When I was a kid I used to read at Church -- easy job except when you gotta list the sick or dead people's names and you are at a Polish American parish. Pronouncing Obwarzanek is one of those examples. I would guess there is a bagel shop somewhere in the five boroughs offering "authentic" obwarzanek -- based on your past intrepid reporting someone is likely dipping them in Marinara.
I'm pretty sure we get good steak in New Zealand. At least it's from proper cows who wandered around fields eating ryegrass and clover. Steak should be lean and rare as far as I'm concerned. Marbling is gross, fat is something to be cut off (although when my grandfather was alive, we all gave ours to him and he ate the lot).
I doubt I've ever had a proper bagel though. Despite my name I've experienced little of Polish Jewish culture. I hope that one day I'll experience New York.
Thanks for reading and commenting Melanie. We are all at different locations in spacetime. The best thing about travel to me is our modern world and technology have inserted the smallest bits of familiarity while preserving what defines a place. I like to think that a New Zealander will feel a small bit of home even in New York and vice versa. Your grandfather still exists in concept everywhere. To chew the fat is still an expression )
I am a foodie. This is despite the limitations I impose nowadays. Local food practices (like NYC bagels are FUN to explore). I think the two glaring examples of distinctly American food habits are the exploration of BBQ and its regionalism and Cajun cooking in and around southern Louisiana, a strange concoction of three or four distinct cultures and local ingredients fused together.
I am no expert on bagels but the linked article in the post and the uber-walking couple that examined at least 200 options in NYC on daily 26+ mile walks is the greatest of stories. Finally, I bet in the large cities of New Zealand, someone has captured the magic of an old-world bagel. Perhaps a roadtrip or exploration is in order.
I'm sure there's an artisan bakery making good bagels somewhere. More likely in Auckland than Wellington, perhaps when I'm there over Christmas I can investigate.
What a great post! Anything to do with bagels instantly captures my attention. I also enjoyed the link to Café Anne's story about the couple walking marathon distances to sample bagels, as well as your delightful cookie tale. (By the way, did you include recipes in that one? If so, I must've missed it.) I would have liked to take a lesson from your mother on turning out uniform baked goods--or from you on precise measurements! I never manage to make anything exactly the same, even when I try.
My husband grew up in Manhattan, and we've had some mighty fine bagels on our visits to NYC, especially at a place called Tal Bagels. But there really are some excellent bagel places in L.A., including one right in our neighborhood and another, Courage Bagels, that has gotten raves--even from New York Times critics. Of course bagels are best eaten fresh out of the oven, but we always buy extra, then slice and freeze them to toast later--and I think they're still pretty great. I've also made bagels myself. After reading this piece, I'm ready to make another batch--or taste-test a few in New York! BTW, we also ate seeded rye bread and challah at our house when we were growing up! My immigrant parents were pretty finicky about their bread.
There are comments and then there are COMMENTS. Thanks so much, Ruth! I belong to a creative writing group but we mostly talk about what we've been reading. We have our meeting tomorrow and I am making the cookies to pass. Most of the rest will go to our children. For me, baking is like chemistry and I love chemistry. When I make cookies I scoop the dough with a 1 1/2 Tablespoon metal spoon so it won't bend. I will send you a photo and the recipe. I started from a standard recipe and have changed it up through the years. I'm not sure it matters but I feel some satisfaction when they all look the same. There are pros and cons about being meticulous. Mom was meticulous. Us boys look back on the absurdity that Mom used to iron our undershirts!
Lucky you to have bagels in at least the North American Mecca for bagels :) There is a link in the bagel story I linked with the crazy walkers. The guy constructed a meticulous spreadsheet comparing 200 bagel places. Everything but bar charts and trendlines. I agree about fresh bagels but also agree that most anything can be frozen and that leads to no regrets or waste as long as you get the air out I suppose. You are amazing if you've made your own bagels. We used to host a Superbowl Party each year and one year, at halftime I made FRESH pretzels. The dough and technique is very similar to bagels. You boil them in water (with baking soda in the water) and they get very airy and just bake them. I would not make them again but it was fun to try.
I concluded that bread was almost akin to religion to my parents. Mom frowned upon bad bread. Ever since this posted, I have been thinking about Al Cohen rye bread. My wife always thought good sourdough and hearty rye makes the best toast!!!
