By Christmas week begins. The apartment smells like pine (the cheap candle, not the tree — the tree smells like parking lot) and sugar cookies (Chloe's project, her first solo baking attempt, results: variable) and anticipation. Terrence arrives Saturday. Five more days. The countdown is different from the leaving countdown — this one moves toward instead of away, and moving toward is a completely different kind of waiting. This waiting has joy in it.
I wrapped presents in the bathroom after the kids went to bed. The bathroom is the only room with a door that locks. The floor is cold. The wrapping paper is from Dollar Tree. The scissors are dull. But the gifts are right: for Chloe, a set of the Percy Jackson books (she's graduating from Magic Tree House to Greek mythology and I am NOT ready for the questions about Zeus's personal life), a journal with a lock and key (she wants privacy, she's seven and she wants PRIVACY, and I'm going to respect it even though reading her diary would be the easiest thing in the world). For Jayden, a toy fire station with a working garage door and a slide pole that a small firefighter can actually slide down (this cost more than it should have, but the boy has been pointing at it in the Target flyer since September and some things you just BUY because the wanting is so pure it deserves to be answered).
Mama is knitting. She's been knitting since I told her about the baby — a blanket, yellow (gender-neutral, because we don't know yet, because I want to be surprised, because the world has so few good surprises left and this is one I'm keeping). She's halfway done. Her arthritis makes it slow. Every stitch is a small act of defiance against a body that's trying to quit. She knits because her mother knitted and her mother's mother knitted and the blanket is a Mitchell tradition that predates me, predates Nashville, predates everything. A baby wrapped in a grandmother's blanket is a baby wrapped in history. This baby will have history before it has a name.
Chloe's sugar cookies were... educational. The dough was good (my recipe, my supervision). The rolling was uneven (her arms, her force, her seven-year-old approximation of "a quarter inch thick"). The cutting was enthusiastic (stars, trees, bells, and one shape she insists is a reindeer but looks like a dog having a medical emergency). The decorating was CHAOTIC — frosting everywhere, sprinkles on the floor, Jayden eating raw frosting from the bowl with a spoon while I pretended not to notice. The cookies looked terrible. They tasted perfect. That's the whole lesson. That's the lesson Earline taught Lorraine taught me and I'm teaching Chloe: the appearance doesn't matter. The taste does. The MAKING does. The standing in a kitchen with your mother and your brother and your hands covered in frosting — that's the recipe. Everything else is just ingredients.
I made gingerbread. Not cookies — a gingerbread loaf, dark and dense and spicy, the kind you slice thick and eat with butter. Earline's recipe, of course. December requires gingerbread the way June requires lemonade. The seasons have rules. The kitchen follows them. The baby fluttered while I mixed the batter, right when I added the molasses. I'm choosing to believe the baby likes molasses. The baby's first opinion. Molasses. A baby after my own heart.
After a night of gingerbread loaf and sugar cookie chaos, the spice doesn’t leave the kitchen — it settles in, the way good things do. The morning after I mixed Earline’s batter, the apartment still carried that molasses warmth, and I wanted breakfast that matched it: something fragrant, a little sweet, a little citrusy, the kind of thing you make when you’re already in the rhythm of the kitchen and you don’t want to leave it. This Orange-Cinnamon French Toast is that breakfast — it’s what you make when the season has gotten into you and the only sensible response is to keep cooking.
Orange-Cinnamon French Toast
Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 15 minutes | Total Time: 25 minutes | Servings: 4
Ingredients
- 4 large eggs
- 1/2 cup whole milk
- 2 tablespoons fresh orange juice
- 1 teaspoon orange zest
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 8 slices thick-cut brioche or Texas toast
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
- Powdered sugar and maple syrup, for serving
Instructions
- Make the custard. In a wide, shallow bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, orange juice, orange zest, cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar, and vanilla extract until fully combined and slightly frothy.
- Heat the pan. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a large skillet or griddle over medium heat. Swirl to coat the surface evenly and let it foam and settle before adding bread.
- Soak the bread. Working in batches, lay slices of bread in the custard and let each side soak for about 20–30 seconds, pressing gently so the bread absorbs the mixture without falling apart.
- Cook the toast. Place soaked slices in the buttered skillet. Cook for 2–3 minutes per side, until deep golden brown and cooked through. Adjust heat as needed to prevent burning. Add remaining butter between batches.
- Serve warm. Transfer to plates, dust generously with powdered sugar, and drizzle with maple syrup. Serve immediately while the edges are still crisp and the centers are custardy.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 340 | Protein: 12g | Fat: 14g | Carbs: 42g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 310mg