I Like My Goodwill Just a Tad Crispy

On my Helena Bonham Carter spree through the Netflix catalog, I had put "Toast" in my queue.  Last night, keeping company with a Leffe blond beer and some Farmville, I put it on.  It was engaging from the very beginning.  Everything about it was absorbing for me.  For once, HBC's wildly feral and sexy look was not used in the same way.  She was nearly unrecognizable and I had to pull up the IMDB website just to be sure of which character she was playing.  

Progressively, Nigel's life (the movie starts when he is near ten years old or so and ends when he is seventeen) seems to attract a hanging mobile of folks who all seem to say "It's going to be alright" or "It's going to be okay" and then they all eventually disappear.  Food is a major focal point of the film.  Nigel's mother was a terrible cook.  She passes away while he is still young. But before that, he tries to encourage her to try new things, to stop boiling unopened "tins" in a pot of water for nourishment.  She is a willing participant some of the time.  His father pooh poohs it at first - and much of the "at first" is really a span of Many Years.  Much of the heartbreak has to do with this type of rejection.  A child puts his heart into his work to offer  the people that he loves most, a part of it.  Their reaction runs along the gamut of asthma attacks, replacing his loving meal with something else.  Toast being one of the replacement meals.  His mother does make toast.  Personally, I think the smell of bread toasting or baking in an oven or toaster can disarm an entire continent.  Going to war?  Flash mob of toasting at 7:30pm, everyone!  They'll change their minds yet!  Butter, not Button!  

It seems that the simpler the meals, the more love that seemed to exist in the household.  After Nigel's mother passes, his father eventually shacks up with and marries a woman who can robustly cook and clean.  She just can't share Nigel's father very well.  Nor can she be shown up on cooking, while Nigel has taken to fantasizing about and pursuing.  I don't recall her ever making toast.  Her meals were giant concoctions to feed a New York City public school for a week.  At this point perhaps you realize how very little Nigel and his new mum get along.  

There are a number of bereaved moments thrown in as a spice used sparingly.  And they certainly add the right amount of balance needed for perspective.  

Not to mention that the Older Nigel is played by Freddie Highmore, who looks like a British Zac Efron.  And anyone has to admit, Zac Efron is one of those people who hasn't a facial flaw to be detected.

This story is, by the way, adapted from the memoir of food writer, Nigel Slater's memoir.  

"No matter how bad things get, it's impossible not to love someone who makes you toast.  Once you've bitten through that crusty surface, to the softer underneath and tasted the warm salty butter, you're lost forever." - Movie Quote

In the spirit of peacemaking with bread,  here are some toast recipes.