Blueberry Maple Toast

And now for something a good deal less demanding than whitefish ceviche with yada yada yada.  For what could be less demanding, less requiring of exegesis, than toast?  This is a typical sort of Bide-A-Wee breakfast--could be dessert, too, for that matter.  A very few very good and altogether familiar ingredients make for a lick-your-plate kind of breakfast.  Is it lazy man's french toast, or absolutely indolent man's blueberry pancakes?  Take your pick.

Of course it depends on good bread--a rugged, whole grain and/or sourdough loaf, preferably homemade (but if you live where you can easily find an honest loaf at a bakery, well, lucky you).  Here one of our deprivations at Bide-A-Wee--lack of electricity--actually proves an advantage.  With no toaster at hand, we make toast by heating a cast iron skillet, adding a little butter, then cooking the bread until lightly browned on both sides.  Our toast, therefore, is actually big butter-fried croutons.  No, I do not mean to imply that there is anything wrong with that.  This is a great way to use bread slightly past its prime, or even moreso.  If you can slice it, you can revive--nay, glorifry! [sic: that's a typo worth keeping]--your near-dead bread this way. 

Our neighbor up the hill and across highway 64 (down there in southern Wisconsin), Tina, has a gorgeous spread with gardens that are so beautiful and abundant, they could make you weep.  The blueberries came from her place, and the maple syrup is our own.  What I did here, I heated some maple syrup--say a half-cup for two people--added some blueberries--a third-cup? as many as you like--and brought it to the simmer.  The berries were then soft but not disintegrated.  Spoon that over your toast.  A lashing of yogurt--goat, here--helps balance the maple sweetness.  I garnished with a few black caps, the first few ripe ones of the season.  And that reminds me that you could use berries other than blue the same way.

I don't think I need to say a single thing more about this, except: Be sure to wipe your chin when you finish licking your plate.