I never thought that Japan would be the place where I learned how to make American foods (er French I guess), but I was mistaken. I made an offhanded comment to my friend Nozomi about French toast one day and he excitedly said that he wanted to try it. The problem with this is that American French Toast (is that correct?) is not really available where we live in Japan, so we set out on a French toast making mission, which was difficult considering that our kitchen consists of a conduction cook top, a sink, two fry pans that do not work on the induction cook top, and a stock pot. Apparently, a stock pot has the potential to make decent French toast, as we soon found out.
The first attempt was less than ideal. We forgot to buy butter, so we had to use a bit of oil to keep the bread from sticking. It’s also worth noting that butter can burn extremely easily when you accidentally turn the temperature up too high (who’d a’ thunk?). The first time around we didn’t let the bread soak in the egg mixture long enough, so the mixture simply burned off in the pan, due to the excessive heat. We had to use a plastic container which was too large for the egg mixture, and we had no powdered sugar. I don’t feel so bad about it if I just refer to the first time as practice.
The second time we were armed with knowledge and ready for battle. It turns out that a box-ramen container is almost exactly the size of a slice of bread. Japanese bread is great for making French toast, because it is thicker than and not nearly as flimsy as good ‘ole American white bread. We remembered the butter this time and also let the bread sit in the egg mixture longer. Adding some salt and sugar syrup to the egg mix provided it with much needed flavor. After turning the burner down, we held our breathe and dropped the bread in. This time the terrible burning smell was replaced by the fresh smell of eggs and melting butter. While chopsticks are decent utensils for flipping bread, we have since purchased a cheap flipper (essentially an Okonomyaki scrapper). Seeing as we started with no recipe, had none of the correct utensils, and Nozomi knew nothing about French toast beforehand, I’d say that the first real foray into cooking in the Kabe dorm was quite a success: next stop, our own cooking show.
Note: Please ignore the way that I say toast; it sounds as if I’m from Minnesota, and I have no idea why those sounds emanated from my mouth. I find it hilarious how slow and simple my English is in the video. I hadn’t realized how much my tone and speed have changed due to my attempt to speak more clearly for my friends who are not fluent in English. My writing is also suffering. This is truly bad timing, because the GMAT will soon rear its ugly head, so I have to keep up with my already limited vocabulary. There was also an epic America vs. Japan table tennis match that followed the amazing meal, but I’ll post more on that later!