checking in - thinkin bout bagels

Sorry to be so shallow...but the choices on today's menu are:

1. Write about how badly I am feeling today, all day. Just really bad and a lot of throat pain.
2. Write about the thing I have been thinking about other than how badly I feel.
3. Skip today and hope tomorrow I will have something other than food on my mind.

I choose #2. I spent almost a full hour lying in bed this morning thinking about my relationship with bagels. It is like a friendship...I have had bagels and memories of bagels at every stage of my life. No bad memories here, just a few lonely stretches of time when bagels (real bagels) were not available here in the Midwest. If the concept of "comfort food" exists, for me it is represented by a toasted fresh bagel, cream cheese and lox. I have loved bagels with such devotion over the years. It was the first thing I noticed missing when I came to Nebraska...I used to fly to visit my family in NY with an extra bag that I could fill with bagels to freeze. Not that bagels weren't sold, but they were grocery store bagels and a disgrace. Finally, in the past decade or maybe two, Brueggers Bagels have come to Lincoln, and they are acceptable. Because bagels are not particularly healthy (fattening, high glycemic index, low nutritional value) I have rationed my intake over the past 20 years. Otherwise, I could have a bagel for breakfast daily, and never get tired of them . I allow myself two bagels a week...one Saturday and one Sunday morning. And the lox (smoked salmon...the best from Nova Scotia) is a luxury I rarely indulge in...it's hard to find in Lincoln, but not impossible, just expensive. So, sometimes it's just a bagel (poppy seed is my favorite) and, of course, Philadelphia cream cheese. Flavored cream cheese does NOT belong on a bagel, anymore than pineapple belongs on a slice of Pizza.

I can be objective and see how people who don't have attachments to bagels can see them as a big blob of not particularly tasty dough, but they just don't understand those of us who grew up eating that masterpiece from infancy.

I was thinking that I have been too harsh about frozen Lenders Bagels from the grocery. Actually, they have their own taste and, while just not in the same league as fresh, bagel store bagels, they deserve to be respected. I was thinking how much I would enjoy even a Lenders frozen bagel...toasted a little too much...bordering on burnt, and a generous amount of cream cheese. If I could eat, I would gladly salute that Lenders and be humbled by how good it would taste.

I was thinking about those little cocktail bagels... they are bland and boring, but a nice snack nonetheless. I don't really like bagel sandwiches; I am a purist about cream cheese.

The one exception I make to the bagel, cream cheese and lox rule is that I will occasionally have a thin slice of a really fresh ripe tomato on the cream cheese on the many occasions when I do not have lox. Somehow the tomato can complement the cream cheese almost as nicely as lox.

So, a bagel, cream cheese and lox, and a cup or two of coffee on a Saturday morning is a wonderful way to start the day. AND, if there is a piece of coffee cake or Danish to follow...it's a holiday. I am a carb junkie. I could eat bread and bagels and cake and cookies and I am a happy camper.

Unfortunately, trying to eat a healthy bagel (whole wheat and low fat cream cheese, etc) just doesn't do it.

I have accepted blueberry bagels into the club, but really, that's more like a dessert than a breakfast. Poppy, sesame seed, onion, garlic, "everything" bagels all are my favorites.

New York bagels...I think it is in the water...are the best. And I always eat the bagel and cream cheese like a sandwich, not open faced. It isn't the same. The next bagel I eat, I am determined to eat mindfully, rather than reading the morning paper and allowing other distractions, (TV, etc) to share my sensory attention. I don't want to rush into it...I want to make sure I can fully appreciate the friendship...I will have to have most of my taste buds fully restored.

I have a few dozen "friends" in the freezer waiting for me...indeed...it will be a happy reunion.

Hey...if there is one food you have a "friendship" with...comment here. No cheating...limit it to one food (a bagel cream cheese and lox is a unit, so it is one food).

I miss you, my poppy seed circles of goodness.