This is how (un)exciting my life is

Our 25 cent toaster from the Punahou carnival white elephant tent has finally died. It lasted nearly 2 years- not bad for a garage sale find. The toasting sensor thinks that frozen bread is toasted. No matter what degree of doneness I select, the toaster pops up after about 30 seconds. I fought with the old toaster for a few weeks, cleaning it out, turning the toast around and restarting, doing a little toasting dance, yelling at it... nothing worked. Sideburnz and I discussed the prospects of replacing the toaster with a toaster oven. It was unclear when or if a toaster oven would get purchased, since someone would need to go to the mall.

Well, yesterday, the old toaster tipped me over the edge, and I treked to the mall to buy a replacement. (This trip was also motivated by 2 victoria's secret coupons and the fact that I desperately need to retire 3 of my bras that I purchased 8 or 9 years ago.) Macy's pulled through- not only was the toaster oven on sale for nearly 50% off (retail 69.99, sale price 39.99), but I still had 2 gift cards from our wedding! Pretty sweet to get a wedding gift almost 2 years after you got married.

Here she is:


http://www1.macys.com/catalog/product/index.ognc?ID=328107&CategoryID=17664

Last night I investigated the "bake" function. In 7 minutes I had a delicious openfaced turkey-cheese melt. Wow, this thing is great!

This morning was the moment of truth... how would it handle my bagel bar (a bagel like item in the shape of a rectangle). This was one item the old toaster always rejected. The toast mode has 12 different settings: 6 levels of doneness x frozen or room temp. I set it for T-2 (room temp, light/medium toastiness). Once I pressed "start," the display showed a timer count down... this is too cool... I know that my bagel bar will be done toasting in 3 minutes! Wow. So I let the toaster oven do its thing, and when it beeped, I took my bagel bar out. Golden brown. Awesome. It was warmed all the way through so it melted my peanut butter just a little bit. I've been longing for melty peanut butter on my toast. I maybe would set it for T-3 next time, but T-2 was still a huge improvement over the old toaster. I can tell that the toaster oven and I are beginning a long, wonderful friendship.