The Toast has acquired another Nicole as part of our long-term plan to absorb every woman with that name in the next five years. Please give the warmest, Toastiest welcome you can muster to Nicole Soojung Callahan! She’s ours now, and we are hers.
Nicole Soojung Callahan grew up in Oregon, went to college in Maryland, spent six years living in the South, and now makes her home outside of Washington, DC. Her articles and essays have appeared in The Toast, Bitch, Salon, TheAtlantic.com, and other publications. She is the co-editor of the Hyphen Magazine blog, and divides her waking hours between freelance editing, grad school, and the care and feeding of young feminists.
Nicole is joining us in the capacity of assistant editor, which means she’ll be doing a lot of behind-the-scenes work managing the editorial calendar with Nicole “Original Flavor” Cliffe and working with some of our authors on editing their pieces. Her writing will also turn up from time to time, so stay sharp.
Nicole! Welcome! Where are you writing from right now?
My bedroom, the only guaranteed-child-free room in the house. I can still hear them, of course. I’m cursed with excellent hearing.
Have you tried soundproofing your rec room?
That is a solid idea. but honestly I’m not going to be soundproofing anything until they are old enough to definitely not burn the house down, you know?
You’re never too old to burn the house down. Just too old to do it accidentally.
I shouldn’t really talk actually, because of the four people in my family I am the only one to ever start a fire. A small one! Very small.
Oh, my God.
Hardly worth mentioning.
What did you do??
Okay, there were extenuating circumstances
!!
My husband and I have this bad habit of leaving things on the flat-top range that don’t go there. like wooden cutting boards.
NICOLE.
I don’t know which one of us left it there, but anyway, I had a friend over, and I was trying to be a good hostess, and so I offered to make us some tea. So I filled the kettle, put it on the usual burner, turned on the heat, and walked away, only…I turned on the WRONG BURNER.
YOU SAID YOU WERE DETAIL-ORIENTED
Anyway, it was really a teeny TINY fire, mostly smoke.
Hmm. I’m going to have to watch you suspiciously. Okay, don’t think, just answer: three favorite books?
Pride and Prejudice. A Wrinkle in Time. E.B. White’s book of essays.
Oh, you know how to work a crowd, Callahan. What piece have you written that you’re proudest of?
Not to be a kissass, but I really love the piece I wrote for The Toast about my grandma and our adventures.
GOOD ANSWER. Favorite piece you’ve ever edited?
This is much harder. Sharon Chang has written a couple of great articles for Hyphen about mixed-race Asian identity, and I love them both. I also love Akemi Johnson’s beautiful essay about the legacy of internment in her Japanese American family.
What is something that all Toastrons should know about you?
Well, apparently I’m obsessed with grandmothers. Also, I think a lot of writers get into editing in part because it’s one way to make a living with words. For me the editing itself, getting to work with writers, is its own end goal. I truly love it. Sometimes I like to edit more than I like to write. I think it’s a great privilege to be able to read and help others tell the stories that mean so much to them.
NICOLE! You are a treasure; I’m so glad we will have you on our team. Okay, last question. It’s a real softball: best thing you’ve eaten this week?
Last night I had a cheeseburger and fries and this amazing Coldstone Creamery chipwich-type thing and it was by far the best decision of my week.
COLDSTONE CREAMERY makes sandwiches?
YES
I am not a big Coldstone person. But I might reconsider, for you, and for chipwiches.
Tags: for you and for chipwiches, meta, nicole soojung callahan, the toast team, welcome
Welcome! The coven meets every waxing moon, and the DAD MAGAZINE altar is to the left as you enter the lobby,
If I change my name to Nicole can I get absorbed too? Or is it only Nicoles-by-birth? (And welcome Nicole!)
My middle name is Nicole, so now I’m wondering if I get absorbed on alternate Thursdays or something.
Oooh, I will see you on those alternate Thursdays!
Me three – my dad has a theory that so many women around my age (26) have the middle name of Nicole because the moms got to pick the first name, and dads have an inexplicable liking of the name Nicole.
