Yeah, so the title of this post is a spoiler.
After putting everything away at home, it was time (already!) to eat. I opened the fridge and, for the first time in my entire life, it smelled wonderful. Stocked almost completely with fresh fruit and vegetables, my god, it was like...it was...well, I don't have an accurate metaphor and that is making me think that I haven't really eaten real food before. It was like living your entire life having walked past solitary roses, and never stopping to take a whiff. Then one day, you are at the florist and walk into that tiny little refrigerated cooler at the filled with them. That is how different it was.
In my old life, french toast was:
- Arnold Oat Nut Bread (which, although surely quite processed, is quite amazing)
- Supermarket Eggs
- A little bit of Rice Milk (I have minor lactose issues which I steer away from)
- Cinnamon
- Log Cabin sugar free syrup (it's the best sugar free I've found, and in large quantities it doesn't make me want to lay down and take a nap afterwards like the "real" stuff does)
- Supermarket Butter
(A good approximation of my old french toast, assuming I was ambitious
enough to include strawberries. Photo courtesy of chocolate monster mel)
On this particular morning, by new french toast was:
- Udi's Challah Bread
- Farm Eggs from Wisdom Poultry (interestingly with several different colors in the same carton)
- Cinnamon
- Organic Butter (which did come from the supermarket)
I seriously almost fell out of my chair.
Without syrup! Possibly the best french toast I've ever had.
We had bought applesauce and peach-pear butter at the farmer's market from
Ela Family Farms. One of the things mentioned a lot in
'In Defense of Food' is that when shopping, you should focus more on the ingredients than on calorie/fat/protein/etc counts. While reaching for a bottle of their Organic Peach-Pear Butter (which I had just sampled on a wheat thin), Janet asked: "Now, is there any added sugar?"
The reply was swift. "Nope. In fact, I urge you to read the list of ingredients."
She laughed as I gazed over her shoulder to see for myself:
Ingredients: Organic Pears, Organic Peaches
I was looking for creative uses for this butter, which is actually more like a thick applesauce, so of course I couldn't resist adding it to my already tasty breakfast. The french toast was still amazing, but interestingly
not better. You know how normally adding syrup to french toast, pancakes and the like is the difference between night & day? Well not here. It was already so good that it could barely be improved (if at all) despite a hearty slathering of sweet goodness on top.
Mind you, this was no fault of the butter, which was delicious (I've since used it as a J substitute in my PB&J, and as a dip for unimproved challah bread).
Just a few hours into my new eating lifestyle, I was already seeing huge payoffs.
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