A Toast – FB2B, part 16

I know I’ve been a bit remiss in keeping up with this blog lately. Rather that give some drawn-out excuse about it, I’ll just be brief and blunt. My job is in transition and I just haven’t had the time or creative energy to put into writing. Of course, that doesn’t mean that I’ve stopped thinking about food or great things I could write about, I just didn’t make that leap to actually doing anything about it.

Which brings me to today’s topic: Shopping for a new toaster. You know how it is, appliances start to die, they don’t work as well, the handle flies off every time it pops up when the toast is done. O.K., maybe that last one hasn’t happened to you, but it’s been going on in my kitchen for a few months.

After the first time it happened, I jammed the plastic part onto the metal lever and that seemed to work for a while (sort of like taping things together), but the flying plastic aerobatic act started again this past week. It’s not the most appealing thing to face in the early morning. Dealing with random, unexpected, airborne objects at 6:30 a.m., when I’m trying to fix my breakfast, sort of puts a taint on the whole day.

It is possible for me to live without this kitchen accessory. I didn’t have one when I lived in Italy and fared pretty well, but I have to make a confession: I love toast. I love to bite into that crisp, crunchy (usually buttery w/ a hit of sweet jam slathered on it) interior, saving the dark brown, super crunchy exterior for the next taste.

Proper Toast is not something that’s barely changed color or texture, as some in my family might tell you. These are also the folks who will eat the first patch of wan, limp pancakes, so I guess I shouldn’t be too harsh on them. That means I can get the ones that come out when the griddle is hot and ready to make nice golden brown ones.

Toast and I go way back. Peanut Butter Toast in high school. Cinnamon-sugar toast as a child – a special weekend treat. Tunafish salad on toasted whole wheat on a really rainy day. The British staple, cheese on toast. Yes, you might say that we have a bit of a history.

When I worked in financial services in London, I had the craziest hours, often not returning back to the group house I lived in until after the off-license in our neighborhood had closed for the evening (basically post-11:00 p.m.). If I saw those shop lights dimmed, that was not a good sign. I was usually completely drained by that time so the fact that we always had bread and butter in the house (this was England, after all), meant that I could at least fix myself a slice of toast prior to conking out for the evening, only to begin my draining routine again several hours later.

I can’t say I lost any weight on my “toast at midnight-ish” diet, but my love affair for a slice of bread cooked to a high temperature, changing it from flabby to firm, has remained. For me, a weekend morning isn’t the same without a slice of great, farmer’s market bread, toasted a golden brown, with a light coat of great butter and a thin layer of organic, locally-produced fruit spread smeared on it.

Anyway, so the point was that I decided that I can’t take it any more after the plastic part decided to execute a maneuver worthy of Cirque du Soleil the other day. So, I went on line to the usual places to go explore getting another toaster. I looked at high and lower end housewares stores and all the usual places one might go when looking for appliances.

Like any consumer, I didn’t want to commit to the first thing that I saw. How expensive could an ordinary toaster be???? Well, as I found out, I could easily have spent several hundred dollars on one if I wanted to, all this for a TOASTER, something to make warmed-up, crispy bread. I started suffering from sticker shock. Why so much for a simple machine?

I’m not asking for much. I just want it to be able to hold bread, have a pop-up/eject bottom so that I don’t have to wait until smoke comes out and the fire alarm goes off to know that maybe it’s starting to burn. I also want it to handle bagels as well. Oh, and it should have a removable crumb tray for those rare times, I’ll actually think about cleaning out the toaster.

It doesn’t need to make designs on the bread, have flowers, cook eggs at the same time, or color coordinate with my home décor. I just want it to make toast. So, disheartened by my research on line, I decided that I didn’t have the energy to pursue this any more. I thought it best to wait until the toaster really did conk out for good to replace it. In the meantime, I’ll just work on my early a.m. reflexes and hope that the plastic part doesn’t head towards my face.