You bake like my husband! He wants every cookie to be exactly the same size, but oh they are GOOD! In this house, he makes the desserts, I make the bread - cookies and cake require too much precision, and I usually goof up on something because I'm not very precise. But my bread usually turns out pretty good. 😊🍞
Wow, Mark, if you send the recipe, I will definitely make your cookies! I might even mention it in an upcoming post if that's okay with you. I love hearing about your mom. That's pretty amazing that she ironed your undershirts and passed on her meticulous standards to you. I also sometimes like to create uniform cookies using a scoop. I'm not quite sure of the size in terms of tablespoons, but it may be about the same as your metal spoon. The precision of baking is part of what I also like about it. It's strangely calming.
I'm going to check out the spreadsheet of 200 bagel places. I really can't imagine doing anything like that, but I guess with all that walking, the couple could definitely handle the calories! I think you're pretty amazing for making pretzels. They really are a lot like bagels in terms of ingredients and floating in a water bath. If you can make pretzels, you could also make bagels.
I can understand how bread obsession could be akin to a religious devotion. When I was attempting to make the perfect sourdough rye, it became almost like that for me, but I never did discover the holy grail of rye-bread perfection, though I did make some pretty good loaves. I put aside the pursuit and haven't really tried again.
I will send for sure. Since you live in CA, we always thought SLO Bakery made a wonderful sourdough and fun variations. It's a nice stop between SoCal & the Bay
Great piece. I love when you invoke your knowledge of history especially when it involves food. I continue to live vicariously thru bagel eaters. Having lived in NYC for 7 years H and H bagels was the best bagel maker anywhere. This was the 1980s and because I have been out of the bagel loop I have no idea who tops the list these days.
Thanks so much CK! I eat bagels RARELY and always pay a price when I do. Usually 1/2. I enjoy history and see a lot of things through the lens of immigration to the US. We are unique. We struggle with each new immigrant group. They subtly change us and we change them. There is a business in Buffalo, NY. It is a tribute to people not always understanding I suppose. Your average Buffalonian still enjoys the most wonderful of sour rye bread made by the Al Cohen Bread Company. They run a national frozen dough business now. The locals might not even associate it as Jewish rye! The Cohen's came to Buffalo from Poland and have been baking since the 1880s from a family recipe. Until they ended up in most grocery stores, they were associated with Polish bakeries. The truth is the Cohen's brought their Jewish heritage and Polish traditions to WNY.
No but that sounds like it was QUITE a class! Tell me more about the "History of Bread"!!! I grew up eating Al Cohen's rye bread and it is regional cult favorite in Buffalo. It is a sour rye with caraway seeds. It is excellent. There is an immigrant community on the East Side of Buffalo called the Broadway Market. Cohen's is located there. I have written about the Broadway Market before. When I was a kid if you went there they were slaughtering the goose in front of you at the market!!! That neighborhood is the Nexus of immigration in Buffalo. It has been home to every ethnicity at one time or another.
CK : Thanks so much for engaging -- I love thinking about food and connections -- I don't know the specifics of the Cohen's. Buffalo is an unusual town. It has suffered and declined in a lot of ways. I wrote a post long ago about the food. There are occasionally stories about it but Buffalo is a place with very low numbers of national chains. The pizza is quite local and unique for example. In the post I mention there are about 600 pizzerias in the area and probably about 25 of them are national chains. The chains are mostly surrounding the University of Buffalo so out of towners can be comfortable :)
I'm not the food police! 👮♂️ Mark, great article and I read your link to the NYC couple. That article proves there is a romantic match out there for everyone. Those 2 were made for each other. Can you imagine a dating app : looking for someone who wants to walk 20+ miles a day ...
If you do not read CAFE ANNE, take a look. It is a bit of a NYC love letter by a professional journalist who uncovers the hidden NYC every week. If I reduce my Substack reads downward from my about 20 to 5, that one will survive the cut.
Haha good one. By the same reasoning you should only get a great steak in places like Omaha.
The modern supply chain is crazy! Starbuck's has proven if you are willing to pay enough, okay with over-roasting and most importantly wanna be seen, dark arts like coffee can be managed anywhere. People will even overpay for breakfast sandwiches cooked at 2AM, transported by truck and wrapped in Saran wrap as "the best breakfast sandwich". For me, what makes the bagels and pizza of NYC so great is the preparation style. Making bagels elsewhere people take shortcuts and probably don't boil them first. The Twin Cities have a modest Jewish-American population. Their locations don't take the shortcuts and the bagels are excellent. The bonus is the service will be polite and relaxed.
