I take my ham to heart

If you would like to know what is just so satisfying, in a way that is only fulfilling because of its simplicity, I will tell you. If you guessed ham on toast, you are correct. I would eat ham on toast every day if it wasn't for the slathering of butter I love to brush over the toast before the ham goes floating over the top.

There are, of course, a few ways of doing this. Today for example, after being out and about in this gloriously day dreaming weather, I was hoping to have a ham sandwich when I arrived home. This nearly always calls for the freshest bread.

Actually, a ham sandwich ALWAYS boasts fresh bread, but we're heading to Vancouver BC tomorrow and I didn't want to buy more bread and have it grow lonely and old while we were away. So after thinking I could get away with two day old bread, very border-line acceptable, I found that it was growing a beard on it's crust and developing a sourish odor that did not appeal to the likes of a ham sandwich.

This of course left me no choice but to toast up some English muffins that needed to be eaten anyway.

Far from the school lunch-time feeling of eating a ham sandwich, but adjustment is just another ingredient today.

When you finally decide to make a ham sandwich for your lunch or your afternoon tea break, you must remember these few important rules.

• You must only buy the simplest ham there is. Thinly sliced deli ham. If they ONLY have honey ham or black forest ham, you must back away from the counter very slowly and run to your car, never to return again. These are of course products of disgrace and will leave you with flavours other than butter and ham lingering in your mouth.

• This really does go without saying, but it must be said. PLEASE ONLY USE FRESH BREAD. PLEASE DO NOT USE BREAD THAT YOU WILL FIND IN AN AISLE OF A SUPERMARKET WITH SPECKLED SWEET BITS ON IT AND TWICE WRAPPED IN CRUNCHY PLASTIC.  IT IS CRAP.

• If you're going to eat ham, really try and find a place that will sell you the organic way of life. It truly does taste better knowing that your lunch wasn't ridiculed and full of it's own shit before it was slaughtered to become a tub of tasteless antibiotics disguised as ham.

• Just butter. Just butter. Just butter. I would instruct you to go out of your way and use butter that tastes like butter, such as any kind you will find in the Southern Hemisphere, or even a European butter. So long as it's not WHIPPED SWEET CREAMED BUTTER. But, if that's what you have than I guess that will have to do. Just butter. Don't forget. No mayo.

I guess these are the only instructions. If you are going to have ham on toast, it will be fine to use older than day old bread. That is acceptable.

Also if you are going to have ham on toast, you may find it quiet scrumptious to spread a thin layer of Coleman's Hot Mustard on after you lather on your butter. This is the kind of mustard that will block up your sinuses and leave you with watery eyes.

There is just one thing to be aware of when making ham on toast. You might discover that you have eaten all the slices of ham while you are waiting for the toast to cook. Be careful.