Toad in the Hole Bacon Sandwich

I stopped by Clay's apartment Tuesday after work. I didn't call first because calling first gives a man time to clean up what he doesn't want you to see, and I have been a father long enough to know that showing up unannounced is sometimes the only honest way to check on your child. The apartment was dim. Blinds closed. The sink had dishes in it that had been there longer than a few days — I could tell by the smell, which was the sour, stale smell of a kitchen that nobody's been tending. There were two empty bourbon bottles on the counter and a third, half-gone, on the coffee table beside a glass with a finger of brown liquid in it. It was three-thirty in the afternoon.

Clay was on the couch. He looked at me and didn't look surprised and didn't look ashamed, which scared me more than the bottles. Shame means you know you've crossed a line. The absence of shame means you've stopped seeing the line at all. He said hey. I said hey. I sat down in the chair across from him and didn't say anything about the bottles because I learned in the first year of Clay's struggle that words about drinking don't help a man who's drinking — they just give him something to argue against instead of something to hold onto.

I asked if he'd eaten. He said not really. I went to his kitchen, which was bare — eggs, bread, a block of cheese going hard at the edges, hot sauce, nothing else. I made him a fried egg sandwich. Two eggs, over medium, on white bread with American cheese and hot sauce. It is the simplest meal I know how to make and sometimes simple is all the situation will hold. He ate it. That's something. A man who eats is a man who hasn't given up entirely. I've learned to measure Clay's well-being in bites.

I drove home and told Connie. She closed her eyes and breathed out slow through her nose, the way she does when she's processing something too heavy for a quick reaction. She said how bad. I said bad enough. She said call Dr. Rivera. I said Clay has to call. She said then we wait. So we wait. We've been waiting for two years — for Clay to fall, to get up, to fall again, to choose again. You'd think waiting gets easier with practice. It does not. Every time the ground opens under your boy it's the first time, because love doesn't learn from repetition. It just keeps falling.

I’ve made that sandwich for Clay more times than I can count now — standing in someone else’s kitchen with whatever’s left in the refrigerator, trying to make something out of not much. The Toad in the Hole Bacon Sandwich is as close as a recipe gets to what I was doing that afternoon in Clay’s apartment: egg, bread, a little heat, and the hope that the person sitting on the other side of the table will eat it. When you’re measuring a man’s well-being in bites, you don’t need anything complicated. You just need something real.

Prep Time: 5 minutes | Cook Time: 10 minutes | Total Time: 15 minutes | Servings: 1

Ingredients

2 slices thick white sandwich bread
2 large eggs
2 strips bacon
1 tablespoon butter
1 slice American cheese (optional)
Hot sauce, to taste
Salt and black pepper, to taste

Instructions

Cook the bacon. In a skillet over medium heat, cook bacon strips until crisp, about 4–5 minutes, turning once. Transfer to a paper towel-lined plate and set aside. Pour off excess grease but don’t wipe the pan.
Cut the holes. Use a round cookie cutter or the mouth of a glass to press a circle out of the center of each bread slice. Reserve the cut-out rounds.
Butter the pan. Reduce heat to medium-low. Add butter to the same skillet and let it melt, swirling to coat.
Fry the eggs in the bread. Lay both bread slices flat in the skillet. Crack one egg into the hole of each slice. Season with salt and pepper. Cook until the whites are just set, about 2–3 minutes. Carefully flip and cook 1 minute more for a just-set yolk, or longer if you prefer firm. Place the reserved bread rounds in the pan alongside to toast.
Build the sandwich. Lay one egg-bread slice on a plate. Top with the bacon strips, then the cheese slice if using. Set the second egg-bread slice on top. Tuck the toasted rounds on the side.
Finish and serve. Shake on hot sauce to taste. Eat while it’s hot.

Nutrition (per serving)

Toad in the Hole Bacon Sandwich — The Simplest Meal a Father Knows How to Make