“For Daisy Ree” the carving on the bench read, as if there was no one else whose name could find itself etched into the old, snarled wood.

It was midsummer. Early morning in mid-July. The once-dark sky was already glazed with a grayish kind of dawn. And even if staying up until the sun appeared along the beach wasn’t in the original plan, it wasn’t out of it either. Now that the feat had been accomplished, now that the sun was severed from its watery horizon, here I was still sitting on the bench.

Alone.

Well, except for Daisy Ree.

She could probably be described as the kind of woman who had fantastic eyebrows and milk chocolate eyes. When she spoke, her voice would’ve sounded thick like poured molasses. She needed reading glasses but never wore them. They made her look too much like Great Aunt Joanne. When she met her husband, a part-time meter attendant named Tom Delancey who worked Friday mornings at the beach parking lot, she told him she wouldn’t accept the ticket and that he’d never win her heart. So, he ripped the ticket in two then spent the rest of his life trying to be hers.

Tom was probably the one who dedicated the bench to Daisy, an ode to a woman as magnetic as the tides. Tom visited sometimes, on mornings just like this, and thought about that ticket he never gave and the woman who gave him everything.

Except he wasn’t here today.

Today it was just me, the sunrise and a mind unable to stop wandering, imagining what I’d make for breakfast (French toast) and if anyone could really ever know the woman called Daisy Ree.

Melissa’s Summer French Toast

Ingredients

1 loaf Cranberry Walnut Carrot Bread (If you can’t get Cranberry Walnut Carrot Bread from the Sunday market along the pier in Newport Beach, substitute your favorite, flavorful bread from your local bakery and no, don’t scoff at using fancy bread or my farmer’s market reference. Visiting a warm bakery or baking stand at an open-air market that smells of half-cooked dough and melted sugar on a weekend morning is an event not to be missed and an essential part of this whole recipe.)

1/3 cup whole milk (Almond milk, cashew milk, goat’s milk all work, too …)
1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1/2 tablespoon butter

Instructions

In a bowl, mix the eggs, milk, salt and vanilla extract. Soak the bread (sliced) in the egg until it becomes almost too soft to transfer to a pan. Do not underestimate the importance of a thorough soaking; it’s critical to ensure the successful, delectable outcome of your French toast. In a sauté pan, melt the butter. Once melted and crackling, place the bread slices in the pan and cook until golden brown on one side, then flip and repeat. Serve with warm, maple syrup and slices of whatever fruit fills your fancy. A summer morning never looked—or tasted—so good.

✵

Thanks for reading! If you liked this article, let’s be friends: 

@littlewordstudio