Sourdough French Toast — Some Things Only Get Right After a Hundred Tries

Week one hundred. I just realized that. One hundred weeks of writing for RecipeSpinoff. One hundred weeks of Bobby Tran talking about brisket and pho and his mother and his kids and sobriety and the smoker in the backyard. I don't know who reads this. I don't check analytics because analytics are for people who want to be disappointed. But whoever you are — if you've been here since week one or if you found this last Tuesday — thank you. This started because a twelve-year-old girl told me people would want to hear my stories. She's fourteen now. She was right. To mark the occasion, I'm not going to do anything special. I'm going to do what I do every week: cook for my family, go to my meeting, visit my mother, tend the fire. But I will tell you something I haven't said before. The cooking — the writing about cooking — saved me. Not from drinking. Sobriety saved me from drinking. But the cooking saved me from the emptiness that comes after. When you stop drinking, there's a hole where the alcohol was. A howling, yawning void that used to be full of bourbon and is now full of nothing. You have to fill it with something or it'll swallow you. I filled it with fire. With smoke. With the twelve-hour vigil of a brisket cook. With the precision of a fish sauce marinade. With the patience of a pho broth simmering on a Saturday morning. The cooking gave me something to do with my hands, my attention, my need to transform one thing into another. Drinking was transformation too — transforming a functioning man into a broken one. Cooking is the opposite: transforming raw ingredients into something that nourishes. Same impulse. Different direction. This week I made something I've never made before: banh cuon. The steamed rice crepes that Ma makes and I've failed at a dozen times. The batter tears, the filling falls out, the crepes are too thick. But I tried again. And this time — week one hundred, for whatever that's worth — I got three out of ten right. Three crepes that were thin enough, that held the filling, that slid off the cloth in one piece. Ma would say three out of ten is terrible. She's right. But three out of ten is three more than zero. And I'll try again next week, and the week after, and eventually the ratio will improve. That's how everything works. Cooking, sobriety, parenting, life. You try. You fail. You try again. The ratio improves. Week one hundred. Three out of ten. Getting closer.

The baánh cuốn didn’t cooperate this week — three out of ten is the honest tally — but I wasn’t ready to end week one hundred on a failure ratio, so I made something else I know by feel: sourdough French toast, the kind that uses bread that’s already been through its own slow transformation and doesn’t ask you to be perfect, just present. There’s something right about marking a hundred weeks with a recipe built on fermentation and patience, on raw things becoming something nourishing. Same impulse. Different direction. That’s the whole story, really.

Sourdough French Toast

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 15 minutes | Total Time: 25 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 8 thick slices sourdough bread (about 3/4 inch each), day-old preferred
• 4 large eggs
• 3/4 cup whole milk
• 2 tablespoons heavy cream
• 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
• Maple syrup, powdered sugar, and fresh berries for serving

Instructions

1. Make the custard. In a wide, shallow bowl whisk together the eggs, milk, heavy cream, sugar, vanilla extract, cinnamon, and salt until fully combined and no streaks of egg remain.
2. Soak the bread. Working in batches, lay the sourdough slices in the custard and let them soak for 30 to 45 seconds per side. The bread should feel heavy and saturated but not falling apart. Day-old sourdough holds up better here — fresh bread can get soggy through.
3. Heat the pan. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a large cast-iron or non-stick skillet over medium heat. When the butter foams and the foam begins to subside, the pan is ready. Don’t rush this — too high and the outside burns before the custard sets inside.
4. Cook the first batch. Add 3 to 4 soaked slices to the pan without crowding. Cook 3 to 4 minutes per side until deep golden brown and the edges look set. Transfer to a wire rack or a low (200°F) oven to keep warm.
5. Cook the second batch. Add the remaining tablespoon of butter and repeat with the rest of the soaked slices, adjusting heat as needed. The second batch often cooks a little faster as the pan is already seasoned and warm.
6. Serve immediately. Plate with a dusting of powdered sugar, a pour of real maple syrup, and fresh berries if you have them. The tang of the sourdough cuts through the sweetness in a way plain white bread never does.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 390 | Protein: 15g | Fat: 14g | Carbs: 52g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 520mg