The Do-Everything Machine

I guess that I've never been entirely comfortable with ovens. Perhaps it goes back to the experience of pretending to bake concoctions made of legos, only to have them baked for real by an unwitting mother. Freud would like that diagnosis, I imagine. Really, I suppose my reasons aren't different from those of other people. A mild cooking effort becomes involved when the oven gets introduced into things, and I can hardly bear long, intricate cooking. For me, there are meals at the easy end which involve no cooking whatsoever and meals at the difficult end which may involve the microwave or the stove top range. Beyond that starts to feel like I should leave things to a qualified professional. You can then imagine how pleasantly surprised I have been in this most temporary of residences to find myself with an appliance entirely aimed at my speed of cooking: the toaster-oven.

I think that while I've long been aware of it, I was troubled by its imprecise mission statement. It confuses the line between the toaster I've always felt fine with and the oven which struck at my psyche in boyhood. It offers all the functionality of the former and some of the latter. It's the essential component of a break room kitchenette, but so easily overlooked in a home with a real kitchen. The thing is really that it's largely insufficient for the task of oven, and overqualified for the job of toaster. It's so spacious that the toast could knock around in there wreaking all kinds of havoc. I try to put myself in the toast's position and find myself thinking it would be like living in a great big, drafty house rather than a nice cozy one. Worst, there's no dramatic release for the toast in the toaster oven. There's no loud, frightening POP to jar you from your torpor as you get ready to face the day. Can that be overcome? How could one have oven, toaster and toaster oven in one kitchen? Must it be the first two only, or can the third join in and even replace the others?

Clearly it cannot replace the oven, but I now think maybe for the first time that it can in fact supplant the toaster. What has won me over? Toasted sandwiches are amazing. Whether one attempts to make them happen with a microwave or an oven, it's effectively a pipe dream, and there's no choice but to place oneself in the trusted hands of a professional sandwich artisan, wrecking the budget in the process and cursing the cruelty of fate. Enter.. the toaster-oven. It is necessary only to hold out the fragile components of the sandwich which respond poorly to heat, and insert the rest into the machine. It comes out piping hot, and you integrate the remaining elements. Since first attempting it, I have eaten countless sandwiches with gooey cheese and toasty bread, and know that I'm head over heels. My budget is tight as I move into my new apartment in the days ahead, but I fear that I have hit upon an indispensable device without which our domestic coalition may well be in serious jeopardy.

Does all that sound hyperbolic? I'm really enjoying these toasted sandwiches. They're nothing severe. It's just chicken bologna, which may in fact not be a real thing, generic cheese singles and mustard on cut-rate wheat bread. The toaster oven makes something surprisingly good out of it, and I can't help myself. It starts at lunchtime, and continues throughout the rest of the days as my best intentions of staying away are dashed over and over. It's that toaster oven. It makes me want to have another sandwich even now when I'm positively full. I can't do justice to the excitement I'll surely feel tomorrow at the first possible moment when I can justify making some more. The fact that I'll actually have something to properly heat my toaster pastries will have a lot to do with the promptness with which I get up in the morning. It's a hell of a machine. I might have to get one of my own in the new place as I said.