I'v written about corn a bit as a NY ex-pat. I have a son who studied economics and works for a company that crushes corn into ethanol. I'm a late life whole food plant based eater. My favorite statistic is 75% of the SKUs in a grocery store contain corn or soybeans or both. They are the modern soylent green.
The main cause for the decline in quality of much NYC pizza is the lowering of oven temperatures on gas pizza ovens. Saves money, hurts the pizza. Oh well.
Interesting. Yours is my FAVORITE for "insight of the post" honors. All of my favorite pizzas in town are either wood-fired or coal-fired at high temperature. MUCH higher temperatures than gas. For the Twin City locals this means Pizza Luce, Pizza Lola, Punch Pizza & Black Sheep (coal-fired ovens)
I am a fan also of the hot oven! This is just another example of the mindless "A makes the best of something because of their location and shouting". The quality of product and preparation technique is the key!" Punch Pizza here in town is a great individual pizza chain. Make the pizza in front of you and bake it for about 2 minutes in a 900F oven. Always perfect.
blissfully unaware is an expression I remember from years ago. The variation I truly love from an old work colleague I profiled once was "He/She is as happy as if he/she had good sense. Bliss is the most beautiful of words I think. I am going to enter it into the Google ngram. I hope it's use is increasing but I fear not. It appears bliss is in decline :( https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=a%20bliss&year_start=1000&year_end=2200&corpus=15&smoothing=3
My first wife was from NYC and introduced me to real NY bagels. Two important things I learned from her- you never reheat a bagel in the microwave ( makes it tough) and you can wet a bagel briefly with water under faucet, shake off excess water and then put it straight in the toaster oven so it doesn't dry out when reheating. Since you didn't ask , My favorite is a sesame bagel and number 2 is an onion bagel. I always slice mine in half, and when possible put cream cheese on it ....Next time do a survey on favorite bagel flavors and you will get over 1.2k responses!
Bagels are a once in a blue moon thing for me. The leftovers can be frozen I think but they are never like they are when fresh. Like the wet and into toaster oven! I should have consulted you bagel flavors would have engaged the crowd! I am hoping someone will write "my spouse is from Poland" that's how I learned about bagels :) I like everything's and sesame's.
The great American melting pot is what yields all this WONDERFUL knowledge. When I was a kid, I thought hummus (humus) was what you used as a top layer for growing in the garden to retain water. It is the latest Meditteranean and Middle East diaspora that has found a home here that introduced even the rubes in corn country to hummus and tahini and sesame seeds.
I grew up in a tiny Massachusetts town, and didn't meet bagels until I went away to college - I discovered them at a little privately owned place imaginatively named "The Bagel Deli" and it was love at first bite! Alas, now I live in a tiny New Hampshire town - a beautiful, wonderful place, but no bagels in sight... Darn it, your story has reawoken my bagel love! Maybe it's time to dig out a recipe... 😊
I'm not qualified to vote on the best steak because I don't eat the stuff, so I picked "Something Else." 🐂
Thanks Jeannine. I like writing about food also and I'm glad it is fun for you.I eat bagels VERY RARELY and only eat a half and save the rest for later. For a Superbowl party I made large hot pretzels a number of years ago. Pretzels and bagels are very similar in their prep. They also are real good when right out fo the oven but they go downhill quick. I've never tried to make bagels but I think they are conceptually the same. I should have asked in the poll for bagel flavors per Paul Phaneuf in the comments!
When the kids were young, we might grab a dozen bagels on a Sunday. I always had to have the onion and everything's segregated in a separate bags. I think, from Cafe Anne, I learned blueberry bagels are #1 -- this is despite my lack of support. When I made homemade pretzels, dipping them in everything mix instead of just salt was an improvement.
Thanks for the shoutout and kind words Mark! I had no idea I'd written so much about bagels, but I suppose it really does come with the territory.
Now I want to try an obwarzanek!
When I was a kid I used to read at Church -- easy job except when you gotta list the sick or dead people's names and you are at a Polish American parish. Pronouncing Obwarzanek is one of those examples. I would guess there is a bagel shop somewhere in the five boroughs offering "authentic" obwarzanek -- based on your past intrepid reporting someone is likely dipping them in Marinara.
Hope you had a great time on page 46.
I'm going to ask our friend Sam Silverman about obwarzanek in NYC for sure. HE will know!
Sorry for the delayed reply.
