When we were really young, my sister invented a snack which we called the “toaster sandwich”. It was pretty much what you’d expect a kid to come up with: toasted bread sandwiching a messy combination of peanut butter and jam and honey.
Now listen, I was total balls as older siblings go. I don’t expect to surprise a single human being when I tell you that I was a weird broody child, and I wanted everyone to leave me alone so I could draw animals and read about Narnia. Spending time with my bouncy, affectionate sister was not on the itinerary. This toaster sandwich thing, however, was an exception. It was our bonding ritual. I would play videogames – Secret of Mana or Zelda or whatever – and my sister would watch, and sometimes she’d make us a snack, and even in my infant broodiness, I had to admit, those toaster sandwiches were mighty fine indeed.
A few people have suggested that I do recipe posts, and I’m still not sure if that would be wise, but you can count this as a beginning if you like. It might not appeal to anybody over the age of eleven, but it’s tried and true.
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I remember bribing you with these sandwiches so you would let me watch you play Final Fantasy III/VI. Good trade.
Yeah, good trade for me! I was an actual monster.
Lovely post! I can almost see the two of you. You sound so much like my sister and me (I’m the younger).
That’s awesome. Your sister is lucky, because having somebody watch you play videogames (and bring you snacks) is about as good as it gets in life.
I think so! My brother is the (untoasted) sandwich, I don’t think he enjoyed it much. One time the three of us squabbled over a sliver of cheese lying on the counter (it was a rare and precious commodity in those days), then finally divided it to our satisfaction. Only it turned out to be yellow soap! I don’t know why I’m telling you this, except that your post brought back so many memories. Sadly, my sister passed away eight years ago. I miss her more than I can say.
My mum tells me that she used to have to hide the soap when I was a tiny kid, because I would eat it.
I’m so very sorry about your sister. There are some things that only a sibling can fully understand.
Recipe posts, recipe posts!!
My siblings and I would make “grilled cheese” by toasting some bread in a toaster, putting cheese between the toasted slices, then smashing the sandwich flat enough to put it back in one slot of the toaster again, so as to melt the cheese… so good, so flat…
We also had sweetened condensed milk sandwiches on white bread. They were amazing and so terrible for a child. For anyone, really.. but you just couldn’t soak that white bread enough, its absorbency was amazing.
Oh yeah, I’m pretty sure we tried that grilled cheese thing at least once, but the condensed milk ones are new to me – they sound amazing. Like a horrible/glorious bread pudding.
I’ll attempt at least a couple recipe posts!
I think the comparable snack of my childhood was a tortilla, spread with blackberry applesauce, sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar, then rolled into a tube. Very delicious even though all the applesauce had a tenancy to squeeze out the end!
Ooh, I used to do something really similar with cold pancakes.
If you play a zelda game and no one is around to see it does it even happen? I would rather watch someone play it. I suppose that is how streaming and whatnot got big.
Also when I was a kid we had a “sandwich toaster” which is supposedly for grilled cheese sandwiches I think, which it did alright for except for cheese fusing with the crushed bread at the edges, and ours was old and tended to burn the hardened edges into an almost glassy texture.
What I mostly used it for was making peanut butter and honey sandwiches. The key was to cook it long enough such that the peanut butter is baked and starchy around the edges, but molten and sweet in the middle. You want it to be just hot enough that you are only barely capable of eating it.
I don’t know if my black-coffee-worn young adult body is strong enough for it’s power now, I should make one and drink a whole pot of coffee in case it lets me ascend to a higher plane.
Anyways, the best thing about a sandwich toaster is that it toasts two sandwiches at a time, and if you are making one it makes sense to make another one for someone else while you’re at it. It’s a good aligned object.