Question for Americans - what is the PROPER toaster ? :)

Branka-and-Silvia0
Level 10
Zagreb, Croatia

Question for Americans - what is the PROPER toaster ? :)

So we have this budget toasters in our apartments, I have one at my home, my daughter has it, my mother has it and we have the same one in our holiday home. We use it all the time for sandwiches and for toasting the bread  🙂

 

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Our American guests said we should get a PROPER toaster !

I would like to know what the hell is it? Is it something like Mercedes among toasters? Does it bake the bread, make sandwitches and bring them to you in the bed? Does it babysit too ...?  :)))

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

132 Replies 132

@Sarah977

Do you know that most accidents at home happen in the kitchen?

I think we should show our guests that we care..... and ban kitchen use all together 😄 😄

Sandra126
Level 10
Daylesford, Australia

@Huma0, in Australia pizza comes cut in the box. If it doesn't, the best way is scissors if you have no cutter (shame on you for not having one!)

Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

@Sandra126 takeaway pizza here also comes pre-cut, but guests often buy a pizza from the supermarket which doesn't. I will suggest scissors to my guest, although I've never had a problem cutting pizza with a knife. Or, seeing as she is coming back for a third visit, maybe I will buy that pizza cutter for her!

 

The guests that arrived yesterday asked for an electic juicer, which I don't have. That was a first. They also wanted paper towels (or kitchen roll, as we call it here), which is a much more common request. I don't supply these for environmental reasons. Whenever I have, guests go through an extraordinary amount. Also, I think it's more hygenic to WASH your hands or to clean spills on counters properly, not just mop them up with a bit of tissue.

 

These guests wanted them to dry their dishes. Do people actually do that? I dread to think how many paper towels they must go through at home.

 

I totally agree about the coffee capsule thing. I wish that guests bought less bottled water too. I have a filter on the kitchen tap, even though the water here is already safe to drink, but some guests still buy crate loads of small plastic bottles.

Sandra126
Level 10
Daylesford, Australia

@Huma0, No way to a juicer, the clean up job is intense. Can't believe they dry the dishes on paper towel. I do provide paper towels,  because if I don't guuests hit the paper napkins at great speed and they are more expenseve. But they also go through the kitchen linen towels so I am not sure what the paper towels are for.  People who deep fry things lie the food on them to absorb the fat, I know that is one common usage.

Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

@Sandra126 Yes I totally get why people would want to use paper towels for deep fried food. I reckon that’s the sort of thing they were originally designed for, not drying dishes! However, none of my guests deep fry food.

 

talking of linen towels (or tea towels as we call them), one of my current guests has a weird habit. Instead of using a plate, she was taking a clean tea towel from the drawer every time (2-3 times a day) and eating her food off that. She would then fold it up and put it back in the drawer. Obviously I would take it out to put in the wash every time, but I can’t sustain that and she is here for two weeks. After a couple of days, I asked her to please use a plate. Is this normal? I have never seen it before in my life!

@Huma0

I've never seen it before either, maybe it's cultural thing... where was she from?

@Branka-and-Silvia0 She’s from Argentina. I’ve only had one other guest from there a while back and she didn’t do that, although she was bat sh*t crazy in other ways (but still perfectly friendly and nice).i have hosted other guests from South and Central America and also visited Brazil and Ecuador and spent six months travelling in Mexico and Guatemala and never saw this. I know i’m Now talking about a vast area, so maybe this is just a thing in Argentina? 

@Huma0  I've never heard or seen such a thing- eating on a tea towel rather than a plate. Truly bizarre. And I know lots of Argentinians, so I don't think it's cultural, it's some personal quirk. Perhaps she's some germ phobe and thinks your dishes might not be sterile enough. 

Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

@Sarah977 No I didn’t think it was a cultural thing. I don’t think it is germ phobia either as she puts the used tea towel back in the drawer. This girl is not so domesticated. She told me she has never used a washing machine (her mother does her laundry) and I was shocked by the state she left a very clean shared shower in (every inch of glass splattered with product, big clump of hair bunched up and left in the soap dish), but she’s a very nice girl so i’m Trying to be patient!

Sandra126
Level 10
Daylesford, Australia

@Huma0, never heard of such a thing. Does she sleep IN her bed or UNDER it?

Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

@Sandra126

 

LOL, I have no idea what she does in her bedroom, which is probably for the best!

 

She is now using a plate (but putting the tea towel under it), so I will mayve suggest she tries a place mat.

Whole house rental...we offer the amenity of a full size kitchen, with many small kitchen appliances in addition to the refrigerator and range.: microwave, pop-up toaster, electric coffee maker, french press, pour over drip individual coffee cone, electric water kettle, stove top kettle, osterizer multi-cup blender, magic bullet one cup blender, electric rice cooker, electric wok, electric stock pot (hot pot), electric air popcorn maker. We also have waffle irons and a crepe pan upon request. Even have an electric sandwich maker which I never thought of putting out for guest use, but perhaps will since reading this thread. And yes, we have a pizza cutter and it gets quite a bit of use. But we keep the "Eierschalensollbruchstellenverursacher" at out own home!

 

We supply tea towels (light cotton dish towels) for drying dishes, paper napkins (serviettes) for meals, paper towels for various uses (covering items in the microwave, soaking up grease, cleaning up spills, drying hands, etc..) and sponges/dish cloths/dish brushes for washing dishes.  Most guests will use the products as intended. Once I had a guest use the wrong product for the job (they wiped up spilled coffee with a cotton dish towel)  and it took multiple washings with strong detergent to get the stain out. Much better to use a sponge or paper towel for cleaning up messes like that. We also supply white bath towels for indoor bathing use and stiped beach towels for outside use. We even have a roll of blue shop towels (thick paper towels commonly used in workshops) for cleaning really dirty things. Even make-up remover wipes to keep mascarra, rouge, facial foundation and other cosmetics off our bedlinens and white towels. A canister of disposable disinfectant wipes is also on hand for guest use.

 

If a guest suggests an item that would be reasonable to provide, we would consider doing so.

 

 

@Jim-and-Marcia0

wow, half of those appliances I don't even have at my own home where I live 🙂  and I have no place to store them either. Do you have enough time to clean all those appliances between guests?

 

Is it really necessary to have 2-3 appliances to prepare the same thing? 2 kettles + few pots to boil water... 2 blenders... 2 appliances to make a toast...? 

 

When I was young me and my husband went camping every summer for a month. Everyone in a camp usually had 1 gas bottle with 1 cooking plate + 1 small charcoal grill.

We cooked every single day for a month and all we had was 3 pots, 1 frying pan, and the Moka coffee maker. It was enough for us .... and for thousands of other campers who had the same 🙂

Those were my best holidays ever, no hot water, no electric sockets, no smartphones... but a lot of international friends and a lot of fun 🙂

 

 

@Cathie19 you just gave me a great idea!!! I also have an electric kettle for boiling water and never once thought of instant noodles. Since I am always looking for another way to show appreciation to my guests for their bookings, and since instant noodles are so inexpensive and easy to find with a broad range of flavors, I'm going to stock them for use by guests. I normally keep any boxed item left by previous guests, if they haven't been opened, so from now on instant noodles will be added. Some of the best ideas are bounced off of something someone else mentioned. LOL, maybe these will keep guests from using my frozen foods.

Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

Yes @Cathie19 that is a good idea! A lot of my Asian guests make instant noodles while they are here and it would be easy and inexpensive to stock some so I might give it a go too!