French Toast Waffles -- What You Make When the Eggs Run Out and the Night Is Still Going

The phone rang at one-forty AM Saturday. When the phone rings at one-forty AM and you have a son who was in a war and has a drinking problem, your heart stops before your hand reaches the phone. It doesn't ring twice before you've already imagined the worst, which is a hospital or a morgue or a garage floor with a rifle, and you answer with your voice steady because Hensley men are steady even when everything inside them is falling.

Clay. DUI. His second. He'd clipped a parked car on Richmond Road and the police found him sitting in the truck, engine running, blood alcohol point-one-four, which is nearly twice the legal limit and half the limit of what I know he's capable of. He wasn't hurt. The parked car's owner was asleep in the house. Nobody was hurt except Clay, in ways that don't show on a police report.

I drove to the jail in clothes I pulled on over my pajamas and bailed him out with money from the account that Connie and I keep for emergencies, and this is what emergencies look like in our family — not a broken pipe or a flat tire but a son in a holding cell smelling like bourbon and failure and the particular shame of a man who promised to do better and didn't. Clay was quiet in the truck. I was quiet in the truck. We drove home in the kind of silence that's too heavy for words and too important for noise.

At the house, Connie was awake, sitting at the kitchen table with coffee she wasn't drinking. She looked at Clay and she didn't yell and she didn't cry and she said sit down. He sat. She said this is the last time I bail you out. Not the last time I love you. The last time I bail you out. Clay nodded. I nodded. Connie went to bed. I stayed at the table with Clay and made scrambled eggs because it was three AM and there was nothing else to do and eggs don't ask you to explain yourself. I scrambled them slow, the way Betty taught me — low heat, constant stirring, butter in the pan, pull them off before they're done because they keep cooking on the plate. Craig and Clay ate scrambled eggs at three AM and didn't talk and the eggs were good, which is all I can tell you about that night that doesn't hurt to say.

That night it was eggs — just eggs, low heat, butter, and silence. But I’ve made this same kind of meal a dozen times since, those nights when sleep won’t come and the kitchen is the only room in the house that still makes sense. French Toast Waffles are what I reach for now when the hour is wrong and the feeling is too big to name: they’re simple enough that your hands know what to do without your brain having to help, and they’re good enough that for a few minutes, good is all anything needs to be. Betty taught me the eggs; I figured out the rest on my own.

French Toast Waffles

Prep Time: 10 min | Cook Time: 15 min | Total Time: 25 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 4 thick slices bread (brioche or Texas toast works best)
• 3 large eggs
• 1/2 cup whole milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
• Pinch of salt
• Butter or nonstick spray for the waffle iron
• Maple syrup and powdered sugar for serving

Instructions

1. Preheat the waffle iron. Heat your waffle iron to medium—high and grease it lightly with butter or nonstick spray. Don’t rush this step; a properly heated iron is the difference between a waffle that releases clean and one that sticks and tears.
2. Make the custard. In a wide, shallow bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, vanilla, cinnamon, sugar, and salt until fully combined and slightly frothy. The sugar isn’t strictly necessary, but it helps the outside caramelize.
3. Soak the bread. Lay each slice in the egg mixture and let it soak for about 30 seconds per side. You want the bread saturated but not falling apart. Thick-cut bread holds up better here.
4. Cook in the waffle iron. Lay one soaked slice flat in the center of the waffle iron and close the lid. Cook for 3—4 minutes until deep golden and the steam has mostly stopped escaping from the sides. Repeat with remaining slices.
5. Serve immediately. Dust with powdered sugar and serve with warm maple syrup. These don’t hold well — they’re best eaten right off the iron, at the table, while they’re still hot.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 280 | Protein: 10g | Fat: 9g | Carbs: 38g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 310mg