How to make French toast in your apartment in Bologna: an illustrated guide

1. Buy bread at Atti.  Discover that it is delicious but that you have way too much. Decide to make French toast.

2. Buy milk and eggs at the grocery.

3. Remember that your apartment is not equipped with a bread knife. Buy one at the 99 Cent store.

4. Dig through all the cupboards in search of a bowl large enough for beating eggs. Above the stove, find a large tupperware that will suit this purpose. Also find a large frying pan. Consider this a major success, given that your previous inventory of pans consisted of one large pan for pasta and one metal cup for boiling water.

5. Turn on some music (preferably Beethoven piano sonatas). Slice up some strawberries, sprinkle them with sugar. (You did remember to buy strawberries this morning at the Ugo Bassi market, didn't you?)

6. Assemble all your ingredients and tools. Now you are ready to begin making French toast.

7. Slice the bread. Mix together the milk and eggs; one recipe I found online suggests 1 cup of milk to 4 eggs, but just guesstimate it. Soak the slices of bread in the egg mixture for at least 5 minutes - after all, this is crusty bread, and longer soaking means more custardy toast. During this time, heat the frying pan. Use a paper towel to grease the pan with some of the sunflower seed oil you found on top of the fridge.

8. When the pan is sufficiently hot, cook the French toast. Flip it when it is ready. It is ready to flip when the underside looks like the piece in the lower half of this photo.

9. When the French toast is cooked, carefully arrange it on your plate to look like Australia. Top with strawberries. Eat.

Repeat steps 7 (from the part about soaking the bread in the egg mixture) through 9 as necessary.

 

10. Realize you still have most of half a loaf of bread remaining. Wonder what to make next.