Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with toast

nomnomnomnom

chicago2penn — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 06:18:37 -0800

I want the best dam french toast recipe this side of the mississip'! the more original the better!

Cheers! clink

Bakuun — Fri, 15 May 2009 17:40:35 -0800

My family is very big on toasts, but generally the same ones are repeated throughout the holidays or birthdays - toasts for health, success, and happiness. I'm curious as to what kinds of toasts are your own favorites. Something beautifully worded you really liked? Or a subject you think is really worth drinking for? (Well, that last one is quite the slippery slope - but still!) What do you usually raise your glass for?

Please help before I make Google explode!

Rudy Gerner — Sun, 03 May 2009 09:35:49 -0800

Please help me find this exact quotation and its citation! There is a quote I read once somewhere that was a toast that a group of revolutionaries (I think communists) used to make and it was something like "Cheers to the success of our impossible task." At least that's how my brain remembers it. But whatever the quote is, I think its a toast and what it's doing is acknowledging both how difficult it is to make change while exhibiting the optimism of "knowing" that you can/will make it.

Does this ring a bell to anyone? If you can find the exact quote and its citation, I'd be very grateful. Thank you in advance.

Streamline my French toast production!

zardoz — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 05:19:20 -0800

I loves me some French toast, but find it's kind of a pain to make. I don't need a recipe for French toast, I need a battle plan. Recipe is easy: eggs, milk, vanilla extract, cinnamon sugar. Mix, dip bread, fry. It's that "fry" part that drives me nuts. I have a frypan (no big griddle, unfortunately) in which I melt some butter, toss in my batter-laden bread and cook up.

Problem is the pan is only big enough for one, maybe one and a half pieces of FT. So I put the finished ones aside and the butter that I used originally is now a blackened, gunky mess. So I clean that off but have to let the red-hot pan cool down a bit doing so, and when I add more butter for the next batch the pan is waaaay too hot. Big sizzle! And I'll have immediately scorched butter unless the pan is cool. So I have to wait to cool the pan, then repeat. Meanwhile all my finished FT is cooling off to room temperature--no good.

If it were just me eating one slice of bread there'd be no problem. But it's at least my wife and sometimes others, so we're talking 5, 6 pieces of toast at the very least. My point is it's all very time consuming, so can you give me some pointers about how to have a streamlined French toast production plan? How do you feed an army French toast in record time? Am I overthinking this plate of French toast? BTW, I've recently tried cutting the toast in quarters for French toast sticks, thinking this is a good shortcut, but unfortunately not--doesn't make a difference.

Please Walk Me Through the Steps in Making a Divx DVD

UnholyJudas — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 08:59:08 -0800

Well, something is wrong...I use Mac the Ripper to rip the DVDs...then I am not sure what to do. I turned them into mp4s in Handbrake and then burnt them in Toast under the Divx tab. I get a lot (maybe 6?) movies to a disc (dual layer)and the picture is decent BUT it takes several days...a day to encode the files through Handbrake and then 2 whole days to burn the disc in Toast. Am I doing things completely wrong? I would appreciate a step by step walkthrough if there is a much easier and more efficient way to make Divx discs primarily because I have a huge spindle of DVD-DLs that I don't want to waste on one movie at a time. Thanks for your help and happy holidays! By the way I am using a brand new IMac running OS 10.5.5

Potted Shrimps for Tea.

tallus — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 07:14:23 -0800

How do you eat Potted Shrimp? Hot or Cold? I brought some today (already potted) and don't know how to eat them. The recipes for cooking them from scratch all talk about chilling them in the fridge, but it seems a bit weird to eat them cold as there is a layer of cold butter on top. I want to eat them on toast rather than putting them in a sauce. Do you reheat them, mash them up or just put them on hot toast so the butter melts by itself?

What should I (not) say in a wedding toast for my father?

Anonymous — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 10:35:07 -0800

I am going to be my father's best man. What special considerations do I need to take into account for my toast? Any particularly good/bad examples of what to say based on experience? This will be my father's third marriage and his fiancee's second. They're both at about retirement age and don't want it to be a Big Deal.

The background: My mother (his first wife) passed away when I was young and a couple of her siblings--with whom my father is still fairly close--will be in attendance; his second wife is someone we are very glad is out of our lives now. His fiancee (the bride) is on good terms with her ex-husband and he and his wife will probably be in attendance as well. So there are a lot of odd (but not tense) relationship dynamics at play.

The upshot of what I want to say is I'm happy for him and I like her; they have complimentary interests and I think they'll be good together. I know that it's generally a good idea to not talk about previous marriages and I intend to work with that...I'm just wondering who/what else to acknowledge. I've seen good previous general toasting advice here, but it's the generational specifics that confound me.

