P&T Lockout Lifestylez: Toast

Really the only enjoyable NBA-related reading nowadays.

For making the last 15 minutes of work a urine-soaked delight!

While I enjoy toast from time to time, I’ve never been the biggest fan. Which probably stems from my first, non-cereal related culinary adventure when I was about four or five. After a while, pouring your own Rice Krispies With Marshmallows (YOU REMEMBER!) just doesn’t give you the same jolt, knowwhatimsayin?

So one morning I decided to make my own toast. I got out all the correct ingredients — bread, butter, and strawberry jam (my faves!). I constructed said ingredients correctly. I was so proud, in fact, that I marched into the living room and told my pops all about how I’d made toast for myself. He seemed genuinely proud, until he caught sight of a whisp of black smoke coming out of the kitchen. Turns out his genius kid had put the butter and jam on the bread BEFORE putting it in the toaster. This made the toaster quite angry.

 The trauma wrought by this episode caused me to have to repeat pre-school.

I like a high sugar:cinnamon ratio, and I like to put a lot of each on there.
Also, I would say I’m less particular about the level of toastiness (unless there’s black on it, in which case I will scrape said black off with a knife. This is not a metaphor for racism), and more particular about surface area covered by butter. It doesn’t make sense to me only to butter like 60% of a piece of toast toward the center. I would argue that the sides, on which the crust is located, need butter even more than the center because of the crust.

I’ll admit that I haven’t tried to many toppings on toast, though, so I could be persuaded to branch out.

From what I can gather, something whacky is happening

I’m not a big toast guy

well done with some butter and a dash of salt.

Perhaps a nice marble rye…
Sometimes cinnamon raisin…

Variety is the spice of life when it comes to toast, i guess

Margarine in a 51/49 split with Vegemite in Bread Recipe Ingredients (BRI).

To be honest I don’t know how accessible vegemite is in other parts of the world, and whenever I see people from distant lands trying it, they do it wrong. You don’t just eat it out of the jar! That’s suicide!

When you do it right with the correct split of BRI on white toasted bread it becomes an enjoyable mouth party. But I doubt anyone here would know what I’m on about. LEARN.
Sincerely, Australia.

I’m sure y’all’ve heard ’em already, but Mitch Hedberg has some pretty great jokes about toast.

Also, sorry for the double contraction.

is actually the bomb on whole wheat toast. Also great to dip animal crackers in.

I once used a toaster to heat a bathroom.

I had a toaster over when I was little as well- used to love putting french bread pizza in there.

and this:
“Roger Mason: who cares?”

which is why I usually bake it myself. I got a little bread maker as a gift some years back, and it is awesome. Just toss the ingredients in there and three hours later you have delicious fresh bread. You can make “toast” with this bread, although it is generally fluffier, and the slices are bigger, than standard toast. I use a 1/2 and 1/2 wheat flour and white flour combo for maximum flavor.

Also, my favorite thing with this bread is a little dippin dish with olive oil, salt, freshly ground black pepper, a pinch of garlic powder, a bit of basil, and a dash of crushed red pepper. That or Nutella, with which one can never go wrong.

A great topic, toast. A classic staple and a great leveler of men; from the mightiest pharaoh to the lowliest peasant, who doesn’t enjoy a good piece? (Doff of the cap to Mr. Burns)

I’ve been through many fads with toast throughout what’s been a long, mundane existence. I’ve been adamant that I would only eat white (as a child, unsurprisingly), have been through super-grainy rye, and have gone from wanting only the blackest toast to being way more moderate in my old age.

And just for Longbeard, I did even like Vegemite when I was a child, but I grew out of it. Coincidentally, this was probably right around the time that I became able to prepare my own food rather than relying on a parent. But each to their own; there are a million foodstuffs I don’t like, so I’m certain that the problem is more likely with me than anyone else.

On the topic of eating black toast: the best (and unfortunately the most unnecessarily introspective) explanation I can think of, is that it may have been due to one-upmanship, a stubborn insistence on doing everything to just a little bit more of an extreme degree than the last guy. Since my Dad likes his toast rather well-done and extremely dry, the child LaConte (not that I’ve really grown up) had to turn the knob on that toaster just a little further, in order to win the toast battle.

Although I have grown out of the black toast phase, I do have an unhealthy addiction. It started when I changed my afternoon snack from toast to English muffins, and eventually spiraled out of all reasonable control. The problem? Butter. Man, I love butter on my toasted treats. To borrow from Pulp Fiction: I would drown them in that shit, man.

