I want to talk about toast.

Not the "Here's to Phil" kind of toast. But toasted bread. I've noticed of late that it's hard to get good toast anymore. I think people just don't care or they don't know. Or they've forgotten.

Even Sylvie, my wife of almost 55 years doesn't do it right. She toasts well, the bagel nice and dark, but then she funfers around for ten minutes before buttering or schmearing. So what I get is a toasted bagel, not toast. Here's my point. TOAST SHOULD BE HOT. Hot is toast. Toast that's not hot is bread that's toasted. Also this is the way at coffee shops, by the time you get the toast you asked for what you have is toasted. Not toast.

Now, if you go into "Hole-y Moley," our local bagel shop and ask for a toasted bagel, you get something worse. A bagel that's been through a toaster and is warmed or slightly singed by the toaster. But singeing is not toasting.

To sum up--toast is toast when it is served medium to dark brown (pumpernickel notwithstanding) and hot.

I've had a cold.

Remiss, remiss is what I have been. Remiss is as good as a mile.Yes, dear Blog, I haven't written in a while because I am in the grip of the grippe as we used to call it, or as we say today, I've had a cold.

It hit me last week, just before Thanksgiving. Every bone in my body and a few I've lost along the way ached. Oy. Then my throat constricted and I had more phlegm than the goyim have saints. Only now, am I getting better and only just a little. And I'll tell you something,the weather we've been having helps not a bit. One day hot, one day freezing, then hot, then cold, like the dining plan at a bad Catskill's resort. Today with the rain, I am staying inside.

Sylvie worries and thinks maybe it's time we move to Florida. But then you're surrounded by old people waiting for to die. Not for me. Here in the city, I can go for a walk, talk to people and buy a piece of fruit. It's just a cold, I tell her, not an indictment of deciduous climes. Oy, how she worries. Besides, with Florida, you have two things. Republicans and hurricanes. I don't know which is more dangerous but at least the weather channel warns you when hurricanes are coming and you know in a week they'll be gone. Not so with Republicansches. No, in New York I am staying and Sylvie, if you want Florida so much, take a little of what we've put away and buy yourself a condo. Fehlorida.

I thought they meant Ben Wolf.

I had a friend who passed some years ago, the biggest chenille guy on 7th Avenue and a mensch to boot, active in the Shul and on the board of a host of charities. When I saw the promotions for the new movie Beowulf, I thought of Ben. Ben Wolf, Beowulf. Cockamamie logic, I know. But that is one of the privileges of being nearly 85. Cockamamie logic you can get away with.

Beowulf, let me put this bluntly, was not my schtickle of cake. Violent and loud. Nothing like Ben Wolf. I read the review in this morning's Times (which seems to be delivered later and later, so much for the girl getting a Holiday tip!) and I found it amusing. So, I include it here--especially you should notice the last sentence.

"Confronting the Fabled Monster, Not to Mention His Naked Mom
By MANOHLA DARGIS
Published: November 16, 2007

You don’t need to wait for Angelina Jolie to rise from the vaporous depths naked and dripping liquid gold to know that this “Beowulf” isn’t your high school teacher’s Old English epic poem. You don’t even have to wait for the flying spears and airborne bodies that — if you watch the movie in one of the hundreds of theaters equipped with 3-D projection — will look as if they’re hurtling directly at your head. You could poke your eye out with one of those things! Which is precisely what I thought when I first saw Ms. Jolie’s jutting breasts too."

Sponge cake longa, vita brevis.

First, in your twenties, you go to weddings. The weddings of your friends. Then, the baby namings, and B'nai Mitzvot of your friends' children. Then the funerals of your parents. Then the weddings of your kids. Then the namings. Then funerals. Funerals. Funerals.

All is mutable. Except for the challah and the sponge cake.

Cousin Jack's daughter Jessica.

Jessica, a shainah maidle, is being Bat Mitzvah'd next month, coinciding with my 85th birthday. Naturally I would rather have a nice dinner with some friends here in New York, but as Con Schmedison might have written and as Sylvie who always puts family first believes, "Schlep we Must," so off we'll jet to Ann Arbor probably through a snowstorm and we'll all nearly die, G-d Forbid.

Sylvie, of course, must always do more than just attend Bat Mitzvahs, she must organize for the parents any help she can. So all afternoon she is online shopping for yarmulkes, because naturally you cannot find such head wear in the wilderness of Ann Arbor, Mishigoss,I mean Michigan.

Personally as I said I'd rather sit home with a book when it is cold and could snow out. But as Groucho might have said, "Behind every successful man is a woman, behind her is his wife."

Oooops.

I just realized I've been writing diligently my blog but have forgotten to save. Apparently, I just closed without saving or posting. Oy.

America's Next Top Rabbi.

Last night Sylvie had on the television and was watching a show called America's Next Top Model. In the show, which is hosted by Tyra Banks, a famous model (and maybe something of a head case), a couple dozen young ladies, too skinny by about twenty pounds or more, compete in order to be the eponymous "top model."

A sad show it is. Women who put outer-beauty ahead of any depth or intelligence. Most of the women competing can't speak. They seem unable to see the world except through their extremely narcissistic lens and so they act as if this competition were a matter of the gravest importance.

That said, the show got me thinking. What if there were a similar competition for America's Top Rabbi? A sermon competition. A private consultation. Interpretation of the Liturgy, the Torah. Service to the congregation. Service to the community. Service to the world. And, of course, the food at the Oneg Shabbat!