Welp, there it is folks...breakfast. Looks good, right? I mean really, who wouldn't want burnt toast? Sound convincing? No? Oh. Because the fact of the matter is that no one wants burnt toast. Well, unless you're maybe the 2% of people in the world that enjoy that kinda thing... But besides those guys, no one! It's that golden brown, slightly crispy but still soft, fresh, warm bread that we all crave. The kind that melts the butter perfectly because you got to it just in time when it popped up, not too late when it's been sitting and the butter sort of just rests on top. Or the kind that is underdone and not brown at all, and then the butter just soaks into it and makes a soggy, greasy piece of bread. No way... No one wants that. You know that kind I mean! Like this...
The picture alone makes you want to hop up and make some, don't you think?
This morning in between changing diapers, peeling bananas and starting laundry I decided to take a minute to pour myself a cup of coffee (okay, my third cup) and make a couple pieces of toast. I turned the little knob down a bit so that I would be sure not to burn the bread. Off I went to do one thing or another and when I came back my toast had popped already, underdone and sitting cold. I figured I could just push it back down for a second and pop it back up perfectly golden and warm, ready to melt that buttery goodness. As I waited for the right time to grab the bread I figured I had a minute to run down the hall and check something else off my list. Good idea? Nope! By the time I got back my toast had popped, again, and was just as the picture shows above. Burnt. Oh well, a little burnt toast never hurt anyone. But wait, I didn't want burnt toast. I wanted the perfectly golden melty buttered toast we talked about before!! And ya know what? Why shouldn't I have perfect toast? Why should I settle for this black, crunchy stuff? And that's when I remembered a book I had read a few years back, 'Burnt Toast' by Teri Hatcher. You know, the old Desperate Housewives and Superman actress? Well, turns out Lois Lane had a few good points because they stuck with me years after reading the book. Here's a bit of what Teri had to say...
"Toast. Think about it for a moment. It probably has the simplest recipe in the world: one ingredient, one instruction. Still, you know when you're trying to make it and you just can't get it right? It's too light or too soft, then... totally burnt. Charred in a matter of seconds -- now it's more like a brick than a piece of toast. So what do you do? Are you the kind of person who tries to scrape off the black? Or do you smother it with jam to hide the taste? Do you throw it away, or do you just eat it? If you shrug and eat the toast, is it because you're willing to settle for less? Maybe you don't want to be wasteful, but if you go ahead and eat that blackened square of bread, then what you're really saying -- to yourself and to the world -- is that the piece of bread is worth more than your own satisfaction."
PS. Would you have eaten the toast? And more on taking care of yourself, HERE!
