Bagels

"you guys should totally do a blog post on bagels. if it's something you think could be interesting, of course. Of course, maybe it's just me and April who're obsessed with bagels on this side of the Atlantic. Mmmm, bagels..." --Kim

Since Heather is the one person who introduces me to all things sophisticated, I did not become acquainted with the bagel till after I met her. (That means I've only known bagels for half my life. Sniff.) At any rate, it’s because of her that I am the man of culture and refinement that so many know so well today.

Bagels are hard to come by here in Spain, so whenever we visit the States, we make a point of getting at least one or two bags. One of the things I like about bageling in the States is the large variety of flavors you have to choose from. By the way, “bageling” is "the act of shopping for or buying or choosing a bagel.” It is akin to “spelunking” in that the bagel offers a never-ending array of cavernous mystery and high adventure. At any rate, I find it hard to decide which I like best:

--blueberry
--cinnamon
--garlic and onion
--plain
--honey and whole wheat

By way of proper bagel preparation, I like them…
1. toasted (which is to say, I do not enjoy them untoasted)
and
2. covered in pools of butter (which is to say, I do not enjoy cream cheese).

I also enjoy covering my bagel in either…
A. cinnamon/sugar mix
B. honey
or
C. jam.

In either case, the butter foundation must be laid, proper and thick.

Bagels are something I usually only think about every other summer when we are back in the US and I buy packages upon packages of bagels and whipped Philadelphia cream cheese. There a few random places you can get them in Madrid, but most of them leave something to be desired. So I usually just wait.

If I go to a real bagel store, I usually order a savory bagel with cream cheese and lox. That is my absolute favorite combination. If I buy them in the grocery store and take them home, I usually alternate between blueberry and onion, with appropriate cream cheeses to go with. It’s probably a good thing that they don’t sell this stuff in Spain or I might have serious addiction issues.

I remember when the bagel craze began and there was a bagel shop on every corner. All the donut shops went out of business because “everyone” said that bagels were better for you. Uh huh. Pretty sure that urban myth died a sad and lonely death. It seems like now the balance between the bagel stores and the donut stores has evened out again.

My friend Lucy and I used to go to Lotsa’ Bagel (which sadly does not exist in Colorado Springs anymore, and we still haven’t found a comparable substitute) almost every Saturday morning. Yummy!