Since the food channel and Saveur started suggesting that an four foot square apartment kitchen should have professional grade equipment, it has become increasingly difficult to find a simple anything. The concept that toasters make toast rather than being design elements has all but disappeared.
My old Proctor Silex gave out after some twenty years of service. Actually, it didn't give out, but it started blowing the power strip, so I went on the hunt for a toaster, please, just a toaster. It wasn't easy..
Shopping for toasters is an eye opener. You think, well, maybe $20 and go to Bloomie's basement, where the Italian designer model is goes for several hundred dollars. Well, cooed the clerk, we have our budget line, pointing to a $69 Cuisinart model in stylish brushed nickel. It's not polite to laugh at clerks, but it's hard not to.

After Macy's, Home Depot, Best Buy, a couple of kitchen shops and about a tank of gas, it occured to me to hit a hardware store - the neighborhood kind with measuring cups and doorbells and keys. They had two.

The new Proctor Silex, now under the Hamilton Beach name, looks pretty much the same as the old one. It's not.

What it does: It toasts bread on both sides relatively evenly. you can set the darkness with a manual dial, there are no bells and whistles.

What it doesn't: Unlike the older Proctor toasters, once the bread is in, it is in. Jiggling the handle won't release the spring to stop the process early. That means burnt toast. It claims to have automatic shut off. That means, if it gets too hot because something sticks, it turns off. I haven't noticed it. That might meaned burned house.

Why automatic shut off is important: My kitchen nearly burned down when a piece of bread caught fire in a toaster placed under a cabinet. I left it to get something, came back, and the cabinet was shooting out little flames.Toasters, it turns out, should not a) be left under cabinets and b) left alone. Who knew?

It is like so many old brands now made by who knows were in China - looks like the original but doesn't perform. (China produces some pretty good stuff, too, but not the cheap items). It is very slow, not particularly even. The sides clamp in if you put it down without adding a second slice, which requires opening them with a fork, which may mean burnt you.

Why you need toast: It's therapeutic. For a couple of pennies you get more than an hour in therapy. Cinamon toast is particularly useful. Toast, spread with soft butter, sprinklc liberally with sugar, then cinnamon. Eat and feel better.

The sides are cool, the top gets hot. Don't touch the top.
This toaster does not have the nifty little drawer crumb collecter, but has a drop down plate like thousands before it.

It hasn't got that heavy, chic utility feel. The metal cover, in fact, makes a sort of tin drum sound when you tap it with your nails waiting for the toast to finish.

It won't impress your friends.

Rather than the nifty little pull out crumb drawer the three figure toasters sport, it has the old fashioned flop down tray, which is guaranteed to get crumbs all over everything.

Used together with my microwave, it pops my circuit breaker. I have refrigerators and dishwashers that coexist nicely on this circuit. I don't know quite what that indicates beyond a roaring utility bill, but I have no intention of letting it work unattended. (Supposedly you shouldn't anyway.)

Toast is therapy. I need toast. I need a decent toaster. This ain't it.