Cincinnati Trip, Part II

After our uneventful stay at a very nice Extended Stay America hotel, my traveling companion and I made our way over to the house of the theater friends who had starred in the production of 1776 we saw last night. Brunch was in order and our hostess was to regale us with her mother's world famous French Toast. Err, pancakes. Err, French Toast. Let me explain.

Normally French Toast is made by soaking day old slices of bread in a custard and then grilled in butter. Pancakes are a mixture of flour, baking soda (or powder), milk, eggs, oil, salt and a little sugar that are griddled in butter. Fundamental difference, no? Our hostess's mother discovered back in her college days that if she combined the methods, you get something totally new. She made a pancake batter with some cinnamon and nutmeg and then dipped slices of bread into the batter and griddled them like French toast. What you end up with is something totally unique, a hybrid that is better than the sum of the parts.

We started with some lovely mimosas while the bacon was being griddled. Once all of the components were ready, we sat down to a feast. Beside the fabulous French Pancakes, we had some lovely crispy bacon (my favorite kind) and scrambled eggs with peppers and mushrooms. A shot of my plate sans syrup:


This was so yummy, I had to have a couple extra strips of that crispy bacon and several more slices of the French Pancakes. We hated to say good-bye, but everyone seemed to have other commitments today that we needed to fulfill, so we were off. But we'll be back soon.