Sunday Breakfast Leads to a Clean Spice Cabinet

My Sweetie came home from the grocery store with a loaf of Challa and I knew that he wanted me to make French toast for breakfast the next morning. No arguments from me. French toast has always been my favorite family breakfast meal. I learned to make it from my mother and she learned to make it from her grandmother. As kismet would have it, the recipe is the same as what my father’s Louisiana French grandmother made for him. Only she called it pain perdu or lost bread.

I’ve never encountered a similar style French toast. Most are very eggy and covered in syrup. My family’s French toast batter is more milk than egg and contains lots of cinnamon and vanilla. Then the finished product is topped with butter and powdered sugar. Mmmm!

This is the only recipe I learned to make based on the color of the batter and not measuring. It sounds odd but it works. Most Americanized French toast recipes don’t call for vanilla. I believe the vanilla is what makes it pain perdu and really sets this recipe apart from the rest.

Anyway, Sunday morning I sleepily turned on the kettle for tea, got out the griddle, sliced the Challa, and got out the ingredients for my French toast batter. I rooted around in the spice cabinet for the cinnamon and vanilla. I couldn’t find the vanilla. It was a big bottle that my mother bought for me in Mexico. It should have been easy to spot. I knew it was close to empty but I would have remembered if I used it all.

My Sweetie confessed he was the culprit and ran to Publix to buy one of those teensy bottles of vanilla. While he was gone I pulled everything out of the spice cabinet and wondered what he could have made that used vanilla.

I didn’t think about it too long because I got distracted by the cabinet contents piling up on the counter in front of me. Do I even dare think about what this collection of spices say about me, my cooking, my organizational skills, and my shopping habits?

This is what I found:

• Three jars of unopened curry powder. My husband must have bought these because I don’t even like curry.
  
• Two tins of Old Bay Seasoning. Can you say seafood boil?
  
• Three jars of celery seed. The only thing I use celery seed in is hot German potato salad and I can’t remember the last time I made that.
  
• Red pepper flakes, black peppercorns, ground white pepper, two jars of cayenne, and two jars of chili pwoder.
  
• Dill weed and dill seed. The only food items that should contain dill are pickles and I don’t make them.
  
• Two sets of food coloring. Only the red has been used… for fake blood.
  
• Four jars of sprinkles with barely a shake left in any of them. A-hem, G-Man!
  
• Whole coriander and ground cumin. Whole and ground cloves. Whole and ground nutmeg. Ground cinnamon and cinnamon sticks.
  
• Gumbo filé. Does anyone else have this?
  
• Countless jars of solidified seasoning mixes that got tossed.
  
• Two bottles of unopened Tabasco sauce.
  
• Three little, plastic discs of saffron.
  
• One packet of dry yeast that expired three years ago.
  
• A 40-year-old jar of crystallized violets. That’s a story for later.
  

And that’s just the interesting stuff.

After a very yummy breakfast, I went to Bed, Bath & Beyond for some great tiered shelves to go inside the cabinet. All of my spices are arranged alphabetically left to right, front to back, and bottom to top. How disgustingly organized is that?

Now I’m wondering how long my spice cabinet will stay neat and how I can get back to Cozumel to buy another liter-sized bottle of vanilla.

What’s your favorite breakfast food?
Do you have a secret family recipe that isn’t written down?
What’s the oddest item in your spice cabinet?
Does your spice cabinet look anything like mine? Before or after?