An Ode to Toast

The other day I was driving home with one of the high school girls from my mentoring group and somehow we started talking about food. Imagine that! We got on this thing about toast and it keeps coming back to me. Toast is one of those quintessentially simple, yet amazingly good, foods that can so quickly be screwed up by lack of attention. Maybe it's that we recall the smell of toast from our childhood but there is something comforting about a really nice, hot from the toaster, just toasty enough but not too browned, piece of bread. It helps if the bread you started with was a nice crusty loaf and not just Wonder bread but even that can make your morning in the right circumstances. Toast with melty butter or toast with jam, toast with vegemite, or toast with cinnamon-sugar: all great representations of the form. But toast can go wrong and so often does. It's fragile and the shelf life is very short. Good, hot crispy toast is a thing of beauty. Cool, limp, wimpy toast is like eating a dishcloth. Chef-made toast, or what sometimes is referred to as cinders can be enough to make you want to cry. The smell of toast can make your day while the smell of burnt toast burns your eyes and just seems sad. That's the thing about toast: it can go from awesome to inedible faster than just about anything you'll eat. Grabbed from the toaster without the distraction of other tasks at the peak of its toastiness and it is worth fighting over. Left to dispair on a plate getting cold and soggy and it's a shameful thing. I think I'll drink a toast to toast tonight and maybe make myself a stack in the morning.

Spanish Ribs

I've had a little experiment going with ribs lately - pork spare ribs to be exact. It started with a paella dinner for friends in which one is not much of a meat eater so while I normally might put ribs in the paella, I made the ribs on the side. I've since made them again and people really like this dish and it is super simple to pull off, and works great in advance. Just buy a couple pounds of some decent looking pork spare ribs and split them if they are in a rack. Mix the following together and then toss the ribs with the mixture:

2 TBSP smoked paprika (not hot)
1 TBSP finely minced or crushed garlic
1/2 TBSP dried rosemary, crumbled
1/2 tsp. ground fresh pepper
1-1/2 tsp sea salt
2-3 TBSP olive oil

You can leave out the oil but it helps make a nice paste. If the paste is too thick, add a little water. Make sure the ribs get evenly coated with the paste. Place the ribs in two layers of foil, shiny side on the inside and seal it up by crimping the open sides. Place on a baking tray and bake at 300 degrees for about 90 minutes. Check them for tenderness. If they are not super tender, put them back in the oven for about 30 more minutes or so. You can eat them right away, or cool them and refrigerate. Reheat in the oven at about 350 for 15-20 minutes. These are so good, that you won't need a sauce or anything with them!