the discovery of the blessings of cheese toast

I blogged recently about discovery and how it comes from dealing well with uncertainty as opposed to moving forth from knowledge in purposeful rational inquiry. One example is the story of how Pop's cheese toast progressed to where its now the favorite request of my grand kids when they visit.

A number of years ago we were in Amsterdam keeping Doug's kids while they were on a trip to Italy. One of Pop's main duties is cooking b'fast. I knew Sloan really liked cheese toast so I wanted to make it for her one morning. My skills at cheese toast was to take slices of bread, put pre-sliced cheese on top and toast it in the oven with the broiler on.

For those of you that know me well know that mechanical things are not my forte. As usual, I could not figure out how to turn the oven on, must less the broiler (it was Amsterdam after all). I generally become frustrated when I can't figure things out but I was more mature then than most of my earlier years. I was not to be defeated. I knew how to turn the gas burners on the stove top so why now make the toast in a skillet. There was some olive oil sitting out (random) so I dabbled a bit in the skillet not knowing exactly what it would do. I had no problem toasting the bread side but how would I melt the cheese? Without any rational inquiry, I just flipped the bread over to where the cheese was face down in the skillet. I left it there for a minute and flipped it back over. BooYah, melted cheese and toasted bread - CHEESE TOAST!!

Sloan loved it, she says it was her favorite now.

When I got home, I bought a griddle. The next time the grand kids came, I spread some olive oil, some butter and sprinkled some cheese on the griddle. I then sliced some cheddar from a block and put some it on top of the bread (a multi-grain I just randomly picked up at Publix). I placed the bread side on the sizzling butter, oil and cheese and left it for a few minutes. I then flipped the bread over to singe the cheese on top. BooYah, an even better version of the cheese toast.

Now, on every visit I buy loafs of Public Multi-grain bread, pounds of cheddar cheese, a bottle of olive oil and make cheese toast for everyone - EVERY MORNING. What a way to bless my family and oh how it blesses me.

I never could have discovered this way to make cheese toast without a series of unplanned, serendipitous events. While I may have desired to make Sloan cheese toast, making a plan to do "what I know" was not the factor that led to the final outcome and its benefit in our lives, lasting memories of Pop for the kids!! Blessings flowed from a series of random events.

just saying ...