Bilingual (English/Spanish) wedding toast needed.

Cog — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 00:10:50 -0800

What is good bilingual (English/Spanish), and relatively short toast for a wedding? This is nearly a last minute idea. But as the best man, I need to beg, borrow or steal a wedding toast for a bilingual audience. The groom's side speaks English, while the bride's, including her parents, mainly speak Spanish, from Mexico.

I'd like to present a toast in English and Spanish, but the Spanish needs to be short (about 8 words) and simple enough for me to remember. My last Spanish class was 20 years ago in high school. But I plan to get last minute help from one of the bride's brothers in pronunciation.

Also, while we're on the subject, which language should I say first? Spanish first for the bride, then English? Or the reverse?

What should I eat for breakfast?

No-sword — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 06:04:42 -0800

Fill the gap between my toast and my cheese! I really like canned fish (tuna, salmon, etc.) and cheese on toast for breakfast, but I feel bad about the wasted cans and I've decided to try to move towards a topping I can prepare myself, from scratch.

I figure I'd be happy to spend 30-60 minutes every 3 or 4 days to prepare a bunch of something which I can put in the fridge and ration out in the mornings. Additional notes that might help narrow things down: I don't really like ham or other deli-style cold cuts; I am particularly but not exclusively interested in alternate ways to eat fish; I live in Japan and have access to tasty local vegetables and meats; I will not be giving up the cheese.

Any suggestions?

MP3 CD Woes

snap_dragon — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 07:25:51 -0800

How to burn Mp3 random mixes (not entire albums) into several folders on Macintosh for easy navigation in my car cd player...I used to be able to make mp3 discs of whatever songs i wanted and then place them into folders on my desktop, then burn them to disc. It seems that Itunes only allows some form of folder separation (if any at all) by sorting things only by each group's album. This is not helpful if you want several folders with random songs in each folder...for example...I want one folder with songs by rock groups..another that is jazz...whatever. On the new imac, it does not seem to let me take the drag and dropped mp3s in folders on my desktop to a burn disc icon as it did in my older G4. Any suggestions on software or a simpler way around this? I appreciate your input. When it did work, it worked great and saved me from using a crummy fm transmitter on my ipod. The mp3 cds for me sound much better and are easily disposable if left in car.

Healthy chips and dip?

XMLicious — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 03:24:31 -0800

Healthy chips and dip? Lo, long have I quested thro' the dales and deep, like Bilbo for the One Ring, seeking chips that art not crap for my diet. (That would be “crisps” for you heathen Brits. And yes, I know Tolkien was British.)

Recently I happened upon Snyder's of Hanover sunflower and corn chips. They have a very nice texture but the flavor is meh.

In dip news, I like Middle Eastern food in general. I like حُمُّص بالطحين but besides putting it in falafel I've never found much else to use it with, much less dip in it.

But… Whoso putteth these chips in this dip, shall be the King of the Britons! There's a snacktacular gestalt between these two things, creating a Nietzschean Über-Snack, that I find delicious. And looking at the nutrition facts the combination doesn't look too bad health-wise: no trans fat, not too much fat overall, average carbs and below average sodium for a snack food. Definitely better than potato chips and onion dip, in any case.

So I ask you, me droogy droogs, what sort of healthy chips / crisps do you know of that I could put in my hummus, or healthy dip that I could dip my Hanoverian sunflower chips in, or other healthy combination of chips and dip?

How to Stuff a Wild Panini

iconomy — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 11:57:50 -0800

I have a Snackster. It makes yummy sandwiches that look like this. More yummy sandwiches are wanted. There have been a few sandwich posts here, but none that deal specifically with stuffed sandwiches and panini type sandwiches, which is what I'm after.

In addition to grilled cheese of every kind imaginable, I've made Reubens with great success, and have done a sort of Panera artichoke and turkey and caramelized onion sandwich, and have made mini calzones of sauces and cheese. What else can I try? Yep, I know how to google for recipes - I'm looking for sandwiches that you yourself have known and loved personally. My Snackster is hot and looking for action!

How do I password protect a CD for both mac and pc?

ndicecco — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 19:58:37 -0800

I want to encrypt a CD with a very simple password. Brief explanation: I'm handing in a project in a few days, one component of which is a technologically based riddle. I want my professor to read what I hand in, then run the CD I provide, and find that it is password protected. If he is able to guess the password (which will be the greek word "Aletheia") based on the project - great, there will be a few extra things on the CD. If not, all the better.

The thing is... I run Mac OSX, but toast titanium will only let me encrypt a CD that runs exclusively on Mac OSX. I don't know what kind of computer my professor uses, and I don't have time to ask. So what program will allow me to encrypt a CD so that it will prompt for a password whether it is run on a windows OS or a Mac (assuming, of course, he is running one of the two)?

