ChristyBassman.com

Toast. I only eat whole-wheat toast. That would be because I only purchase whole-wheat bread. Or Wegmans 7-grain bread. Toast is best when it is very buttery and dipped in something hot and yummy, like soup. Or gravy.

I used to prefer my toast warm but still fairly soft. When I was little, say 13 or 14 years old, I would make tea and serve it to myself in actual china teacups, and make soft toast, and pretend I was English. The effect was dampened somewhat by the cable TV blaring Club MTV and the only tea available was that box of dusty orange pekoe tea from 1983 in the bottom of my mom's canned goods cabinet, and the cheapass white sliced bread with margarine spread.

I was an unhappy child.

Very occasionally I had breakfast at school when I was in grade school. This would have been around 1984 or so. The toast there was thin. Burnt, yet soggy, and rancid-tasting. It was not good toast. But then my school even managed to ruin pizza. I grew up thinking pizza was horribly disgusting because the school served this soggy, floppy rectangular nasty excuse of pizza. I have never since found anything of its consistency or taste to compare it to.

These days I prefer toast toasted very well. Not burnt, but definitely well-browned. Lots of butter still. Preferably hot soup with it. Or if it's for breakfast, I like Splenda sprinkled on it. And hot coffee on standby.

And I still prefer my pizza edible.