Winter #1: Drunken French Toast / 冬＃１：酔っぱらったフレンチトースト

The days keep getting shorter and shorter. In this land of the rising sun, the setting sun knows no daylight savings.
毎日の日暮れが早い季節に入りました。

But in this season of darkness, there is light, and you don't even have to wake up at six a.m. to catch it. It is the light offered by the simple things in life: simple sugars, and simple starches. And you may as well sleep in, since it's best served for brunch.
それでもこの闇の季節に光が見える：お砂糖とお酒に作られた光だ。

Japan has some delicious bread. True, it resembles the cake more than your standard rye. But even if it doesn't really fill you up or otherwise behave like "real food," it make real mean french toast.
日本のケーキのようなパンはおいしい。ちゃんとした食事にならないけど、せめてフレンチトーストに適当だと思う。

Japan also has great apples. Crisp, a little tart, and nothing like any mealy Red Delicious you may have had the misfortune to stumble upon.
日本のリンゴもおいしー。

Ah: these lovely little spheres, glistening and bright. These particular apples were ones I'd dragged all the way back from the Japanese Alps.
きれいね。このリンゴは日本のアルプスから持ち帰りにしたもので。。。

Also from the Japanese Alps, I had some leftover Japanese cognac-style brandy. Japanese bread, apples -- even beer -- may be wonderful. Japanese brandy is to be considered a last-resort beverage. It is okay, I guess, to sip it from a paper cup in the bath up in the freezing mountain air, but once I got back to civilization I couldn't really bear to take it straight.
軽井沢産ブラデーも持ち帰りで。まっ。日本で作られたパンもリンゴも（ビールも勿論けど）うまいけど。。。日本産のブランデーは。。。まだです。

The only thing to do, of course was to core the apples.
ですからリンゴの芯を抜いて。。。

After my messy job of coring these apples, I began to understand why people invest in apple corers.
何となくできたけど。。。

And then I soaked them in the brandy. After all, it may be morning, but I felt half-soaked in alcohol myself. I let them marinate until just sniffing the apples induced tipsiness.
ブランデーにいれた。香りだけで酔うまで入れた。

In the meantime, I grabbed hold of my day-old bread. The slices were so thick, that there were only three to a loaf.
それで、パンを。。

Soaked in egg and milk, I began to fry them up in butter, as I also got the apples going in another pan. Out of curiosity, I added black pepper to the apples.
パンと卵と牛乳に入れて、焼いた。リンゴもコショウいれて、バターで焼いた。

I barely burned off the brandy on the apples, and just one bite chased away the winter blues.
お酒の香りが残ったリンゴ。一口だけで冬のブルーズを忘れる。。。

 

Add walnuts, maple syrup.

くるみとメープルシロップで完了。

Life is quite simple. And in a world that expects us not to hibernate, at least we can do the next best thing and lean on sugars to render us semi-comatose all winter long. To those of us raised post-religion, this is the mass opiate.

人生ってシンプルじゃないですか。ま、酔ったらそんな感じがすれけど。

Oh, and I'll take my opiate with an egg on the side, please.

お酒と卵さえあれば、冬でもおいしい人生で幸せ。

ごちそうさまでして！