THE DISH: My Mother's French Toast

There are times when I love a 38-hour braised short rib with polenta and a glass of Malbec at a fancy restaurant, or times when I eat sausage and gravy with sunny side up eggs from I know it’s the best, but there are other times when a meal comes from the hands of the woman who fed you for years and it beats them all.

French Toast is easy enough to make, but my Ma knows what she’s doing. First her hands crack an egg with one precise chip against the bowl and out plops the raw egg. Her wrist whisks that egg into a yellow goo. Then she takes a piece of white bread and plops it is, lets it sit and then flip.

She then cracks another egg and whisks it in a large flat-bottomed bowl and puts the just-egg-coated bread in, to sit and wait while the other slices (each coated with one egg apiece) come. Then they’re taken out and fried up one by one.

After the bread is all ready, Ma slabs a teaspoon of butter in the pan and cooks the yolked slices until golden brown, just for you (well, me).

You can’t really get that kind of dedicated, sincere service in a restaurant.

The French toast is indeed delicious. The extra egg gives it a rick flavor and the plain white bread, well, is just good. The maple syrup goes better with French toast than peanut butter goes with jelly.

Sometimes you don’t need all that brunch mayhem— organic this, farm-fresh everything, 12-grain bread, steel cut oats and Hudson Valley produce.

Sometimes you just need a little bite of home. 

What's your favorite family-cooked meal? Let us know in the comments.