Organized backing up of many mp3s to DVD

anonymoose — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 22:55:07 -0800

Help me burn my 100GB of Mp3s to DVD in some sort of organized fashion! (Mac) I have a lot of mp3s in iTunes, and I'd like to back them up to DVD and DVD-DL disks. In the past, I've just copied folders from my iTunes music library to Toast, but it results in a pretty random set of albums on each DVD. I'd be nice if I could get my mp3s to DVD in a somewhat organized fashion such that I could find what I was looking for relatively easily (say, by genre or composer or something).

Burning an MP3 DVD through iTunes seems like it just makes a DVD with each individual mp3 file on the uppermost directory - even less organized than my copying of folders to Toast. (At least it seemed to do that when I tried it a year or two ago)

So! What's my best bet?

How to make a wedding toast when you only know one half of the couple?

Elmo Oxygen — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 09:49:59 -0800

I'm supposed to give a toast at my friend's wedding, but I don't really know his fiancee very well. What should I say? My friend and I have been close since high school. For the last 6 years or so, we've been living on opposite coasts. However, we see each other at least once a year, and talk every month or so. He's asked me to be the best man at his wedding, and I've gladly accepted.

From what I understand, the best man makes a toast. I imagine that the toast should be to the couple, and not just to the groom. I have a ton of things to say about my friend, however, I really don't know his fiancee very well at all. I mean, she seems really cool, but we've only really hung out a few times.

What can I say about this person who I barely know that one of my best, oldest friends is about to marry?

Also, do you have any other tips for giving the toast? I've never given a toast before, let alone one as important as this.

Toast Titanium 8 settings

hz37 — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 03:23:02 -0800

I'm creating a DVD Video for my family using Toast Titanium 8. I wonder what the best encoding settings for my case are. Of course I can go for all the automatic settings, but I wonder if there are benefits in (un)checking Half-PEL, adjusting Reencoding (Always?) and Field Dominance (Progressive?). The source material are MPEG-2 clips, 720 x 576, 25 fps (PAL), taken from mostly old super 8 movies. The family disc will be a standard PAL 25 fps DVD (4:3) thas are not important, as there is no audio. But can I increase the average t should play well on as many DVD players as possible. Audio settingbit rate, which defaults at 4.0 Mbps?? I especially wonder about all of this, because the MPEG-2 clips can't be played by QuickTime Pro on my Mac. However, VisualHub and Toast can. Converting to DV using VisualHub gave me ugly horizontal artifacts, so does that call for progressive field dominance? Thanks for any insights!

Every video DVD I burn has audio/video glitches.

robbie01 — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 01:08:40 -0800

I cannot, for the life of me, burn a DVD on my MacPro of an 8.5 minute video without 2-4 video/audio glitches. Details of everything I've tried within. I have an 8:40 QuickTime video exported from a slideshow application that I'm trying to burn to DVD for playback on regular DVD players. The content of the video is slow-placed, Ken Burns style portraits of people shot against a white background.

I've burned through (pardon the pun) upwards of 10 DVDs trying to make a perfect master (that can be duped later). No matter what I do, the resulting DVD has at *least* two (and often more) deal-breaking video/audio glitches, every time in different places on the disc.

At first I thought it was my source movie, so I tried exporting with many different codecs, frame rates, data rates, resolutions, etc. But the resulting native QuickTime movie plays perfectly on the Mac, whether the movie is 100MB (average compression) or 25GB (No Compression).

I attempted using iDVD several times to burn an auto-playing DVD (no Theme) and got glitches. I even blew $100 on Toast for the Mac thinking iDVD's burning was the culprit, but get the same type of glitches.

Then I thought it might be the media I'm burning to, but my IT department says my single-layer Imation DVD-Rs are of good quality.

Then I figured the most likely explanation was I was trying to burn too fast at my recorder's fastest speed (8x, SuperDrive on a 3.0Ghz quad MacPro with 5GB of RAM) and so I tried slower speeds like 4x, 2x, and then all the way down to 1x. Still get glitches.

I tried Roxio's Toast 7 Titanium and changing the encoding from Custom (which I had maxed out to 9.0 Mbps with Dolby Digital audio @ 192 kps) down to Automatic to let the computer decide the best encoding for the content on-the-fly. Still glitches.

I tried quitting all other applications (e-mail autochecking, web browsers) and JUST having the DVD burn, didn't help.

I'm attempting to play the burned DVD on a consumer-grade Panasonic player, and the glitches manifest as 1-2 frames of skipped audio with simultaneous stuttering video and/or very bad splotches of graphic anomolies. Particularly bad glitches cause the audio to waver/stutter for the remainder of the video.