I actually got to pick my name when I was Confirmed. You were supposed to have a really good and saintly reason for it, and had to write an essay about why you wanted that saint to be your patron saint. I just liked the name Nicole, though (and now that I think about it, my dad really liked the name Nicole too.)
I feel like I totally missed an excellent opportunity to select a WEIRD freakin’ middle name, though. Like, Christina Ambrosia (Ambrose is the patron saint of beekeepers, apparently), and then my initials would be C.A.T.
Damn it.
ETA: OH MY GOD Christina Drogo Tesoro, after the patron saint of coffee shop owners (and the Dothraki). Or Christina Bibiana Tesoro (after the patron saint of hangovers.)
A buddy of mine did that and picked Aloysius because it was the weirdest one he could find.
Ugh, I can’t even remember my confirmation name exactly but I think it is… Kiara. And I have no idea what the derivation or the meaning is. Because this is why you don’t let 13 year olds pick a name when the only requirement is that it is a *derivative* of a saint’s name, is why.
Hey, so, coincidentally, MY Confirmation name is actually Christine, after St. Christine the Astonishing. She could LEVITATE when she was feeling holy, or if she just wanted to avoid you, and I thought that was the shit. (She may or may not have been insane.) Like you, I chose the name mainly because I liked the sound of it. And like you, I’ve wondered if I should have seized the opportunity to choose, idk, Etheldreda.
St. Christine DOES sound really cool! Levitating away from annoying people? A useful skill.
My patron saint is just Santa Claus. But, as with most things, Buffy has improved this tale considerably:
According to Anya, “Santa Claus” was one of the names given to a demon from the sixteenth century known for operating on Christmas night, using flying reindeer, climbing down chimneys, and disemboweling children.
My Confirmation name *seems* boring (Catherine) but my asshole closeted-agnostic 13-year-old self picked St. Catherine of Alexandria because her story is almost definitely totally made up. I also enjoyed that she’s always portrayed with a book and a sword, which nicely matches my own self-image.
I picked Dymphna because it was the most bad-ass name I could find. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymphna
One of my cousins has “Nichole” as a middle name and another (same side of the family) has “Nicole” and I think their dads had something to do with it.
(It may also be more that we just really like doubling up on names in my family, because R. Nicole is being raised by our aunt, R. Nicoli, and has a half-brother with the boy’s version of her first name and a half-sister with basically the same name, one vowel sound changed. And like 75% of my mom’s family have R names, including a Roberta and a girl Robbie who are half sisters.)
YOUR DAD IS RIGHT. My mom won the right to choose my first name over a coin toss (and, you know, carrying me for nine months) and my dad picked Nicole for my middle name. (I’m 23.)
Hurrah! Nicole, do you have a preferred shorthand? (NSC? Nicole 2.0? Assistant Editor Nicole? Supreme Goddess Nicole?)
I suggested going by Nikki (which is what most friends & family call me) to avoid any potential confusion of Nicoles! And apparently I’m also answering to CALLAHAN, which I’d prefer to be in all caps.
Team CALLAHAN
u all should call her Nikki, tho
CALLAHAN! Just like Dirty Harry!
lol, I’m NOT answering to Dirty Harry
In my head I hear CALLAHAN a lot like the way that David Tennant says BARROWMAN https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivOeugFS3K8
So we’ve got Nicole Prime and Impostor Nicole, right? Are they eventually going to duke it out over rightful ownership of the name? THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE.
KILL YOUR DOUBLE
Yeah! Welcome, Nicole! Happydance for another Nicole at the Toast.
Also, editors who love to edit more than write are the best people, says a writer.
Welcome, Nicole! We are glad to have you, and we’ve all left things-we-shouldn’t on our stovetops; don’t even worry about it.
I’ve definitely ruined a few spatulas that way.
I once melted a platic spatula slightly while making an omelette, and accidentally ate the bit of plastic that had ended up in the food. It was unfortunate.
Welcome to The Toast, Nicole!
Is plastic a carb?
You know, getting an induction cooktop would help fix that problem. Leave whatever you want on there! As long as it’s not ferrous metal and too much bigger than a big spoon, the burner will never couple and will shut itself off after a minute. Just FYI.
Source: 5 months designing stoves?
