Leftover French Toast and Sausage

Leftover French Toast and Sausage

11/13/2025

Has there ever been a more literal word than "leftovers"? Leftovers, as the word is applied to food, suggest that either too much was made or people got "full", but for whatever reason there is food "left over". In our household, I often will make a full recipe with the specific intention of having leftovers--that way I don't have to cook from scratch every day! I did not invent this concept, but I sure as hell own it in our home.

Today I warmed up the last piece of leftover French Toast from the freezer. French Toast is one of those meals that I like to make a batch of, primarily because I don't want to waste the egg mixture. If I am making French Toast for us, I will just continue to make it until I run out of mix, and then freeze the leftovers for another day. French Toast freezes really well.

So does breakfast sausage. I made a batch of these one day from scratch and they were really good. Keshav loves meat, but for some reason today he did not eat much of the sausage, and instead gave the "leftovers" to me to finish (I didn't complain). 

Granted, this was not the breakfast I intended to make this morning--I intended to make chilaquiles, but I had a late work night and was very tired and did not want to wake up at 4am to make the enchilada sauce. So I set my alarm for 5am and just took the toast and sausage out of the freezer before heating them up. Done and done. 

Tomorrow I will make the chilaquiles. I will also be using leftovers for that breakfast: leftover homemade tortillas chips and leftover canned refried beans. Done and done!

Today, while Keshav was using the bathroom, I called out to him to let him know which neighbors are coming over for a glass of wine tomorrow evening. When I called to him, he answered, "Mom!", with a start, and we both just stopped. For a moment I felt like I was in a weird new Jennifer Lawrence film. Just to be clear, I am not Keshav's mother. She lives in Weston in the house he grew up in, and I just had a nice chat with her the other night about the upcoming holidays. 

I don't know if Keshav's response was unconscious transference or just a brain fart, but I did not take it personally. I like his mother, and I know she likes me. For now.

In my conversation with her the other night, she invited me to spend the Christmas holiday with them in Weston. She assured me that I am "family" and that I am always welcome and included. That made me feel good, but it also got me thinking about family, and how we define it. 

My parents have been dead for years now. Neither of my siblings have ever asked me to spend Christmas with them, nor would I expect them to. I loved my parents and I love my siblings, but we don't think of family in the same way that Keshav's mother does. She would love to have everyone around all the time, which is fine, it's just not familiar to me. Is that what family is? A group of people who are obligated to spend time with each other? Maybe, but I like to think of family as a group of people I want to spend time, minus the obligation. Perhaps this is why I always stay in a hotel when I visit Keshav's family. I need to be able to choose when I spend time with them. 

I am grateful to my husband's parents for welcoming me, an older gay man and their son's husband, into their lives and into their home. But I am not sure they have thought about what it means to extend that welcome. They think they are inviting me to join their family, and they are, but what is less obvious perhaps is how that invitation also allows me to change their family. In marrying me, Keshav has introduced a new element into the family dynamic. 

One element I hope to introduce is choice. I want to choose how I show up as a family member, which is the best way I know how to respect the invitation. I will come into your home intentionally. Many people spend time with friends they call their "family of choice", but while this is all fine and well, I think you can also spend time with your actual family, by choice. Perhaps one of the markers of healthy differentiation is the willingness to choose how you show up with your family.

This morning I "invited" Keshav to have leftovers, but he rejected the sausage. He did not reject me, or my invitation, he just rejected the sausage. He chose to not eat it. I can live with that. Any loving invitation is an end in itself, and not a means to an end. My breakfasts are an invitation for him to eat something I made, not a demand. 

In our marriage, we try to choose how we show up for each other by first checking how we are showing up for ourselves. That is how we create family between us. I take care of me/you/us. He takes care of him/me/us. The hope is that at the end of the day neither of us feels left over.