There’s something about the combination of garlic, onion, sesame seeds, poppy seeds, caraway seeds, and salt that just seems so naturally New York. The flavor profile and the city just go together.
My company recently established a weekly treat for its staff, affectionately penned Bagel Mondays. I don’t always partake, as I’m more of a “whole wheat everything bagel, scooped out” kind of gal, but sometimes an everything bagel without all of my Weight Watchers-friendly adjustments is just so . . . worth it.
The everything bagel has a cloudy history — one that I’ll attribute to David Gussin and not Seth Godin (no offense, Seth) — and its recipe and exact mix of seeds and such tends to change from bagel joint to bagel joint.
My favorite everything bagel in all of New York hails from Tal Bagels in Manhattan. Sometimes, instead of the white-flour bagels offered on Bagel Mondays, I’ll throw down some dough – no pun intended – for a whole wheat everything bagel from Tal Bagels. I order it scooped out with low-fat scallion cream cheese, red onion, cucumber, and tomato. Not inexpensive, but again, it’s worth it.
How one orders one’s bagel says as much about them as how they take their coffee. Toasted, untoasted. With shmear, without. In Michigan, we had Detroit bagels and Elaine’s, and in New York we have H&H. My order must illustrate that I’m a little bit of everything.
How do you take your bagel?
I haven’t ordered a bagel in a long time. Usually I just grab one when we have them at work, and btw, if I grab half a bagel, I make sure to cut it in half, and take the top and bottom. There’s been a trend where people take the top half when they want half. That is way incorrect. Illustration: http://www.flickr.com/photos/spudart/5062116751/
Your bagel order sounds like one I’d like. I’ll hunt down a bagel place in Chicago and try that.
I highly recommend it! Am planning a trip to Chicago this summer, but have a feeling if I were to attempt to smuggle bagels from NY to Chicago, they would not have the same impact as they do in the Big Apple.