[For three weeks, Josh & Katy blogsit]
The Amateur Gourmet chooses lunch. He chooses dinner. He chooses law school and then chooses more school. In the morning he chooses sleep.
I choose breakfast. Or brunch, if you will. I like the savory option as well as the sweet, but when it’s your birthday (or the day before) you need the pancake, you need the waffle, you need the creme brulee french toast with vanilla custard on the side.
Katy masterminded the whole day starting with a trip outside the warm, safe embrace of the city to realms known as OTP (Outside the Perimeter). Interstate 285 circles Atlanta, dividing the metropolitan area into: A. its center, with diverse and interesting neigborhoods and most of the good eats; and B. the ever-expanding sprawl outside the perimeter, which has a reputation for suburban blandness.
So we ventured OTP to J. Christopher’s, a large place that specializes in brunch and that was the location of a very favorable encounter I had with a gingerbread waffle a year ago. It’s pretty cheap, the selection is wide and for the second time I found something that was not only a must-order, but something that I had never even conceived of before.
The creme brulee french toast with vanilla custard on the side was quite nice if entirely excessive. The brulee was perhaps a little too bruleed in places but overall I thought it a nice effect that transcended the gimmick. It turns out that I really like carmelization. If I accidently carmelized my hand, I would probably eat it. The vanilla custard worked well too, both on the toast and on the tongue.
In good brunch fashion we were there for there for two and a half hours. Brooks (a doctor) regaled us with tales of medical anomaly, Franklynn acted out the part of the amnesiac patient, Mike balanced things on his chin. Katy ordered an egg-white omelet with smoked turkey, cinnamon apples and red onions:
–josh
