20 January 2006
Originally posted on greenfairydotcom
The first time I ever had French toast, it was made for me by a man in a rubber maid's dress. Expressing his enthusiasm for this cheapest and easiest of suppers and distinct yet polite dismay that I'd never before tasted this classic student delicacy, we scooped up bread and eggs on the way home and later that evening he set about unravelling the arcane art that was its creation.
We watched the oil hiss and spit in the pan and wondered whether burning fat would do more damage to latex or bare skin. I would have happily taken my chances with self-healing skin rather than run the risk of having to nip down to Halfords for a puncture repair kit the next day, but his six inch heels brought precious possessions perilously close to hob level and the dress stayed on.
To distract my rumbling stomach in the impatient seconds between dinner's conception and completion I briefly considered starting a conversation about the precise point at which enough egg would be added that it would cease to be bread coated in egg and start to be omelette with a bread filling. But peering sideways at his expression of complete culinary concentration I decided instead to while away the time pondering aloud why the bigger the holes in a pair of fishnet stockings, the more expensive they are. One day, I said, I'll find myself paying twenty quid for a bit of black string around my waist. Yes, he said. But connoisseur of all types, he didn't know why it was so, either.
Standing in the kitchen gobbling up each new slice fresh from the pan, I promised to return the favour and make him my maple syrup pancake surprise, unofficial yet widely suspected cause of the Great Croydon Stomach-Ache Outbreak of 1994. He made a noise of what I took to be assent, muffled as it was by the furious flapping of his frilly pinny over the shrieking smoke alarm.
Oh, I know what you're thinking. It's abnormal. Perverse. And you're right. The thought of what my parents and friends would say if they knew makes me positively ashamed. But I can't explain to you any more than I could to him how I could have lived for so many years and never had French toast.