I have a wooden/plastic guard for my stovetop so the cats don’t burn their feet and I almost set fire to that by putting it on and forgetting to turn the burner off.
I have a hundred percent caught a paper towel on fire on the stove before sweeping it onto the floor and SHRIEKING the name of my roommate until he came and stamped it out.
Paper products: surprisingly more flammable than you actually thought, right?
I once cooked fish and realized I had candles, but no matches or lighters. I was lazy but I really wanted that fish smell dispelled, so I had the bright idea of turning on an element and using a piece of notebook paper as a torch with which to light said candle. Did NOT work, as that baby went up in 0.5 seconds, which was precisely enough time for me to think, “What the fuck kind of idea was THIS?”
I survived my own stupidity and went out and bought a goddamn lighter.
A lighter remains the smart choice, but you can also use a stick of dry spaghetti as a looooong match. But I live dangerously; I used to light cigarettes from the stove more often than seems wise.
My grandmama (Nikki will like this story) set an entire roll of paper towels, and almost her kitchen, on fire that way. She kept the paper towels next to the stove, and it wasn’t long after Hanukah so the whole kitchen was spattered with latke grease. So when Grandmama knocked the paper towel roll over onto the lit stovetop, it was all greased up and ready to burst into flames.
Thankfully she smothered it with a couple of pot lids then called her daughter who lived next door who then got to freak out and scour Grandmama’s kitchen top to bottom and tried to ban her from ever making latkes – or frying onions for the chopped liver – ever again.
(Grandmama gave in on the latkes, but NO ONE stopped her from making the chopped liver, damnit.)
When we had a toaster oven—
You can already tell this is going to be a good one, right?
When we had a toaster oven, The Fella made me cross-eyed with annoyance by making toasted cheese in it without a tray or foil underneath, and with such mountainous quantities of cheese that it always, always dripped piles of fatty goo down onto the rack and the burner and the oven floor, where they’d sit and smolder evilly every time I used it for even a plain piece of toast.
Then one winter day I was making dinner and the whole dang thing BURST INTO FLAMES FLOOF FIRE EVERYWHERE. I shrieked, yanked out the plug (so it wouldn’t short the circuit? I don’t know) and started scrabbling for the box of baking soda (which is a good way to smother grease fires, though maybe not of this size).
From the other room, The Fella heard my cry and came in to see what had happened. He took one look, nodded calmly, put on oven mitts, grabbed the toaster oven by its sides, carried it out of the the apartment, jammed it into a snowbank, and stuffed it full of snow.
That winter, this became our go-to hypothetical solution for any troublesome thing. Iffy wifi? Overdue library book? Bad bottle of wine? Fight with a family member? Want me to throw ’em into a snowbank and stuff ’em with snow? Okay, hand me the oven mitts.
We haven’t all left things we shouldn’t on stovetops. I left my flammable object precariously perched above the stovetop. It just happened to fall onto the burner before the burner finished cooling down.
That is basically the same thing, though.
When I was approximately 10 years old, I read a Dear Abby column warning readers about the dangers of keeping your cooking spray and other oils/flammable materials above your stovetop and immediately launched a (successful!) campaign to get my parents to move ours to an adjacent shelf.
This attention to fire safety did not extend to not leaving plastic measuring cups near the burners when I got my own apartment.
My wife burned down half of her family’s kitchen at age 8 by starting a grease fire in a pan that then caught the cabinet above the stove on fire – which contained the cooking oil, of course. They still keep the oil there. We do not.
I would say your wife is my aunt except that my aunt is a beautiful independent spirit who has rejected all forms of commitment. but, she did the exact same thing when she was 8 (one of those family stories that never dies)
Was hers also in an attempt to make potato chips (or similar) from the American Girl cookbook? Because if so, someone probably could have sued American Girl or something.
This was actually a potholder. It was surprisingly flammable! I guess it was probably made of synthetic fibres, so basically plastic. Cooking oil makes sense too.
Currently I keep salt and pepper above the stovetop. But they’re in pretty solid wooden grinders, so I think they’d take a while to ignite. Plus they’re much more stable. The potholder fell down regularly, so in hindsight it was probably doomed to burn eventually.