Consuming an excess of butter may be all well and good when you’re still kinda young, but eventually the realities of age, metabolism and dermatological health sink in, and it’s time to consume responsibly. So for a while, I swore myself off of all toasted breads, knowing that I had to save myself from…myself (double doff of the cap to Mike Myers, as Austin Powers and Goldmember).

Nowadays I allow myself the occasional toasted treat, generally in the form of a crumpet which will be smeared with an extremely delicate film of butter (sometimes if I don’t trust myself, I ask my wife to do the honors; it’s important to be a responsible adult and to keep your wife stimulated). This is then buried under a mountain of strawberry jam (you can’t win ’em all, eh?).

I have a good relationship with my toaster. It does what it’s supposed to, with repeatable results. The only exception to this is when I get the drunken munchies late at night and forget what settings to use, and then forget that I even put anything in the toaster in the first place, leaving my once-desired snack to wilt and burn; alone, forgotten, and forever unloved.

I have a relatively new toaster, but ads on TV for even newer toasters have caught my wife’s interest. These toasters have what is supposedly a major breakthrough in toaster control, but what I consider to be utter wank: a button, which will raise the toast from the body during use via some kind of motorized mechanism, allowing inspection mid-toast.

Straight off the bat, that sounds extraneous, since my toaster has a lever which allows me to lift the toast manually, if I wish to inspect it without disturbing the toasting cycle. And even if my toaster didn’t have a lever, I’d be more than capable of braving the gentle, convective waft of toasted air and sticking my face over the toaster to peer within. As far as I can tell, everything is already in order when it comes to the whole toast inspection situation.

But the kicker with this new development is that this highfalutin automated mechanism for raising the toast is that it does so …very… slowly. I mean, why? Obviously, it shouldn’t raise the toast so quickly that it propels the slice with such velocity that it penetrates the ceiling/cupboard/curious face above it; but toast inspection isn’t some wondrous, momentous occasion to be savored and treasured forever, it’s a practical step that is sometimes required in order to ensure the satisfactory toasting of one’s bread-based delight. FFS, just lift it, let me look at it and then put it down again. Don’t sprinkle rose petals on the benchtop, release a dozen white doves and harken ye faithful with trumpets to gaze on the majesty of my underdone toast.

Utter wank.

I’ll leave it to you whether I refer to this development in toasters, or this comment in general, but thanks for letting me vent. I really hate that goddamned toaster.

for a night snack. I also like flattening bread in a super lightly buttered or oiled frying pan to toast bread if it’s just for the sake of having toast and sprinkling it with garlic and parmesan cheese at the end so the parm melts – I guess it comes out like a flatbread – don’t know but I just like it

The diner waitress usually abides, but also manages to guilt me into tipping 80%.

I’m all about the straight wheat bread. I can tolerate the fancy varieties – your oat-wheat, multi-grain-wheat, couch-lint-and-chocolate-chip-penny-wheat. But plain ol’ wheat is the stalwart. Topping of choice? Butter is classic. Cinnamon is legit too.

I had this one toaster ya see, and we were tight. He gave me the perfect toast on the perfect timeframe (just enough time to whip up a mug of hot cocoa) and everything. But then one day, my mom replaced him. REPLACED HIM. The new toaster is nice, but fuck it. I prefer my old buddy.

Do PopTarts count as “weird stuff?” Because if you think about it, they’re pretty odd.

The toaster oven is for BagelBites and pizza rolls.

made with Italian bread

The correct answer is that Roger Mason is too busy trying to save the NBA to eat toast. But then again, he’s as sucky at saving the NBA as he is at saving the Knicks from losing. Have some toast, Roger.

As for me, I’ve been a toaster oven guy for a while. It’s because you can toast things with the topping already on there. cut butter into little pieces, put it on the bread, then into the toaster oven so the butter melts into the bread. Or my personal favorite: curry powder and muenster cheese, melted over the bread in the toaster oven. It works with almost any kind of bread, too. Now, I don’t know if that qualifies as toast because I’ve always called it ‘Cheese-Bread’. Even if it’s not toast, I prefer mine on the dark side.

You just reminded me – I’ve been away from NY for so long that I haven’t had rye toast in forever. ’scuse me, I got to get on that.

I grew up on Pepridge Farm White toast. I like it toasted pretty dark (but not black) with unsalted butter. If I’m feeling frisky I top it off with a green pepper and onion omelet, ketchup, and another slice of darkly toasted bread!!