I'm pretty sure we get good steak in New Zealand. At least it's from proper cows who wandered around fields eating ryegrass and clover. Steak should be lean and rare as far as I'm concerned. Marbling is gross, fat is something to be cut off (although when my grandfather was alive, we all gave ours to him and he ate the lot).
I doubt I've ever had a proper bagel though. Despite my name I've experienced little of Polish Jewish culture. I hope that one day I'll experience New York.
Thanks for reading and commenting Melanie. We are all at different locations in spacetime. The best thing about travel to me is our modern world and technology have inserted the smallest bits of familiarity while preserving what defines a place. I like to think that a New Zealander will feel a small bit of home even in New York and vice versa. Your grandfather still exists in concept everywhere. To chew the fat is still an expression )
I am a foodie. This is despite the limitations I impose nowadays. Local food practices (like NYC bagels are FUN to explore). I think the two glaring examples of distinctly American food habits are the exploration of BBQ and its regionalism and Cajun cooking in and around southern Louisiana, a strange concoction of three or four distinct cultures and local ingredients fused together.
I am no expert on bagels but the linked article in the post and the uber-walking couple that examined at least 200 options in NYC on daily 26+ mile walks is the greatest of stories. Finally, I bet in the large cities of New Zealand, someone has captured the magic of an old-world bagel. Perhaps a roadtrip or exploration is in order.
I'm sure there's an artisan bakery making good bagels somewhere. More likely in Auckland than Wellington, perhaps when I'm there over Christmas I can investigate.
What a great post! Anything to do with bagels instantly captures my attention. I also enjoyed the link to Café Anne's story about the couple walking marathon distances to sample bagels, as well as your delightful cookie tale. (By the way, did you include recipes in that one? If so, I must've missed it.) I would have liked to take a lesson from your mother on turning out uniform baked goods--or from you on precise measurements! I never manage to make anything exactly the same, even when I try.
My husband grew up in Manhattan, and we've had some mighty fine bagels on our visits to NYC, especially at a place called Tal Bagels. But there really are some excellent bagel places in L.A., including one right in our neighborhood and another, Courage Bagels, that has gotten raves--even from New York Times critics. Of course bagels are best eaten fresh out of the oven, but we always buy extra, then slice and freeze them to toast later--and I think they're still pretty great. I've also made bagels myself. After reading this piece, I'm ready to make another batch--or taste-test a few in New York! BTW, we also ate seeded rye bread and challah at our house when we were growing up! My immigrant parents were pretty finicky about their bread.
There are comments and then there are COMMENTS. Thanks so much, Ruth! I belong to a creative writing group but we mostly talk about what we've been reading. We have our meeting tomorrow and I am making the cookies to pass. Most of the rest will go to our children. For me, baking is like chemistry and I love chemistry. When I make cookies I scoop the dough with a 1 1/2 Tablespoon metal spoon so it won't bend. I will send you a photo and the recipe. I started from a standard recipe and have changed it up through the years. I'm not sure it matters but I feel some satisfaction when they all look the same. There are pros and cons about being meticulous. Mom was meticulous. Us boys look back on the absurdity that Mom used to iron our undershirts!
Lucky you to have bagels in at least the North American Mecca for bagels :) There is a link in the bagel story I linked with the crazy walkers. The guy constructed a meticulous spreadsheet comparing 200 bagel places. Everything but bar charts and trendlines. I agree about fresh bagels but also agree that most anything can be frozen and that leads to no regrets or waste as long as you get the air out I suppose. You are amazing if you've made your own bagels. We used to host a Superbowl Party each year and one year, at halftime I made FRESH pretzels. The dough and technique is very similar to bagels. You boil them in water (with baking soda in the water) and they get very airy and just bake them. I would not make them again but it was fun to try.
I concluded that bread was almost akin to religion to my parents. Mom frowned upon bad bread. Ever since this posted, I have been thinking about Al Cohen rye bread. My wife always thought good sourdough and hearty rye makes the best toast!!!
You bake like my husband! He wants every cookie to be exactly the same size, but oh they are GOOD! In this house, he makes the desserts, I make the bread - cookies and cake require too much precision, and I usually goof up on something because I'm not very precise. But my bread usually turns out pretty good. 😊🍞
Life would be boring and difficult if we didn't complement each othet
Amen to that! 😊
Wow, Mark, if you send the recipe, I will definitely make your cookies! I might even mention it in an upcoming post if that's okay with you. I love hearing about your mom. That's pretty amazing that she ironed your undershirts and passed on her meticulous standards to you. I also sometimes like to create uniform cookies using a scoop. I'm not quite sure of the size in terms of tablespoons, but it may be about the same as your metal spoon. The precision of baking is part of what I also like about it. It's strangely calming.