To make sure it wasn't my Panasonic player, I put the burned DVD *back* in the MacPro, and the Mac's DVD drive fails even worse at the glitch points (which are different on every DVD), and slows playback down to about 3fps as it makes its way past the glitch points.

I've never had any problems burning data DVDs, and admittedly I haven't burned (any) video DVDs before, but this seems like a pretty pedestrian task, especially for a measly 8.5 minute video being burned on a beast of a Mac. I'm fairly computer/tech literate and have tried just about everything I can think of, so I'm interested in hearing about any other approaches I can try.

I also have a PC available with a DVD writer and Nero software, but the Mac is a lot friendlier to set up an auto-playing DVD (I got tired of trying to figure it out on the PC) and at this point I really don't want to purchase *another* non-refundable DVD burning package on the PC (like Toast or Easy DVD Creator) just to try to get a glitch-free disc, when my Mac should be more than capable of the task.

Cheers!

sonofslim — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 07:50:00 -0800

Advice for writing a wedding toast? so my brother's getting married, i'm the best man, i'll be giving a toast. it's a large wedding (a couple hundred) and our side will comprise well under half of that, so it has to be appropriate for a room full of strangers. also, my brother and i aren't super-close, so i don't have a well of touching personal stories to draw on.

tips? advice? good sites to check out for inspiration?

Firewire and USB trouble on an iBook G4

matteo — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 10:45:27 -0800

Lately, my iBook G4 (I use Toast Titanium, 6 and 7) has trouble recognizing my external FireWire hard drive. Today, the external DVD burner (USB) has disappeared -- the iBook just doesn't recognize it anymore. Is my logic board f*cked, again? And if it is, does it make economic sense to fix it on such an old machine, or should I just upgrade? Thanks.

Experience with 'open toasts' at a wedding?

darsh — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 08:42:02 -0800

Has anyone attended weddings where there has been an 'open toast' in addition to (or instead of) a regular speech/toast? If so, could you tell me what you thought of it, whether you would recommend that format, and how it was initiated? We're having a dinner in a nice restaurant, instead of a traditional wedding reception - 33 people, no band or DJ. I hadn't thought about a toast , but heard about the concept of an 'open toast' from someone. I guess the idea is that basically everyone has the chance to say something short about the couple? I like the concept, but am unsure about the practicality of it.

For example, how does it get started off? There's no DJ to make announcements, so do we nominate someone to stand up first and say something? and then invite others to do so? Will it make guests feel uncomfortable? How to make sure people don't go on for too long? How to end it gracefully? If you've seen this done at events you attended, did you like the idea?

What is a good wedding poem?

Falconetti — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 14:22:51 -0800

Need help finding a suitable wedding poem... My best friend of many years is getting married this weekend and I want to give a toast at a dinner the night before. Ideally, this would be a short poem on a wedding theme that is easily understandable when read out loud. I am especially trying to avoid anything that is cheesy or sappy, like most wedding related poems.

MixCD burning with tracknames?

francisco — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 13:53:55 -0800

So reading this older question. Doesn't seem to be any resolution to the issue?? Or it can't be done? I just did two things. One, burn my mix straight out of iTunes. Other mac's don't read the cd info, nor does a winxp box (Media Player). Second, tried using Toast Titanium, with DOA checked, CD-TEXT checked, and all the song names are there filled in. Still nothing on another mac or pc. I know this can be done with pro cd-mastering/burning software, but that's costs money money. Any ideas? Or is this a dead end?

How does the toaster know?

Rash — Sun, 17 Jul 2005 11:18:30 -0800

How does a toaster's light-dark control work? Perhaps something clever with a bi-metallic strip... can't believe the toast's 'doneness' is actually being tested; but from experience it seems more sophisticated than just adjusting a timer. How do dem? If I were designing a program to do this, it would poll a
bread_darkness_sensor, somehow.

What are some witty toasts?

absalom — Wed, 12 Jan 2005 18:33:48 -0800

I do a bit of drinking, and I'm looking for a new toast. "Panties: Not the best thing in the world, but right next to it." is what my friends use, but it's getting a little old. Any suggestions? (Witty and sublime both appreciated)

Writeable DVD applications

armoured-ant — Tue, 21 Dec 2004 04:34:54 -0800

I have an xViD .avi movie, 119minutes, that I'd like to put onto DVD. Toast claims that it can't fit it on (5.7gb required, 4.4gb of my 4.7gb writeable DVD available). What I'd like is to be able to requantize the movie so that it fits onto the DVD. Bonus points for an OS X application. Super bonus points for a free one. That I don't have to find a crack for.