It turns out oven mitts left on stovetops will burn for a surprisingly long time, even after you fling them into the deep snow on your balcony. Like, it was smoldering an hour later.
also oven mitts left inside the oven spontaneously burst into the flames in the same amount of time biscuits take to burn to a crisp. They continue to smoulder and smoke in your balcony even after being doused in a few litres of water and burn holes in your lazy hoody with residual heat.
I’ve done the wrong-burner thing. I exploded a glass cake pan, started a fire, and ruined all the food that my RA roommate had prepared for a function a hour before it started. So welcome, Nicole, you are truly among Your Kind!
Yeah I’ve definitely done it and ruined a really nice baking sheet, too.
Also what’s even the point of being fire safe when linseed oil and eucalyptus trees can SPONTANEOUSLY COMBUST?
Everything in Australia can will kill you, up to and including the trees.
Um, holding up my hand to report a melted oven-top handbag.
(Welcome, Nicole! Congrats!)
Details please.
I arrived home with heavy grocery bags. Went in the kitchen and suddenly a stray cat leaped through the window. Hurriedly put both the shopping and my handbag on the oven top, and knocked one of the electric burner switches without realising it.
Spent several minutes luring a people-hating cat out from underneath my bed, and came back to a melted handbag. It was plastic-pretending-to-be-leather. Like a scene from a farce, isn’t it?
I tell ye what, you haven’t lived until you’ve tried to scrub a handbag off your landlady’s oven top in order to save your deposit 🙂
WHAT???
Did you know a cast iron pan can go all white hot and ashy if you leave it empty on a flaming stove of the house you’re housesitting whilst you watch TV, pet the diabetic cat and wonder where that intense barbecue smell is coming from?
Welcome, Nicole! Other Nicole. Secondary Host Nicole. Nicole2.
Hooray! Welcome! As a Nicole myself, I am preparing my body to be tractor-beamed up into the Mothership.
Same!
Thinking of changing my name
I’m so excited about this- I LOVED that piece on your grandmother. Hurrahs to Classic Nicole and Mallory on an excellent hire!
Thank you! You know, I wrote that one because my grandma told me to. I don’t think she’ll be happy until I write a whole book about her.
Nicole and I are already Twitter friends. I already know of her awesomeness. (Feeling just a tiny bit smug about that now.Like I knew all along subliminally that she was the Chosen One) Welcome Nicole 2.0!
Obsessed with grandmothers! Love it. Welcome Nicole! (Also, if it makes you feel any better, I more than once burned the bottom off my dad’s kettle growing up, because for some godforsaken reason he kept acquiring kettles that didn’t whistle, so I’d put them on for tea and then go downstairs and forget about them.)
Welcome Nicole! Hah, it can’t even be Nicole C. It’s a Toast Conspiracy to make it as difficult to differentiate you as possible. CALLAHAN!
Welcome, Nikki!
I’m another usually competent and detail-oriented person who once caused an accidental fire in a kitchen. Mine was when I was a kid and I was told to steam some vegetables on the stove. I didn’t realize that the water in the veggies themselves wasn’t enough to steam them, so I just put the steamer basket and the veggies in a pot and turned the stove to high. A noxious cloud of fumes emerged, and now I will never forget to put water in again. :/
Congrats, Nicole!
Welcome! Huzzah!
Ahhhh welcome! We are so excited to have you!
HI NIKKI!
I once set our kitchen on fire via flames transferring from the microwave to the wallpaper. It happens to the best of us.
That’s a thing that can happen??
It is when flames take a mind to shoot out the back of the microwave. Don’t put metal in there no matter what self-made scientific experiment calls for it.
Yay CALLAHAN! I love Hyphen Magazine, it was a beacon in the dark when I was first looking for Asian American writing on the Internet.
I love that you accidentally started a fire because you were trying to make tea for someone. Priorities, you have them 😀
Thanks, Sulagna!
I feel the need to assure everyone that I can also start fires on PURPOSE. I am a GIRL SCOUT LEADER. If we ever organize that Toast camping trip I’m the gal you want building your one-match fire.
