Colin McEnroe Show: A Toast To Toast!
Hear from toaster collectors and toast aficionados.
On "Battlestar Galactica" the Cylons were a much-despised race of human-like machines made by man, and the ethnic slur for them was "toaster." I think that's because a toaster is such a humdrum and servile machine. Not much of an inner life. Just sitting there, at our disposal, waiting to serve us in a pretty simplistic way.
But when Thomas Thwaites tried to build a replica of the cheapest toaster on the market, he ran into all kinds of problems, starting with the day he pulled to toaster apart and found that, broken down into its most basic bits, the toaster contained more than 400 parts.
Thwaites is on the show today, to kick off our discussion of toasters and toast. To get ready for this show, I did things like watch a video of a piece of toast alleged to have a likeness of Jesus burned onto its surface. Why it's a video, I don't know. We'll talk about toast in as many different ways as possible on today's show.
Leave your comments below, e-mail colin@wnpr.org or Tweet us @wnprcolin.
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EMAIL FROM SUSAN:
l love your show - especially today's! I visited my family home over the Thanksgiving Holiday, and had occasion to use my Mother's toaster again. This thing is the BEST! My parents were given it as a wedding gift, somewhere around 1945. Dad rebuilt the thing a time or two, including after an incident involving some significant flames. I know he re-soldered the elements, rewired it, and a few other "minor" repairs. But by gosh - it STILL makes the best toast in the world. I hope Mom leaves it to me in her will!
Susan :-)
EMAIL FROM PUA:
No time to call today. Stopped at home for lunch for a change & had just popped this morning's leftover half-bagel in the toaster when I turned on the show.
I used this as a base to finish off the tub of the Palmetto Cheese which my sister-in-law sent us from Charlotte, NC. It turns out that "Palmetto Cheese" does not actually contain any byproduct of the palmetto--the name just shows it's a product of South Carolina. Our daughter who spent a summer internship in Charlotte praised it: "It has cheese, it has mayo, it has jalapeno peppers... How can you not like it?" It has been a fine novelty to our list of regional foodstuffs, and very good on a toasted bagel.
Well, back to work. Still listening.
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