I'm going to check out the spreadsheet of 200 bagel places. I really can't imagine doing anything like that, but I guess with all that walking, the couple could definitely handle the calories! I think you're pretty amazing for making pretzels. They really are a lot like bagels in terms of ingredients and floating in a water bath. If you can make pretzels, you could also make bagels.
I can understand how bread obsession could be akin to a religious devotion. When I was attempting to make the perfect sourdough rye, it became almost like that for me, but I never did discover the holy grail of rye-bread perfection, though I did make some pretty good loaves. I put aside the pursuit and haven't really tried again.
I will send for sure. Since you live in CA, we always thought SLO Bakery made a wonderful sourdough and fun variations. It's a nice stop between SoCal & the Bay
Thanks! Love SLO. Will definitely check it out.
We loved it there!
Great piece. I love when you invoke your knowledge of history especially when it involves food. I continue to live vicariously thru bagel eaters. Having lived in NYC for 7 years H and H bagels was the best bagel maker anywhere. This was the 1980s and because I have been out of the bagel loop I have no idea who tops the list these days.
The linked story in the post about bagel walkers was delightful. I am sure the crazy couple must have evaluated H & H.
Thanks so much CK! I eat bagels RARELY and always pay a price when I do. Usually 1/2. I enjoy history and see a lot of things through the lens of immigration to the US. We are unique. We struggle with each new immigrant group. They subtly change us and we change them. There is a business in Buffalo, NY. It is a tribute to people not always understanding I suppose. Your average Buffalonian still enjoys the most wonderful of sour rye bread made by the Al Cohen Bread Company. They run a national frozen dough business now. The locals might not even associate it as Jewish rye! The Cohen's came to Buffalo from Poland and have been baking since the 1880s from a family recipe. Until they ended up in most grocery stores, they were associated with Polish bakeries. The truth is the Cohen's brought their Jewish heritage and Polish traditions to WNY.
Did you take a History of Bread class? How did you learn about the Cohens?
No but that sounds like it was QUITE a class! Tell me more about the "History of Bread"!!! I grew up eating Al Cohen's rye bread and it is regional cult favorite in Buffalo. It is a sour rye with caraway seeds. It is excellent. There is an immigrant community on the East Side of Buffalo called the Broadway Market. Cohen's is located there. I have written about the Broadway Market before. When I was a kid if you went there they were slaughtering the goose in front of you at the market!!! That neighborhood is the Nexus of immigration in Buffalo. It has been home to every ethnicity at one time or another.
Has it kept its families?
CK : Thanks so much for engaging -- I love thinking about food and connections -- I don't know the specifics of the Cohen's. Buffalo is an unusual town. It has suffered and declined in a lot of ways. I wrote a post long ago about the food. There are occasionally stories about it but Buffalo is a place with very low numbers of national chains. The pizza is quite local and unique for example. In the post I mention there are about 600 pizzerias in the area and probably about 25 of them are national chains. The chains are mostly surrounding the University of Buffalo so out of towners can be comfortable :)
I wrote it early on so almost no readers. It was fun to write though. https://markdolan.substack.com/food-dreams
I'm not the food police! 👮♂️ Mark, great article and I read your link to the NYC couple. That article proves there is a romantic match out there for everyone. Those 2 were made for each other. Can you imagine a dating app : looking for someone who wants to walk 20+ miles a day ...
Anne does the MOST WONDERFUL profiles. This is an oldie about a priest who colors outside the lines. https://annekadet.substack.com/p/mike2
If you do not read CAFE ANNE, take a look. It is a bit of a NYC love letter by a professional journalist who uncovers the hidden NYC every week. If I reduce my Substack reads downward from my about 20 to 5, that one will survive the cut.
I was taught that one should not eat bagels or pizza in a corn state.
Haha good one. By the same reasoning you should only get a great steak in places like Omaha.
The modern supply chain is crazy! Starbuck's has proven if you are willing to pay enough, okay with over-roasting and most importantly wanna be seen, dark arts like coffee can be managed anywhere. People will even overpay for breakfast sandwiches cooked at 2AM, transported by truck and wrapped in Saran wrap as "the best breakfast sandwich". For me, what makes the bagels and pizza of NYC so great is the preparation style. Making bagels elsewhere people take shortcuts and probably don't boil them first. The Twin Cities have a modest Jewish-American population. Their locations don't take the shortcuts and the bagels are excellent. The bonus is the service will be polite and relaxed.
I'v written about corn a bit as a NY ex-pat. I have a son who studied economics and works for a company that crushes corn into ethanol. I'm a late life whole food plant based eater. My favorite statistic is 75% of the SKUs in a grocery store contain corn or soybeans or both. They are the modern soylent green.
The main cause for the decline in quality of much NYC pizza is the lowering of oven temperatures on gas pizza ovens. Saves money, hurts the pizza. Oh well.
Interesting. Yours is my FAVORITE for "insight of the post" honors. All of my favorite pizzas in town are either wood-fired or coal-fired at high temperature. MUCH higher temperatures than gas. For the Twin City locals this means Pizza Luce, Pizza Lola, Punch Pizza & Black Sheep (coal-fired ovens)
Yes, I’m a 900+ degree man myself.
I am a fan also of the hot oven! This is just another example of the mindless "A makes the best of something because of their location and shouting". The quality of product and preparation technique is the key!" Punch Pizza here in town is a great individual pizza chain. Make the pizza in front of you and bake it for about 2 minutes in a 900F oven. Always perfect.
One thing I learned making wood-fired pizza: you’ve gotta pay attention. The difference between a perfect pizza and a mess of ashes is 5-10 seconds.
How about if you're in a blissful state?
Blissful state comes immediately after a good bagel.
Soon to be followed by a high blood glucose alarm :( -- gotta stop at 1/2
blissfully unaware is an expression I remember from years ago. The variation I truly love from an old work colleague I profiled once was "He/She is as happy as if he/she had good sense. Bliss is the most beautiful of words I think. I am going to enter it into the Google ngram. I hope it's use is increasing but I fear not. It appears bliss is in decline :( https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=a%20bliss&year_start=1000&year_end=2200&corpus=15&smoothing=3
My first wife was from NYC and introduced me to real NY bagels. Two important things I learned from her- you never reheat a bagel in the microwave ( makes it tough) and you can wet a bagel briefly with water under faucet, shake off excess water and then put it straight in the toaster oven so it doesn't dry out when reheating. Since you didn't ask , My favorite is a sesame bagel and number 2 is an onion bagel. I always slice mine in half, and when possible put cream cheese on it ....Next time do a survey on favorite bagel flavors and you will get over 1.2k responses!
Bagels are a once in a blue moon thing for me. The leftovers can be frozen I think but they are never like they are when fresh. Like the wet and into toaster oven! I should have consulted you bagel flavors would have engaged the crowd! I am hoping someone will write "my spouse is from Poland" that's how I learned about bagels :) I like everything's and sesame's.
Sesame are my hubby's favorite.
The great American melting pot is what yields all this WONDERFUL knowledge. When I was a kid, I thought hummus (humus) was what you used as a top layer for growing in the garden to retain water. It is the latest Meditteranean and Middle East diaspora that has found a home here that introduced even the rubes in corn country to hummus and tahini and sesame seeds.
Oh, I love it when you talk about food!
I grew up in a tiny Massachusetts town, and didn't meet bagels until I went away to college - I discovered them at a little privately owned place imaginatively named "The Bagel Deli" and it was love at first bite! Alas, now I live in a tiny New Hampshire town - a beautiful, wonderful place, but no bagels in sight... Darn it, your story has reawoken my bagel love! Maybe it's time to dig out a recipe... 😊
I'm not qualified to vote on the best steak because I don't eat the stuff, so I picked "Something Else." 🐂
Thanks Jeannine. I like writing about food also and I'm glad it is fun for you.I eat bagels VERY RARELY and only eat a half and save the rest for later. For a Superbowl party I made large hot pretzels a number of years ago. Pretzels and bagels are very similar in their prep. They also are real good when right out fo the oven but they go downhill quick. I've never tried to make bagels but I think they are conceptually the same. I should have asked in the poll for bagel flavors per Paul Phaneuf in the comments!
My vote is for Everything bagels, closely followed by onion. 😊
When the kids were young, we might grab a dozen bagels on a Sunday. I always had to have the onion and everything's segregated in a separate bags. I think, from Cafe Anne, I learned blueberry bagels are #1 -- this is despite my lack of support. When I made homemade pretzels, dipping them in everything mix instead of just salt was an improvement.