Consider this: a Sunday morning in Astoria, a bit of a chill in the air but still your basic springlike day. In the breadbox on top of the fridge is half a loaf of stale brioche, no longer fit for sandwiches but still usable for bread pudding. Hey! Bread pudding! We’ll have bread pudding for breakfast! I love bread pudding, not only because making it is easier than falling asleep on a cool spring night, but also because you can make it as lean or as rich as you’d like. You can add eggs, subtract eggs, use whole milk, lowfat milk, cream; you can add sugar, honey, maple syrup, Lyle’s Golden Syrup, or eschew the sweets entirely and make a savory pudding. Whatever you pick, it is easy to make, it is soothing and satisfying to eat, and it makes your kitchen smell like a million bucks. Hmm, I thought. Maple pecan.
I turned on the oven. I buttered a baking dish. I cubed the brioche and laid it in the dish. I sprinkled pecans and sultanas over the bread. I took down my trusty Waring Blendor, plugged it in, loaded it up with milk and grade-B maple syrup (grade-B is stronger and more maple-flavored, definitely what you want here) and five eggs. Turned on the blender, the blender of choice of bartenders everywhere, supposedly the only blender one will ever need to buy. Watched first in surprise, then in curiosity, then in horror as the motor made a horrible grinding sign and the kitchen was suddenly filled with smoke and the smell of burning rubber. Apparently the fan belt has given up the ghost. I am able to decant everything into the Cuisinart and proceed as normally, but it is too late. The kitchen should be smelling of maple and pecan, but instead it smells like an industrial nightmare. The eventual bread pudding is indeed lovely, gently sweet, warming without being overfilling, but for me it is too late. Every bite tastes like the cost of a replacement fan belt.
Consider this, part II: Another Sunday morning in Astoria, the first warm muggy Sunday morning of 2004. Lloyd turns on the air conditioner. A horrible grinding noise is heard.