Welcome! I’m also a writer who’s really interested in making a career out of editing for its own sake, rather than to just survive. Is there anything you recommend for jumping into that boat? Feel free just to link me a helpful article, if you know of one that has all the good advice.
haha, I am THE LAST person in the world who should be offering career advice, seriously, but I’d love to chat about this if you want. Email me? ncallahan at gmail!
Oh, you’re the best! And seriously, with all your other credentials AND arriving to edit the Toast, you must be doing something right. 🙂
Hi Nicole! So excited you’re joining The Toast!
CALLAHAN. ACCEPT YOUR RIGHTFUL PLACE AS OUR NEW CO-OVERLORD ON THE DOUBLE.
Hello and welcome!! Anyone that likes Chipwiches is a friend to me.
Also, did you guys know that the branded Chipwich does not exist anymore?? Apparently Nestle bought it and abandoned it in favor of their own bullshit chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich and I am not okay with that.
My childhood bestie’s dad was a candy broker for Nestle and I grew up eating those little sample candy bars like graham crackers, so I have a bit of a soft spot where the company is concerned–but what the hell, Nestle, how could you get rid of the Chipwich?? Nothing gold can stay.
CALLAHAN is reminding me of SWINTON, so I heartily approve.
Welcome!
There can never be too many Nicoles. Welcome!
In college, I did elder care and my employers had a flat-top range; during my 2 years working for them, I melted AT LEAST one cutting board so badly that it bonded to the surface.
(This is my way of saying welcome, Nikki!)
omg a plastic one?
so you know I’ve been laughing at this all day.
I second this sentiment
YOU SAID YOU WERE DETAIL-ORIENTED
LOOK a person can’t be oriented toward ALL the details ALL the time, you know?
Anyway, welcome Nicole!
Congrats, Nicole!
Hello Nicole! I will secretly think of you as Pyromaniac Nicole.
Nooooo, treat all burners as on, always. This is the only safe way for those of us who are spatially-challenged and turn on the wrong burner.
Similarly = only store things in the oven that can safely survive a pre-heating, like cast-iron pans.
I learned this the hard way so that you don’t have to.
BUT ANYWAY, welcome to you, New Nicole.
Our new stove’s burner knobs are the opposite of our old stove’s knobs—the back burner is now the inside knob, not the outside, or maybe it’s the other way ’round—and every single time I turn on a burner, I have to double-check. If I’m cooking a meal that uses more than one burner at a time, I will turn the wrong one up or down at least once. It’s amazing I haven’t burned a dinner yet or set an empty pot on fire.
Welcome to the newest Nicole!
NICOLE I loved your My Grandmother, The Time Traveller. I am super excited that you are the newest Nicole at The Toast. My father almost burnt the house down once trying to make home made glue out of donkey’s feet. The house smelt of dead donkey for like the whole of the rest of the summer. Basically what I’m saying is that at least your fire related accident involved a chopping board, which is a normal thing to have in the kitchen; you are still a responsible person.
My father almost burnt the house down once trying to make home made glue out of donkey’s feet.
There sure is a lot going on in this sentence. Holy cow. (Holy donkey? No.)
L, I loved YOUR essay. I remember it ran the same week as mine and it was an incredible piece that just broke my heart. Thank you for the kind welcome and the affirmation, too. I AM a responsible person, dammit! And I have inspired an entire comments section that is 90% devoted to the sharing of stories about accidental fire-setting, and I feel good about that, too, because clearly it was an untapped well.
Oh my gosh Nikki I’m ridiculously flattered that you liked my piece, thank you! Also I am overwhelmed with your love of A Stitch In Time, I read that book about 47 times when I was 8. You are DEFINITELY RESPONSIBLE
This story made me emit a loud, delighted ‘Hahaha!’ so that my cat and the Handsome Sidekick just looked sideways at me.
Yay!
Also, now I can’t hear/see Coldstone Creamery without thinking of Ras Trent, so there’s that.
Who hasn’t set a small selfcontained-ish fire?
Also, welcome!
1. Welcome!
2. Does this mean DC Toastie meet ups will come with an editrix now? 😛
1. Thank you so much!
2. We will make it happen.
YOU GUYS. I am completely overwhelmed by the sheer wonderfulness of all your comments! I want to go through and respond to each one, but until I get the chance, THANK YOU ALL for your lovely words. Let’s have tea. At your house.
