My Love Affair With Toast

Posted byFractured Faith BlogPosted inA Fractured FaithTags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The day we discovered the joys of lightly burning bread and then buttering it was a great day for the human race. Toast. I have had a love affair with this breakfast staple for much of my life. In fact, never mind breakfast. I can quite happily eat toast at any time of the day. If you analysed my familial DNA you would probably discover I’m at least 1% hobbit due to the multiple breakfasts I partake of on a daily basis.

Given my distinct lack of culinary skills it was perhaps inevitable that I would gravitate towards toast. There are certainly less dishes involved than cereal, eggs and the ever so complicated process that is porridge making. You just pop it in the toaster, wander off for a bit and then wait for the distinctive ping announcing that its chow down time. Even an idiot like me can manage that. Well, just about.

Now that’s the easy part. Listen closely for I’m about to reveal the secret of great toast making, toasting, whatever you wish to call it. The amateur toastmonger will react to said ping by immediately slathering the round with their favourite spread, allowing it to melt into a gooey, liquefied form. None of that nonsense for me. The toast must be allowed to cool sufficiently before application of said spread.

In my single days I used to make my toast the night before then place it in the fridge overnight. The next morning I would leap, yes leap,out of bed to enjoy the delights of rock hard, ice cold buttered toast. Fionnuala was horrified when she discovered this practice and quickly beat it out of me along with a couple of hundred other bad habits I had accumulated down the years.

We have now reached an uneasy compromise whereby I create a toast tent, leaning two rounds against one another on the kitchen worktop to accelerate the cooling process. All is well and the fridge is freed up for milk and cheese, stuff like that. I also used to put tins of beer in the freezer during my drinking days but that’s another story for another day. Needless to say, don’t ever do it.

Compromise is the key word in all this. I am a creature of extremes, when I set my mind on something I do it to excess. I’m a runaway train when it comes to such matters and as we all know, if allowed to career on unchecked, this will undoubtedly end in a train wreck. My OCD means I don’t have an emergency brake, there is no trip switch to avert disaster when it comes knocking.

It can be anything, even positive, healthy pursuits like running, writing, watching the kids play sport. I get too obsessed, I take it to the nth degree, don’t know when to stop. It requires medication and wise counsel from the likes of Fionnuala to temper these destructive urges within me. Left to my own devices I’ll resort to ridiculous practices like putting toast in the fridge overnight.

I’ll be a work in progress, there will always be room for improvement. Progress and improvement occur by listening to the advice of those around you who care and are willing to take the time to smooth the rough edges. It’s no easy task, a labour of love and it’s not for everyone. But the results can be spectacular and life changing. Just ask the idiot who used to place his toast in the fridge overnight.

Published by Fractured Faith Blog

We are Stephen and Fionnuala and this is our story. We live in Northern Ireland, have been married for 17 years and have three kids - Adam, Hannah and Rebecca. We hope that our story will inspire and encourage others. We have walked a rocky road yet here we are today, together and stronger than ever. We are far from perfect and our faith has been battered and bruised. But an untested faith is a pointless faith. Just as a fractured faith is better than none at all. We hope you enjoy the blog.

55 thoughts on “My Love Affair With Toast”

  1. “Progress and improvement occur by listening to the advice of those around you who care and are willing to take the time to smooth the rough edges.“

    Absolutely love this! It’s so very true!

    I also happen to be a toast lover 😉

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  5. Wow…I understand all of this: the OCD, the love of toast, going to extremes. My wife and kids have mostly gotten used to my strange habits, as I have gotten used to theirs, mostly. We’re all works in progress. Thanks for sharing this post.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  7. Toast is so convenient … especially when you don’t want to look up from the keyboard for too long. Never tried it rock hard and ice cold though! ☺️

    Like

    Reply

  9. Ahhh, a man after my own heart. My name is Larry and I am a toast-a-holic. Spread it with anything else that happens to be in the pantry or fridge – even pickle relish. My latest is nearly burnt toast slathered with soft butter, a dabble of peanut butter and a sprinkle of cinnamon. A meal fit for a king.😊

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  12. I’m not sure if this validates you or indicts me, but I can relate to so much of what you have written. Except for the whole overnight refrigeration thing. That’s just weird. My habit has progressed from white bread to whole wheat and now I’m on the hard stuff, English Muffins! The nooks and crannies are made to hold much more spread du jour. As long as I’m confessing, I have another nasty secret I keep tucked in the cabinet behind closed doors. Almond butter. Yes, I’ve had my time with dairy butter and peanut butter. Now its a table spoon of almond butter on one side of the toasted muffin, cooled to room temperature, and a teaspoon of jelly, jam, preserves or fruit spread on the other half. I press the two halves together and enjoy the crunchy deliciousness with a cup of coffee.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  13. I love waiting for the toast to cool and then spreading the butter on it. I feel it tastes much better that way. I’ve never had cold toast in the fridge but to each their own. I also love peanut butter and jelly on toast with ice cold milk. You are not alone in your love of toast!

    I also appreciate the lesson behind the toast as I know toast was not your main point!

    Like

    Reply

  14. Ewwww cold toast!
    Now what I love is warm golden brown bread, topped with melting butter sprinkled with sugar to drown in the butter topped with a sprinkle of cinnamon. Now THAT’s a heavenly breakfast snack or anytime goodness.

    Like

    Reply

  20. Your post made made hungry! It also reminded me that you live in the land of amazing breads for toasting like soda (yum) and wheaten 😋 and that delicacy of delicacies Veda!! I love toasted Veda (and soda farls tbh). I’d even cheat on my wheat free diet for a wee slice of one of those once in a while. Especially delectable smothered in butter with a wee skim of honey. Drooling now. 🤤 😂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  24. I can handle lukewarm or room temp toast, so long as the butter has already melted. I cannot fathom eating ice cold toast. 😂 However, in America we like our beers cold (with convenience stores competing for the title of “coldest beer cave”), so putting your beers in the freezer doesn’t sound TOO odd. Although, as anyone who has ever put a can of soda in the freezer knows, they eventually explode. 🤷

    Wives are excellent about retraining our husbands: Jeremiah has learned the merits of wearing clean socks every day, changing the sheets more than once a year, and that we do eventually outgrow our clothes. Sad…but true. At 39, we cannot still wear what we wore when we were 25 and 55lbs lighter. So we don’t need to keep our size 29 pants in the closet for the next decade. Lol. Also, he actually does have body odor.

    And that doesn’t even include things like haircuts, not keeping every scrap of paper, keeping the throw pillows ON the couch…😂😂😂😂

    Like

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Please log in using one of these methods to post your comment:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: