Good Thursday morning. I cannot tell you how excited I am for what I have to share with you today.
It’s an homage to my absolute favorite food…aside from peanut butter, but, then again, it’s actually a VEHICLE for peanut butter, and jelly, and cheese, and avocado, and hazelnut spread, and egg salad, and lox, and, and…anything really.
If you haven’t guessed it already, it’s National Toast Day.
Now, you might be thinking: The world is full of absolutely amazing and delicious things to eat – steak and salmon and french fires and caviar and ice cream and broccoli (roasted with garlic, it’s amazing) – and yet you’re saying toast, TOAST?! Is your favorite food?”
Yup.
I come back to it all the time. It’s comforting and easy and always delicious, even when a little on the overdone side. In fact, I think it’s better that way.
I am not, mind you, speaking of your average diner, done on the oily grill, pre-packaged white or wheat toast, though even that has its place on the side of a well-made omelette or on either side of a nice tuna salad sandwich with iceberg. Sue me.
But well-made – better yet, homemade – thick-sliced, toasted bread that’s spread thickly with grass-fed butter and some not-too-sweet strawberry or apricot preserves?
That, my friends, together with a strong cup of coffee, is manna from heaven.
Though it seems so simple, there is, in fact, a history to toast.
Once upon a time, most bread was flat because it was easier to make and kept longer. The introduction of leavened bread was a novelty, but also difficult to keep in hot climates – it went stale very quickly. Enter toasting as a means of stretching the life of bread out longer.
The word “toast” is derived from the Latin word “tostum,” which means to burn or scorch. Making toast was fairly rudimentary back in the day – you basically just put it on a hot rock or held it on a stick in the fire, but the results were probably pretty badly burnt.
The first electric toasted was invented by a Scot named Alan MacMasters. You actually had to flip the bread manually to get it toasted on both sides, and the device had an unfortunate habit of catching fire. Not exactly a user-friendly household item.
The real challenge was developing a heating element that could sustain repeated high temperatures ad not catch fire. Once that was invented – by a guy named Albert March, who created a heat-safe filament wire called “Nichrome” in 1905 – it was off to the races. Also, the invention of pre-sliced bread, which was once banned in the U.S.(?!) further contributed to toast’s popularity.
I probably eat toast once, if not twice, a day. Whole wheat sourdough is currently my jam. (Ahem, see what I did there?)
It’s going to be a good day to curl up with some toast and a hot beverage of choice, because we’re heading into a winter storm watch, starting tonight at 10 a.m. and lasting through tomorrow at the same time. Accumulation of six to 12 inches is possible, and there might also be some freezing rain.
For most of the day, though, it will be cloudy with temperatures in the mid-to-high-30s. The snow isn’t likely to really get underway in earnest until late at night or even after midnight, so you have some time to get your lack look at the bare ground for a while.
In the headlines…
Russia’s attack on Ukraine is under way.
President Joe Biden condemned the attack. “The world will hold Russia accountable,” he said in a statement before he held a late-night call with Ukraine President Volodimyr Zelenskyy. (The president’s full statement can be read here).
Addressing his nation in a televised speech broadcast just before 6 a.m. this morning, Putin said his goal was to “demilitarize” but not occupy the country.
Biden plans to impose what he called “severe sanctions” against Russia today during a public address on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as explosions rocked cities across the country and signaled the start of a large-scale assault.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led a chorus of Democratic support for Biden while denouncing the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. She vowed that the U.S. will remain united with allies as Western leaders continue to impose sanctions against Putin.
Lawmakers are slated to receive a briefing from members of the Biden administration today.
Investors rushed for safety, pushing down stocks and lifting the prices of oil, gold and government bonds, after Russian missiles and airstrikes hit Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and more than a dozen other cities across the country.
U.S. companies should prepare for cyber blowback as Biden imposes sanctions on Russia for its ongoing aggression in Ukraine, experts said.
White House chief of staff Ron Klain told House Democrats he hopes Biden’s State of the Union address will raise his polls, in part by demonstrating leadership on national security and by showing empathy for Americans frustrated with Covid-19 and inflation.
Biden, facing the risk of a destabilizing energy price shock, is promising to blunt the impact of rising energy prices on American families. But that won’t be easy.
A Siena College poll shows the Biden administration underwater as his approval rating sank below the 50% mark in the state of New York — one of the strongest liberal strongholds in the country.
The demand for U.S. workers has led some manufacturers, technology firms and other employers to ditch the annual raise and switch to more frequent pay reviews as they compete for talent and keep pace with rising wages.
U.S. life insurers, as expected, made a large number of Covid-19 death-benefit payouts last year. More surprisingly, many saw a jump in other death claims, too.
On the heels of concerning new lab and animal experiments suggesting that BA.2 may be capable of causing more severe disease than the Omicron strain, two new studies help show how well human immunity is defending against this strain in the real world.
The BA.2 variant has surged to account for more than a third of global Covid-19 cases sequenced recently, adding to the debate about whether countries are ready for full reopening.
Sanofi SA and GlaxoSmithKline said they would seek authorization for their Covid-19 vaccine, a sign that pharmaceutical companies still see an opportunity for new shots despite ebbing demand in the West.
Some people getting their initial shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna coronavirus vaccines should consider waiting longer for their second dose, according to updated CDC guidance.
The number of women in the U.S. who died during pregnancy or shortly after giving birth increased sharply during the first year of the pandemic, according to a new study, an increase that health officials attribute partly to Covid and related disruptions.
Los Angeles County will no longer require people to wear masks at indoor public places as long as they can show proof of vaccination, county officials said, as the number of new coronavirus cases continued to plunge.
Schools have once again become a battleground over pandemic masking, with districts facing rising public pressure to drop mandatory mask requirements even as public-health agencies largely advise keeping students and teachers in face coverings.
A Brooklyn-based physicians group is facing a class-action lawsuit accusing it of charging hundreds of dollars for coronavirus tests to New Yorkers who thought they were getting them for free.
The Siena poll found Gov. Kathy Hochul has an overwhelming lead among Democrats in the state’s gubernatorial race.
As the state Republican convention approaches, the party’s colorful primary campaign for governor began to take a more defined shape this week, and even gained a late entry: Harry Wilson.
Republican candidate for governor Lee Zeldin selected NYPD Deputy Inspector Alison Esposito as his preferred candidate for LG as he seeks to further deepen his campaign’s public safety push heading into next week’s state GOP convention.
The selection by Zeldin, a Long Island Republican, buttresses his push for a platform built on public safety and high-profile criminal justice issues, including law enforcement cutbacks and changes to the state’s bail laws.
A Republican candidate for state attorney general is under fire for aiding a brutal killer.
Hochul, promised she would bring a more collaborative approach to governing. In the six months since she was sworn in, lawmakers and stakeholders found their calls were being returned more quickly and no one was monitoring the messages.
Hochul was in Newburgh yesterday to recognize two great injustices. Two black men were lynched in Orange County in the 1800s and community leaders teamed up with the governor to expose the history.
Hochul did not rule out efforts to further curtail inflationary costs such as a suspension of the gas tax in New York, while also pointing to measures in her $216 billion budget plan she said would put more money in peoples’ pockets.
Queens Assemblyman Ron Kim wants Hochul to give groups that are targeted in hate crimes free taxi rides and walking buddies trained in martial arts, according to a letter sent yesterday.
The union that represents more than 1,000 law enforcement officers at public college and university campuses, the Department of Environmental Conservation and the state parks system, has agreed to a new contract with the Hochul administration.
Mayor Eric Adams plans to roll back the city’s coronavirus vaccine and mask mandates for indoor settings as infection rates continue to drop across New York.
“Yes. I can’t wait to get it done,” Adams said when asked whether the Big Apple plans on phasing out the program, following the lead of other big cities like Boston, Philadelphia and Washington, DC, which have recently ended their own mandates.
Andrew Kimball, who is in charge of the Brooklyn waterfront complex known as Industry City, will become the head of New York City’s Economic Development Corporation (EDC), Adams announced.
Adams once again pushed for remote workers to return to the office, saying: “You can’t stay at home in your pajamas all day. That’s not who we are as a city.”
Adams defended his decision to hire three ministers with past histories of homophobic remarks into his administration, as anger in the city’s politically powerful LGBT community continued to grow.
Top Adams adviser Frank Carone has been linked to felons in records related to a health care business.
The troubling surge in student weapons busts is an “indictment” on the state of crime in the Big Apple, Adams said.
Edward Mullins, former president of the NYPD Sergeants Benevolent Association (SBA), was charged for fraudulently using union funds for personal gain, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ).
Prosecutors said Mullins allegedly defrauded the union of hundreds of thousands of dollars by filing false and inflated expense reports for bills that were purportedly for union business but in fact were not.
In total since 2017, Mullins submitted more than $1 million in expense reports, the bulk of which was allegedly illegally obtained, feds say.
Mullins, the combative longtime leader of the SBA, quit his union job and retired from the NYPD last year amid scandal. He pleaded not guilty in Manhattan federal court and was silent as he left the courthouse in a blue-gray suit on $250,000 bond.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which had resisted calls to add platform barriers, will begin a pilot program to test them in three stations amid outcry over safety in the transit system.
The chair of the Columbia University Department of Psychiatry was suspended “effective immediately,” after referring to a dark-skinned model as possibly a “freak of nature” on Twitter.
Two prosecutors leading the Manhattan DAs investigation into ex-President Donald Trump and his business have resigned, casting doubt on the future of the yearslong criminal probe that led to the indictment of the Trump Organization last year.
Highly-regarded lawyers Carey Dunne and Mark Pomerantz bailed after their new boss, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, indicated he had doubts about proceeding with the case against Trump.
Ivanka Trump, the former president’s eldest daughter who served as one of his senior advisers, is in talks with the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol about the possibility of sitting for an interview with the panel.
The Justice Department said that it was ending a contentious Trump-era effort to fight Chinese national security threats that critics said unfairly targeted professors of Asian descent.
The Supreme Court heard arguments in a tangled dispute over whether Republican-led states may step in to defend a Trump-era immigration policy that the Biden administration has abandoned that imposed a new wealth test on applicants for green cards.
Former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin plans to seek a new trial in her defamation lawsuit against the New York Times, as well as the disqualification of the judge, after she lost her case following an unusual sequence of court proceedings.
The US cannabis industry added more than 100,000 jobs last year, and the economic lift will only continue if states like New York get recreational programs off the ground, experts say.
New York’s K-12 public schools are expected to see a substantial drop in enrollment for the second year in a row, for a total decline of 5 percent since the start of the pandemic, preliminary enrollment data posted to the state Education Department shows.
Cambridge school board members voted 3-2 to appeal an order from the state education commissioner about the district’s controversial mascot, which they were ordered to replace with non-Native American imagery.
A state judiciary watchdog panel disciplined a Family Court judge in Schenectady County who used her secretary to plan her daughter’s bat mitzvah celebration – a violation of rules that prohibit judges from using court resources for their own benefit.
Buffalo real estate developer Louis P. Ciminelli has finally begun his term as a federal inmate, more than three years after he was sentenced to prison.
The widower of Halyna Hutchins, the cinematographer killed by Alec Baldwin on the “Rust” film set in New Mexico last year, said in an upcoming television interview that he was angry with the actor for denying responsibility in the fatal shooting.
