Anyone can char a piece of toast

...but it takes a special skill to actually set it on fire.

I can't take all the credit. We are lucky to have not only three gas burners installed in our kitchen (many kitchens come with zero and people set up a semi-portable ring or two) but a little built-in oven underneath, too. It's made for broiling a fish. And not a large fish. A one-person fish. Maybe two such fish, side-by-side. The oven doesn't have a dial with pictures of toast, just a knob to control a ceiling of open flame that sits quite close to the grill. The real estate agent warned us that it was only for cooking fish, and that we had better be careful to fill the pan under the grill with water before trying to cook the fish, because if we didn't, it would burn and the kitchen would be ruined. (This looks like a dicey idea, by the way, because the grill unit is attached to the door and I can't imagine that sliding a shallow pan full of hot fish water in and out of an oven with a jerky mechanism would go smoothly.) This scared us away from the whole fish-in-the-oven idea, and we've been sticking to using it for making toast.

In a city where lack of good bread is probably near the top of any Euro/American gripe list, Jim has found delicious whole wheat sourdough near his office and keeps us steadily supplied. It makes perfect toast, all the tastier, perhaps, for the art and science required, from setting the heat to turning the bread over at a good time to taking it out at the right moment without the benefit of being able to see into the oven. We've had a few pieces get a little dark now and then when one of us pops bread the oven and then wanders into the living room, gets distracted, then sprints back into the kitchen when the burnt smell starts wafting.

But the special skill comes in being able to stand over the oven, stir frying, without giving the bread another thought until opening the oven to see if it might be time to gingerly reach in and turn the tanned slices over and realizing only then that they are not only fully blackened but engulfed in flames.

When the fire died down, Jim scraped the charcoal off the top of one piece. The bottom was still soft and cool to the touch - pain brulé. He put it back in the oven, black side down, to finish toasting. I tossed the other piece in the sink.

If you have any clever ideas about "remembering what setting is a good temperature for toasting bread" or "using a kitchen timer," you do not appreciate the zen challenge of starting anew each time. You probably don't set your bread on fire, either.