A Toast to You

Mom’s Breakfast. The best meal of the day.Not including all the other meals . . .Radio blaring out the latest country song and today’s beef auction prices.Bacon sizzling on the stove and blasting the aroma of sweet deliciousness into the atmosphere.Perfect eggs beaming their ‘sunny-side-up’ smile.Potatoes in a steaming, melty-cheese mound.And the unmistakable sound of a sharp knife scraping with purpose over a piece of burnt toast. Eliminating all signs of black, way-overdone-ness.For all my childhood, that’s how I thought toast was made. Burnt black, then scraped back to the desired colour and texture required by whomever it was being made for.Imagine my surprise to marry, receive a toaster that had more than just a ‘char’ setting, and discover a world of levels of toasty done-ness.Yow.Move ahead several years . . .Last night, my daughter and her family were over for supper.I made a big pot of rich, creamy cauliflower-cheese soup.Of which there is no more delicious soup on the planet.I’m quoting my daughter, of course.She was in charge of the garlic toast.Made in the oven to the perfect level of . . . perfect-ness.We got talking.It’s what we do.I sniffed. “I think that toast is done.”Daughter: “Oh, man!” There was a bit of scrambling and a pan of blackened pieces of bread pulled from the oven. “Well, I guess garlic toast is out of the question.”“Not so fast!” I grabbed a sharp knife, the first piece of toast, walked over to the sink and started scraping. In no time, it had been restored to a lightly-browned, perfectly-toasted state. I handed it back to her. She stared. “Really?”I grabbed the second piece and re-enacted the scenario.Still slightly doubtful, she started buttering that first slice.Soon, we had a platter full of fairly appetizing, hot, buttery garlic toast.Now granddaughter had been watching the entire process. And proclaimed her profound doubt as to the eat-ability of the end result.In strident six-year-old tones.She finally took a tiny, tentative bite. “Hey! It’s really good!”She finished her piece and reached for another.I like to think of it as ‘toast resuscitation’. Yep. My mama weren’t no dummy.