French toast, Harry and the horse, and Stonehenge houses

A few things to blather about…

First of all, today I tried making pain perdu, aka French toast, as shown on the Food Network’s show “Good Eats.” I was channel flipping yesterday and happened to land on a guy talking about it and then showing how to make it…so I watched, intrigued. First of all, you use “day-old” bread, as in set your bread out to dry the night before. Then make the mix (“custard,” he called it) the night before as well (mix the eggs, cream, honey, salt and put back in frig). When you make the toast the next morning, you soak each piece of bread in the custard mixture for 30 seconds each side, then put them on a wire rack to let it all soak in. Then cook the bread on the stovetop in a dab of butter until golden brown, THEN put the slices in the oven for 5 minutes! I’d never heard of doing such a thing (you see how much I have to learn?). I tried the recipe this morning…the stale bread, extra soaking, and extra cooking really does make a difference, and makes some frakking *awesome* French toast! Crunchy on the outside, tender on inside. For the full recipe, it’s on this page.

Have you heard yet about Dan Radcliffe, aka Harry Potter, starring in a West End production of Equus as Alan Strang? As in, he must get fully naked on stage? No? Well, check out the pics posted on Mugglenet (look for the post, “Dan as you’ve never seen him”) and see for yourself how grown up he is. The photos are gorgeously done, and leave just enough to the imagination. I can only imagine how hard it will be to get a ticket to that show…

And I don’t know how I missed hearing anything about this before now, but archaeologists have unearthed lots and lots of goodies near Stonehenge—as in a “huge Neolithic village,” to be exact. Pretty cool! An article with links to more is here.