This is a momentous thing, you see, because I have never in my life owned a toaster. We just weren't a toaster family. We were a toast-in-the-oven family. Not that I'm complaining. When The Husband and I were dating, I was sick, and he offered to make me cinnamon toast. He brought me this dripping, syrupy ... thing. What is that? "Cinnamon toast," he said, Duh very much in his tone.
That was how his mother made cinnamon toast. Toast the bread in the toaster, then smear it with butter and sprinkle on cinnamon and sugar.
Fast forward about a decade, when his sisters were visiting us. I made "real" cinnamon toast ... buttered bread, sprinkled generously with cinnamon and sugar, and toasted in the oven til the sugar puffs up and gets crunchy. They went crazy. They asked me for the recipe. The recipe. For cinnamon toast!
Where was I? Ah yes, the toaster. The only time I was ever around a toaster was when we went on vacation and stayed at a kitchenette with a toaster. At those times, I even got to have Pop Tarts. (Because, according to my Mom, you had to have a toaster to make them. Wily fox.)
Like many things in life, such as whether you read Newsweek or Time, use Hellman's or Miracle Whip, and open gifts on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning, this childhood experience of being a toaster-less family carried into my adult life. Really, it was superfluous, right? Another thing to clutter my kitchen.
Well, my whole family has gone mad for eggy and soldiers, and making 5 pieces of toast every morning seemed a waste of oven energy. So, for slightly over $20, we have a 4 slot toaster that's even big enough for bagel halves.
This is so thrilling. So exciting. I am making tons of waffles tonight, so we'll have freezer waffles at the ready. You know, in case the muppets ever get tired of being mini Brits. Or we run out of eggs.
But cinnamon toast will still be made in the oven.
7 comments:
Hi LE,
Congrats on your toaster and on LW's good report. 2008 is going to be a good year. BTW, what is OAMC? Tx,
Anna Banana
Oh, I know you've run across it -- Once a Month Cooking? You know, where you fill your freezer with prepared or partially prepped meals.
When I was pregnant with #2, OAMC is where my nesting took root. I have a picture of our standup freezer filled top to bottom with labeled foil pans. I think we ate off it for 2 years.
That's interesting - I had no idea there was an alternate way to make cinnamon toast - I've always used the toaster and put the sugar on afterwards. I will have to try your way.
I'm totally with you as regards cinnamon toast. Even though I wasn't brought up in a toaster-free home, I was brought up in an oven cinnamon toast family.
As an adult, I received my first toaster only recently. I am 47.
count me as someone who grew up (in the 1950s) with a toaster, but only knowing of cinnamon toast cooked in the oven. and working with children in the 1970s, I always cooked cheese toast in the oven as well.
Never even heard of using a toaster for cinnamon toast.
As nice as a properly made cinnamon toast is, is it really worth the energy of heating up and entire oven for a piece of bread?
Right now my Commerical Art class is researching the energy crisis for the NEF Igniting Creative Energy Contest.
I think it is worth heating it in the toaster! After all, it only takes a few minutes to eat it, but that wasted energy is much harder to replace!
By that logic, Anonymous, why toast in the first place? Eat untoasted bread. Of course, the bread was baked. So really, one should go to an all-vegan, raw diet. Based on local foods.
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