup (6 oz.) chocolate chips
2 large eggs
1 cups (8 oz.) milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 teaspoons vinegar
8 tablespoons (one 4-oz. stick) butter or margarine, melted

granulated sugar, for sprinkling

Preheat the oven to 425 F.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together cocoa, flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and chocolate chips. Set aside.

In a medium-sized mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, vanilla, and vinegar. Add this egg mixture, along with the melted butter, to the dry ingredients, stirring to blend until just well-combined.

Scoop the batter into 12 papered muffin cups (or 24 minis). Sprinkle with an even layer of granulated sugar. Bake muffins for 15-20 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. Watch muffins closely – they can slightly burn around edges if overbaked. Remove the muffins from oven.

Allow to cool about 5 minutes in the pan, then remove to cool slightly on a wire rack before serving.

adapted from The King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion

Certainly living in Paris is only fantasy – the current exchange rate makes even bottled water seem luxurious – but fantasy is duty-free and makes a fine, weightless souvenir. There are many good reasons to maintain a Parisian fantasy life, including art, restaurants, crepe stands and the pursuit of unattainable style; but for me, it is breakfast that tops the list.

Petit dejeuner, enjoyed by natives and tourists alike, is my dream breakfast of croissants, buttered baguette, orange juice and espresso. That is all, and that is all I want. It is so supremely satisfying, just bread and drinks, that I do not even bother with le Splenda. I unwrap sugar cubes with abandon. I munch on croissants and walk them off. The calories just don’t register, and I begin to wonder if an extra time-space continuum happened somewhere over the Atlantic.

Whatever it is, it doesn’t work at home. In Paris bread is life, and at home, bread is the quickest route to unhappy shorts season. There is an empty fridge on our first day back and we head out for sleepy-eyed breakfast – but I don’t want eggs and bacon, hmm, it all looks too big. My family has no delicate problems and is happy to spear sausage links again. Between bites Josie predicts it’s a phase, I’ll be back on the big-plate horse again soon, and she’s right – by dinner, a juicy burger is looking pretty good. Still, for just another day or two, it’s good to feel different, changed by even a little breakfast, and wish for sugar cubes and crumbs in my lap.

What place changes you?

So I’ve been doing a little visiting baker-in-residence act in my mom’s Chicago kitchen. It’s day three of my visit, and the counter resembles a carb paradise: flaky cinnamon twists, apple danish braid, apricot rugelach and, well, a little chocolate fudge.

Why fudge? I spotted a can of sweetened condensed milk in the pantry, and never met an Elsie Borden I didn’t like.

And because we also needed a little something around for breakfast, I made:

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

You will need nicely seasoned muffin pans,

my Grandma Edna’s green tray that I totally covet and my mother won’t give up,

and one hungry dad at the breakfast table.

Eat them warm. You go! Wrap yourself in that chocolate banana blanket.

Happy Weekend!

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup ripe mashed bananas
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips

In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In another bowl, combine the egg, oil, yogurt and vanilla. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in bananas and chocolate chips. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups 2/3 full.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 22-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks.

recipe adapted from Allrecipes

It was also chilly – but autumn – a few years back when we pulled up to Polly’s Pancake Parlor in Sugar Hill, New Hampshire. But in that rambling old breakfast palace, it was cold – and then warm – in the best possible way.

In my life there are but two places that qualify as “perfect breakfast.” The foremost morning meal is at Walker Bros. in my hometown of Wilmette, Illinois. The second is at Polly’s.

At Polly’s, you gaze between bites at a clear, green view of mountains and valleys; your plate is graced by endlessly light hotcakes, buckwheat waffles, crackling local bacon and maple syrup straight from the trees.

Today, on a snow day, Polly’s is just a sticky empty plate in the back of our minds. On these days, a warm memory and a quick favorite is required.

So we will make pancakes with Josie’s favorite pancake topper, a sort of fast-track warm fruit compote. A quick-cooked mix of apples and whatever other fruit is handy, it’s cheekily called “fruit compost” around here. Apple Cranberry Compost.

**Attention Alert: if you are a patience-challenged blog reader and don’t wish to see mouthwatering, screen-clawing photos of buttery apples, stop here and just enjoy the Polly’s mug. Otherwise, enjoy!**

Apple Cranberry “Compost”

This is not the most formal recipe you’ll ever read. Let your breakfast ideas loose; if you have blueberries, use blueberries. Or dried cherries. If it doesn’t look thick enough for you, add more corn starch. Nothing about this can go wrong.

It is delicious in any form, including straight from the pan.

Peel and dice a Granny Smith apple or two. This is not diced. This is the prettier photo of the not-yet-diced apples.

Make sure a black lab eats apple peel right at your elbow, or it won’t come out right.

Saute your apples in a little butter over low-medium heat.

Toss in a generous handful of dried cranberries and about 1/2 cup of sugar. You can also add a dash of cinnamon, clove or nutmeg. Or all of them, if you’re feeling spicy.

Cook, stirring, until the fruit is delectably soft, buttery, and shiny.

It will be a beautiful sight. But now you will cover this beautiful sight, and leave it covered for about 5 minutes.

When you peek and it looks like this, you’re close. Uncover and stir.

Pour in approximately one juice glass full of orange juice. Also throw in a sprinkling of corn starch, and a pat or two of butter. How much juice, corn starch, and butter you use will make it as thick – or as thin – as you wish, so add accordingly.

Have I mentioned that nothing cannot be improved by butter?

At this point things will look a little odd – but smell incredible. Stick with it! Stir and stir until those apples begin to break down in earnest.

When it resembles chunky, ruby-studded applesauce, it’s done.

Trust me – the pancakes will thank you.

Everyone nearby, and outside, and down the street will thank you.

And a few happy snow day diners in PJ’s…

…will put you in the breakfast hall of fame – like Polly.