Breakfast POTATOES with a side of TOAST

Today was an absolutely BEAUTIFUL day, so my family and I decided to walk around Central Park, near the American Museum of Natural History (prolly like, one of my favorite museums ever).  Walkin' down Columbus, we passed a farmer's market selling possibly the largest variety of everything imaginable -- the most diverse mushrooms, the weirdest looking potatoes, the most colorful carrots, etc.  Kinda weird, huh?  We're living in the "concrete jungle," but there are literally farms on the sidewalks.

ANYWAY, on the corner of 77th and Columbus is this flea market that takes place every weekend.  Just Googled it.  Apparently it's called the GreenFlea.  GreenFlea : NYC as Eastern Market : DC.

So we were just crusin' through the flea market when we came across this old guy wearing Harry Potter glasses, a bowtie, and a sweater vest.  I was intrigued.  Then I saw what he was selling.  I was super intrigued.

This guy sells vintage toasters.

Working vintage toasters.

Working vintage toasters like, from the '20s and stuff.  While I silently ogled from the front of the stand, my sister, not one to shy away from things, marched right up to the Mr. Harry Potter Glasses and demanded to know how the toasters worked.  And so he gave us a demonstration, putting the toast in, waiting till it was golden brown, then flipping it so the other side could toast, too.  "Flipping" toast to the other side in these working vintage toasters, however, comes in all forms and mechanized styles.  One toaster had a lever you pulled to the other side, which would cause the toast-holding part to detach itself from the main toaster body, flip 180 degrees, then fall back into place.  Another toaster had a lever you pulled down, which would cause the toast to take a trip down a mini-slide; when the lever was pushed back up, the bread would flip, causing the opposite side of bread to be toasted.  My favorite could toast four pieces of bread at the same time -- each piece of bread formed a "wall" of the toaster, and when a lever was pulled the four walls would fan out, flower style, and rotate to the other side.

(Disclaimer: In reality, the toasters are extremely easy to work.  My descriptions of 1930's mechanics are just super convoluted.)

We left the stall, scoped out some other stands, but somehow found ourselves back at the toaster stall.  We saw a woman chatting up Mr. Harry Potter Glasses, and she was obviously smitten.  Vintage toaster salesmen are clearly P-I-M-Ps.

And you know what, I can't say that I'm the world's biggest toast fan, or that I am a big collector of vintage kitchen appliances, but I think I'm smitten, too.

-Lida