Bagel and a Schmear
Have you ever tried to get a bagel, not toasted, outside of the New York Metropolitan area? It
....it's close to impossible, even if you ask politely. You tell them you want a bagel, with cream cheese, not toasted. They toast it. It's like ordering a pizza, with no pepperoni. All they hear is "pepperoni" or "toasted".
The challenge is that 99% of all bagel joints outside of NY (and NY knows from bagels), think all bagels should be toasted, regardless of what's going on top of it. So even if you ask them not to toast it, it's like a reflex--they toast it.
New Yorkers know that if a bagel is to be buttered, it gets toasted. If a bagel is getting cream cheese, it's not to be toasted. It's to be sliced, slathered and handed to the customer. Its bagel goodness has already been cooked (boiled to be precise) to perfection and it needs no further heat applied to it. Besides the heat interferes with the lox, right?.
This morning, I'm breaking a 4.89 month diet for a bagel and a schmear, which I've been craving for almost a week. For a week, I resisted. Each morning, I put it out of my mind and had my half a cup of yummy oatmeal, yogurt and half a grapefruit for breakfast.
But this morning, despite dinner out at a fabulous new restaurant, the scales showed me 20lbs lighter than when I started this little venture. The bagel and schmear got the celebratory green light. Down to the Bagel Basket, where I ordered two plain bagels with cream cheese, easy on the cream cheese and please don't toast them. Then I started talking to a neighbor.
I was handed the bag with the bagels. Flew home. Set the NYTimes on the counter, opened it to the Week in Review. Poured myself a steaming cup of coffee. Got out the smoked salmon and the capers, the pepper and a sliced red onion.
Handed Retired Guy his bagel, which was suspiciously warm, and unwrapped mine. TOASTED.
It's now sitting on the counter getting the hairy eyeball from me. The NYTimes is yet to be read. The coffee waits for the first sip. I'm in a conundrum. If I'm going off an almost 6 month diet with a calorie splurge, it ain't gonna be for a gnarly Toasted Bagel. Anybody want it? It's yours.
But do I go back out in the rain and attempt to get another untoasted bagel, or do I decide that this is not meant to be and start making oatmeal?
5 comments:
Congrats. 20 lbs. is a major accomplishment. It's sooo hard to lose weight, at least for me. I hope you have made peace by now with the bagel situation.
Congratulations! Twenty pounds is nothing to sneeze at, and I'll gladly take that yummy toasted bagel off your hands!
I'd never had a toasted bagel until I moved to the States and I'm still not keen on them even after 12 years of Maine bagels. Old world delis don't toast- the chewy is better than the crunchy.
And well done on the 20lbs. I should follow your example, but I reckon todays lunch alone weighed that much. Not at all good for me.
Wow. 20 lbs. How did you do that? Not eat? Not drink?
No eat, no drink, no fun.
Seriously, we did NutriSystems and it worked beautifully.
Now that summer is (almost) here, we'll see if we can maintain. The grill is calling my name and I've so many recipes that I want to try.
Post a Comment