French Toast from Generation to Generation

Of all the comfort foods in the world, French toast has to rank among the best. Not so much for its taste, though I do like it, but because it's a food often made on weekends by dads and granddads.

A last minute visit by Dan, Allison, Finley and Dagny gave me the opportunity to exhibit the culinary skill passed down by my father. He rarely made an appearance in my mother’s kitchen in Brooklyn. He never cleaned the dishes or the pots and pans, though he did don jeans instead of his usual dress pants to lie on the floor to fix the dishwasher when it went on the fritz.

Other than French toast, his cooking—better to call it, food preparation—was confined to peeling an apple or slicing a pear for his three children. But he did make good French toast. Challah French toast, made from leftover Friday night sectional challah.

Cooking French toast has made its way down to another generation. Dan cooks it for his family, and after seeing his dad and grandpa do it I hope we are planting the seed of continuity inside Finley.

Finley already has experience with generational continuity. Gilda and I saved many of our children's toys including lots of Legos and construction trucks, one of which is a giant crane. For more than a year we made it a point to show Finley a picture hanging on our family room wall, a picture of young Dan playing with the crane just as Finley now does. Soon, Gilda will hang next to it a picture of Finley playing with the crane.

The Legos, of course, are as much fun for Dan to play with again as they are for Finley to explore. But it's the books we kept that really choke Gilda and me up. Seeing and hearing Dan read to Finley books he loved, like “There's No Such Thing as a Dragon” or “Sylvester and the Magic Pebble,” is beyond priceless.

To assure there will be enough bread for French toast on Saturday or Sunday morning I always buy two challahs when I know the kids are staying the weekend. I can't say I include any secret ingredient in the batter. Just eggs, milk and vanilla extract. My dad didn't include vanilla extract and neither did I until Ellie made it that way during a recent family get-together at Dan’s house.

Finley and Dagny like to dip their French toast pieces into maple syrup sitting in a monkey dish. I drip sugar-free syrup onto my slices. Dan only uses real maple syrup. 

Family Reading

In anticipation of our recent trip to Israel we received a request from Gilda’s cousin. She’s an ex-patriot living on a kibbutz, having emigrated to Israel after graduating high school four decades ago. A grandmother now several times over, Tzvia, nee Harriet, would rather not repeat with the new generation what she considers an omission of parenting, namely, not reading to her offspring English language children’s books to increase their facility in her native tongue.

We were happy to oblige her request to bring books for newborns-to-elementary school age children. We picked out about 20 of our favorites, including Frederick, Corduroy, Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, and a handful of Sandra Boynton classics.

I’ve mentioned before our preference for giving books as children's presents, accompanied by a short poem I penned several years ago:

Children outgrow clothing,
They tire of toys,
But the memory of reading
Books with your parents
Lasts forever.


Reading to Dan and Ellie was among the most glorious and rewarding of parenting activities. One reading session stands out, about the time Ellie was 10 and Dan 13. Like most young girls, Ellie loved the animated Disney movie, The Little Mermaid. As part of Disney’s promotional campaign for the film, I received a copy of the video and a handsome, illustrated bound version of the Hans Christian Andersen story. After watching the video several times, Ellie asked me to read the book before bedtime.

Ellie, Gilda and Dan piled onto our queen-sized bed for the command performance. All went well until I started reading the last page. In the movie, Ariel was transformed from a mermaid into a woman so she could marry her human sweetheart. But as I gazed down a few paragraphs, I stopped reading. The kids and Gilda wondered what was wrong. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Gilda’s quizzical look.

She was sitting right next to me. I whispered, “She dies.” Gilda said, “Huh?” “She dies,” I repeated. By now Dan and Ellie suspected something was not right. When I told them the original outcome of the story, like their parents, they couldn’t believe it. How could she die?

Perhaps Hans Christian Andersen wanted to give children a life lesson, that not everything turns out for the best. Or perhaps he wanted to nip in the bud any thoughts different cultures could successfully mingle. Whatever.

The Little Mermaid is one of his most endearing and enduring stories, commemorated by a statue of the mermaid in the harbor of Copenhagen. It’s a comely statue, a big tourist attraction but one without the impact one might expect. Indeed, Gilda and I were less than impressed when we saw it during a trip to the Danish capital, as the backdrop to the statue is an industrial portion of the harbor.

About eight years after the family reading, in a repertoire theater production, Ellie played Ti Moune, the lead in Once on This Island, a musical with significant parallel plot lines to The Little Mermaid. Ti Moune is a peasant on a Caribbean island who falls in love with an upper class islander she saves after an accident (Ariel saved a prince from drowning). As in The Little Mermaid, her would-be husband loves her dancing, but, alas, marries someone else. Just as in the Andersen story, she’s given a chance to save her own life by killing him; she resists, proving love is stronger than death.

On the wall above my desk there’s a picture of Ellie dancing as Ti Moune. It’s among my favorite pictures of her.