RECIPE

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4 Slices good sandwich bread

4 Eggs
3 TBS unsalted butter
Salt & Pepper 

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Use an upside-down glass to cut a circle from each slice of bread. Place bread slices into a heavy cast iron sauté pan on a medium-low flame. Place a pat of butter in each circular opening. When butter is sizzling, crack into each hole. Sprinkle salt and pepper. Wait about 2 minutes, or until the whites are about halfway cooked. Flip carefully with a spatula. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cook 1 minute more. Serve immediately.

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The term gaslighting is usually used to describe a form of psychological or emotional manipulation. It comes from a 1938 play called Gas Light. It’s a story about a husband, Gregory, who tries to convince his wife, Paula, that she’s going insane. He aims to have her hospitalized so that he can steal her family jewels. 

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He misplaces objects around the house and pretends that it’s her fault that she can’t find them. He regularly searches the attic for her valuables, and when he does, all the gaslights in the house dim. When Paula asks him about the dimming lights, Gregory tells her she’s imagining things. Then, he suggests she needs to rest, because she’s clearly not well.  His lies and distractions are the model for the behavior social scientists now call gaslighting.

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In current usage, gaslighting rarely describes such extreme examples of coercion. Instead, it refers to the way someone (not necessarily a cisgender man) takes control of an interpersonal narrative, destroying the victim’s capacity to have a unique perspective, insisting that there’s only one plausible version of a story. She’s crazy. You’re lying. It didn’t happen that way! 

 

University of Utah associate professor Cynthia A. Stark describes gaslighting as “testimonial injustice” because it denies the validity of an individual’s “testimony about a harm or wrong done to her.” That’s why the term is so often used in cases of sexual violence or abuse; a perpetrator does everything they can to suggest that their account of events is the only accurate one. Of course, gaslighting isn’t always associated with abuse. There are many more common, everyday examples.

 

It’s important for feminist dads to understand gaslighting and to be aware of our unconscious (and sometimes conscious) need to control the narrative. But this breakfast recipe is unrelated to gaslighting. It’s only a name. An egg is cooked into a hole cut out from the center of a slice of sandwich bread. The bright yellow yolk is framed by the crust, making the dish resemble the gaslights which lined city streets in the days before electricity. 

 

The trick is temperature control. You want the melted butter to toast into the bread, browning it slightly. You want the egg whites firm, but the yolks runny enough to soak into every bite of crispy, buttered toast.