Friday, April 06, 2007

A Toaster Possessed

I have been pondering the reason my toaster has a level number 9.
Why the fuck would I want a setting on it that is only good for making charcoal?

I like my toast golden, left to go slightly cold, buttered and marmite-ed right into the corners. I’m sure most people do, marmite optional, of course.
What kind of mentalist would want it pitch black and rock hard?
Setting number 4 provides the ideal piece of toast for me.
But does it stay in number 4?
Does it fuck!
There is some malevolent kitchen demon whose job is to wind that bastard up to 9 as soon as your back is turned.
They are the same demons who sprinkle ‘invisible dust’ on the bread. Rendering all blue, mouldy bits invisible until the very last bite.
I’m sure there is some sort of exorcism that is performed using an egg timer, Leith’s Cookery Bible, and the tea light from the fondue set. (To mix up my Archaic Rites!)

I was going to snap the dial off, jamming it at the ideal setting.
Until it was pointed out that this, although appearing perfectly logical to me, was ‘quite odd’.

While we’re at it, we may as well do away with handles on the fridge door.
If the smudged, black fingerprints all down the side of it are anything to go by, Housemates believe it is purely fucking decorative.

11 comments:

Sassygril said...

Well, Delia Smith (genuflect at the mention of her name...) says that toasters are wank and that we should use the gril anyway. And, to be honest, she's absolutely right. Toasters are crap. All of them. Has anyone come across one that does what you want it to (i.e. make the nice toast you described), reliably (i.e. the fucking thing doesn't pack up after 4 months) and come complete with stylish appearance. I refer to those 'country' style appliances so beloved of my deceased mother...And she used the gril!

Sassygril said...

Just thought, gril by name, gril by nature!

Sleepy said...

I always forget it under the grill and have to beat the smoke alarm into submission.

Crisp-e said...

Sassy: Genuflect? Why? Give me one good reason, and I DO mean GOOD reason!! Why is all of her dishes shades of brown and cream?

Sleepy: Black fingerprints! That’s nasty. The same kind of nastiness that’s visible on the left hand mouse button of the staff computer! (Shudder).

Schneewittchen said...

Ah..toasters, I remember them.
Ah..grills, I remember them.

However,....I do myself remember thinking that some, if not most of the settings on the toaster were completely pointless.

Sleepy said...

Delia is a 'Magnolia' cook..

The staff computers must incubate some of the nastiest, infectious shit in the world.

Sleepy said...

Crisp-e.. You should have a lesson where the kids swab all that sort of thing and grow the cultures.

Especially in the chapel! I know of some unspeakable things that have gone on in there!!
I was only involved in one of them.

TenaciousK said...

I have a distinct memory of walking up to the front door of my grandparent's house and running into my grandmother, busily scraping the blackness off of two pieces of "toast number 9". Apparently, that was they way my grandfather liked it best. I saw her do it more than once, and she served it to me that way on occasion.

Tastes that harken back to the days when if you wanted toast, you grabbed a stick and spitted your bread, I guess.

Sleepy said...

TK... Oh yes! I remember the scraped off slices.
No waste allowed!

TenaciousK said...

Yeah, no waste - except for those carbonized little bits being scraped off by the knife, and that's not waste, that's just good dietary sense.

Funny thing was, she always made toast that way. It is apparently the way she felt toast should be made, and I think it really is the way my grandfather liked it. So I guess you have people like my dear departed grandparents to thank for the "completely carbonized" setting on your toaster - people with a nostalgia for ranch-style cooking, or whose taste buds have been slowly eroded to the point that somehow it just doesn't taste right without the overwhelming taste of singe.

Sleepy said...

'Overwhelming taste of singe', Yes, I have had something Very similar myself!