Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite Toast ($3 or less, fifteen minutes)

This is not a picture of food. It is, instead, a painting by Delacroix, called "Liberty Leading the People," or more correctly (sans accents) "La Liberte guidant le peuple."

See, what's really funny in a not-pleasant way about all the franco-hysteria of 2003 and/or -- oh, now -- in which legions of people were introduced to sliced, deep-fried potatoes as "freedom fries" and battered, pan-fried bread as "freedom toast" is that freedom is what the French were all about. Might even be currently all about. The Statue of Liberty? Made in France. Our freedom as a country from the British Empire? Assisted by France (via Lafayette [he looks like he likes a stinky cheese, don't he?], among others). Freedom from undergarments like corsets and to show one's breasts, as in the painting above, while killing aristos? You know it: FRANCE.

Thus this is VERY FRENCH TOAST.

Which itself is an irony, since no decent French person would touch the stuff, I'm sure. It's pure American.

Ironies upon ironies abound.

This is why Tea-baggers are idiots (does this sign even make sense?), largely -- okay, one of the reasons. Zero ability to sense irony.

For le pain faux-francais, what you need is some stale bread (not moldy! just stale!). Also milk, a couple of eggs, a little sugar, a little cinnamon, and a hot, greased pan.

In a bowl -- here I feature the beautiful gift bowl I got last week from the Brickman-Curzons -- beat a couple of eggs with about a 1/3 c milk for every pound of bread. You might need more or less, but that's the beauty [use your mute button freely at this link] of this recipe. The freedom of it, you might say.

Sprinkle on about 1/2 tsp sugar and a 1/4 tsp cinnamon. Mix this all up well. You can see I waited to beat my eggs until I'd added the other stuff. That's okay too.

Heat the pan with a little oil, until when you shake a wet hand over it, the water pops or dances immediately.

Take a slice of bread and briefly dip it, both sides, in the bowl of eggy-cinnamon-milky-sugar stuff. DO NOT SOAK the bread. You want just to coat it.

Drop it in the pan. If the pan's big enough, do several.

Here I've used my own bread (a recipe I'll post later) -- it's a very dense whole wheat which is good to keep the batter on the outside. White bread will absorb more, more quickly, so keep in mind that you want to be quick in the batter with Wonderbread sorts of breads.

You'll be able to smell this as it cooks and see the edges browning. Lift up each slice to check underneath to see if it's the right color -- brown colored. Like French toast colored. When it's that color, flip and cook the other side.

Set the oven on warm and set an oven-safe plate inside. Put each slice on the plate as it's done, to keep it warm.

Meanwhile, heat a little REAL maple syrup (the other stuff is gaggy and people tend to use too much of it trying to get it to taste like something. So dish out for the real, and use only a little.). I just put the glass bottle next to the pan, not touching, and it's warm enough by the time I'm done.

When it's all cooked, take the slices you want out of the oven and butter and drizzle with maple syrup. Then chow. Or, powder with confectioner's sugar if you need to -- though since this has some cinnamon and sugar in the batter, you might find that's overkill. Fry a runny egg and put it on top, if you don't value plaque-free arteries. Use it as sandwich bread for a thick bacon or slab-o-ham sandwich. Have at it. Do whatever. You have that freedom.

There you go.

Note: Here is a picture of what Chuck made of the batter leftovers. He says to say, however terrible it looks, it was mighty tasty. He simply turned the batter into the hot pan, shoved it around until it cooked, sprinkled it with grated cheddar and jalapeno paste (cinnamon and jalapeno??) and ate it.

In no other country would this be legal. I swear.

Turkey Shaped like a Football (under $15, about an hour)

I have the lyrics to "Secret Agent Man" (I know I used this in the last post, but it's just SO good) stuck in my head this morning. Only they're the wrong lyrics, they're the classically wrong lyrics: I'm hearing, secret... ASIAN man, secret... ASIAN man over and over again. It's a mystery. Can you be a secret Asian? Why would you keep that a secret, even if you could? Why can't the singer sing AGENT, with a nice hard G?

Look, I'm procrastinating. I need to write a paper, but instead I'm writing to you guys.

Everything isn't what it should be.

Welcome to meatloaf.

Once, I sat down at a table to a meatloaf made of god knows what dead animal -- what obese dead animal -- ground up and pressed into a big square corningware casserole. The grease was...impressive, if you're impressed by about half an inch of grease, say, floating on top of your meat. There was also ketchup somehow, but I never caught how.

I think of this particular meatloaf as an insult to the meatloaf deity.

My mother's meatloaf was never like that. When I ate beef, I liked hers, and conveniently enough when it's reshaped, it makes delightful meatballs. So when I stopped eating red meat, I began experimenting with her recipe. Her meatloaf was tender in the middle, crispy-edged (for those yummy heel pieces), savory, and remarkably ungreasy. I wanted that for my non-beef-loaf.

Here is what I came up with. Look at the pictures for what you want in consistency and meat-to-bread ratio. I make two loaves at a time and often freeze one for later.

about a pound and a half of ground poultry
about a pound and a half of poultry sausage (we like hot Italian turkey sausage when we can get it)
stale bread (maybe four cups), cut into cubes
about 1/2 c seasoned breadcrumbs
two eggs
some milk
oregano, thyme, red pepper flakes, salt
jalapeno paste, if you like it hot

Dump the cubes in a giant bowl.

Dump the ground poultry on top of that.

Squeeze the sausage out of the casings into the bowl. Discard the casings.

Add eggs.

Splash in maybe 3/4 c milk. Keep the milk out in case you need more.

Add the bread crumbs and spices.

With a potato masher, mash everything together. You want to do this until everything is WELL mixed, so give it some time. If the bread cubes aren't coming up into the meat, splash on a little more milk, but just a little at a time. Keep mashing. It should come together so that you can form balls of it with your hands. If you set them down, they should hold together and not crack or fall open. This may take five minutes of mashing, though I'd say it takes maybe two-three normally.

When you have everything mashed together, wash your hands, set the oven for 375 and get out two pans with edges. I use rectangular brownie pans because both with fit in my oven together. But use what you have and bake in stages if you have to. Lightly grease the bottom of the pans (I use spray grease). Divide the meat mixture in half, taking out one half with your hands and forming it into a footbally-loafy shape. Pat it smooth. Place it in one pan. Repeat with the other half and place it in the other pan.

Wash your hands (remember you're working with poultry) and then put the pans in the oven. Baking loaves can take from 45-60 minutes. You want to watch that they're uniformly brown on the outside, and they aren't pink in the middle.

If you need this in shorter order, divide the meat mixture in three or four and make smaller loaves: four loaves will cook in about 20-30 minutes.

To make meatballs, just form the meat mixture into balls whatever size you like. You can bake these, but I normally use a skillet and pan-cook them on the stove. Since they're very unfatty, you need a little olive oil in the skillet.

There you go.