Congratulations, Nicole! Welcome!
EXCELLENT! Congratulations to Nikki-Nicole—and to The Toast for landing her as assistant editor! Callahan*, if you can keep children from burning down a house despite your shining example, you can surely keep us in line.
*I am an affectionate last-namer myself: I call myself by my last name when I’m in need of encouragement and call my husband by his last name… well, pretty much always.
Congrats and welcome!
Welcome! And listen, who here hasn’t almost burned down a house? I mean really.
I heard somebody on The Twitters mentioning they didn’t get this gig, then realized a decision must have been made, then made a squeaky noise of anticipatory glee. And here you are! Welcome, Nikki, and enjoy the ride. My goal for this week is to find a Chipwich, so I can toast you. Failing that I’m going for an It’s-It, just so you’re forewarned.
I received the collected essays of E.B. White as a gift, and it was one of the best gifts I’ve ever received. A+.
Congrats and welcome!
I love it so much. I mean, the New York essays are fine and good, yay, but then he starts writing about his FARM and I’m like TELL ME MORE ABOUT THE MATING HABITS OF GEESE AND THE SUPERIORITY OF BROWN EGGS.
OH MAN YES. Also all the dachshund stuff.
I have a fat book of E.B. White’s letters, and it inspired me to be a truly irritating e-mail correspondent. Go ahead! Tell a single person your feelings and anecdotes! That way, you can talk about them more than once!
Congrats and welcome Nicole! Looking forward to enjoying the work of the expanded Toast team. 🙂
The toast is incredibly lucky to have you!
Oh, wow, Nicole — we actually went to school together though I don’t think we ever met. We were livejournal (I KNOW, I KNOW) friends for awhile, when that was a thing? I’m not going to say anymore for fear of doxxing myself, but, wow, cool, welcome!
also I have set so many goddamn things on fire, I can’t even.
oh, how I miss the heydey of Livejournal. It was the perfect place to write long, friends-locked secrets.
I’m dying to know how we went to school (college?) together and never met at a small school like ours. Email me if you want to catch up off of Livejournal.
YAY! Welcome, Nikki!
Oh daaaaaaaaaaaaaang I am automatically in love with anyone who includes E.B. White’s collected essays on a list of fav books.
Also I once set a fondue pot on fire which is so special, since they are designed to reside over a flame.
how????
I have no idea! My only guess is that the “ceramic” fondue pot my boyfriend bought me was actually not ceramic. Either that or I’ve got some kind of unexplored mutant power.
omg.
1. Thank you so much!
2. We will make it happen.
L, I loved YOUR essay. I remember it ran the same week as mine and it was an incredible piece that just broke my heart. Thank you for the kind welcome and the affirmation, too. I AM a responsible person, dammit! And I have inspired an entire comments section that is 90% devoted to the sharing of stories about accidental fire-setting, and I feel good about that, too, because clearly it was an untapped well.
I love it so much. I mean, the New York essays are fine and good, yay, but then he starts writing about his FARM and I'm like TELL ME MORE ABOUT THE MATING HABITS OF GEESE AND THE SUPERIORITY OF BROWN EGGS.
Congratulations and welcome, Nicole!
Thanks, Sulagna!
I feel the need to assure everyone that I can also start fires on PURPOSE. I am a GIRL SCOUT LEADER. If we ever organize that Toast camping trip I'm the gal you want building your one-match fire.
excellent!
excellent!
Aw. I like you already 🙂
Woop welcome! Looking forward to ever greater Toastery!
lol, I'm NOT answering to Dirty Harry
Congratulations and welcome, Nicole!
Thank you! You know, I wrote that one because my grandma told me to. I don't think she'll be happy until I write a whole book about her.
Nicole(s), as a young person, I once tried to dry a wet tea towel by laying it over the flat top of the woodburning stove, whence it immediately caught fire.
As an expert on Dumb Stove Fires, I have to say that is a particularly good one! Welcome, Nicole!
Congrats Nicole, so excited to see more of your work for The Toast! 😀