A Perfect Toast

           St. Bob is a toast expert. Long before air fryers and other cookers, he had mastered placing buttered bread on a rack in the oven and broiling it, watching it every second until it was perfectly done. None of this toaster business.

          But now that he has a Ninja Air Fryer Toaster Oven, he is even more fastidious. First of all, it must be Dave’s Killer Bread.

          And then it must be pure butter, spread “from coast to coast.”  Yes, right up to the very edge. He requests this in restaurants as well, and gets mixed results.

But at home, he can be the King of Toast, and broil it exactly right, for 3 minutes and 30 seconds. This means the top has a glistening golden crust, yet the bottom remains soft and delicious (unlike using a toaster, which dries the bread out completely, on both sides).

Now, as often happens in life, he married a woman—me—who does not like toast. Here are my reasons why:

1.      It’s slightly burnt tasting (I mean, it’s been cooked once. Why the repetition?)

2.     It scratches the roof of my mouth.

3.     The crusts, which I’ve always torn off anyway, are now rock hard.

4.    It creates five times the crumbs of regular bread.

So, I watch with admiration as St. Bob gets his toast precisely perfect, and recently, he convinced me to try it.

          ARE YOU KIDDING ME? This does not resemble the toast of my childhood! It is simply phenomenal. Try his method and you will be in heaven. Be sitting down so you won’t faint onto the floor.

          This is the only thing he uses the Ninja for. So, if we amortize one slice of bread per day, the cost of this machine—hmm…

Join 10K other happy viewers and subscribe to my Youtube channel, where you’ll see hundreds of other easy life hacks!

Becoming One?

           Admit it: You secretly (or not so secretly) wish your spouse could be more like you in some ways. Over the years, whenever I’ve noticed St. Bob adopting a habit of mine, I’ve pointed out this wonderful event.

          He now likes to put the Christmas tree up early.

          He’ll give a pinch of people food to the dog sometimes.

          He puts the toilet paper on the roll the way I do.

          And today, while grocery shopping together, he told me he always looks for the softest bread.

          “I thought you like crusty bread,” I said.

          “No, I like soft bread better,” he said.

          “Aha! You really are becoming me.”

          “No, I was you before you were you,” he said.

          I’ll take that.

          He also uses the life hacks I show on my Youtube Mom channel here. Be sure to subscribe!

Oh, the Hugh Manatee!

        It’s Christmastime, so it’s time for my annual gift-making disaster story. Usually it’s a craft, but this time it’s baked goods. The first idea was to make candy cane breads that would look like this:

           But I doubled the recipe and made the loaves too large. Thus they looked like manatees (or fat otters) curling up for a nap together: 

          Not to be dissuaded from continuing with this stupid idea, I decided to make braided bread instead. More mixing. More rising.  The goal was this: 

          But it came out looking like baby aliens. This one even has a face!  

              This one looks like it landed on Santa and crushed him:

              Maybe I’ll just say, “Here’s some Alien bread. Hope your Christmas is out of this world.” 

          And you MUST buy A Little Christmas Prayer which is the ideal gift for anyone, any age, any faith. Even for a manatee.