Word: bagels
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Aibel is right to lament the state of "puny, bland, generic" bagels at Harvard (column, Dec. 3). He would be glad to know, however, that the bagels at C'est Bon on Mass. Ave. are surprisingly warm, fluffy and flavorful. In fact, they sometimes almost pass for the real New York thing. But at the end of the day, the price of a real bagel is 85 cents plus round trip fare on the Delta Shuttle to New York. Not a bad deal--you get a free copy of "Foreign Affairs" on the flight. --Benjamin Lebwohl...
...important as bagels have been in my life--I think back to meals at Manhattan's Ess-a-Bagel, late night jaunts to H & H Bagels and the thousands of bagels in between--I always find myself surprised by the vast gulf in bagel quality between the two cities I call home. I may have learned to suppress the observation and block it out. And who could blame me? When done right, the bagel can serve as the focal point for an entire diet. But in the hands of lesser baker...it's nothing more than a carbohydrate-rich sandwich...
...those who haven't consumed a steaming-hot H & H bagel at three o'clock on a Sunday morning, it may be difficult to understand what all the fuss is about. But just as the art expert will never be able to convey to the color-blind woman at the Picasso exhibit what she's missing, the bagel-lover will have a hard time converting the uninitiated. The allure of the fresh, well-made bagel, alas, defies verbal explanation. And yet despite this handicap, in recent years the bagel has been popularized across the nation, a development which culminated...
...when I responded in turn to their New-York-bagel-elitism with the retort that I once ate an excellent bagel in Toledo, Ohio--one which would have been at home in a New York City bagelry--they remained firm: "They must get the water pumped in special," they said...
...conversations with similar punch lines occurred time and again, it became clear that among my family members and friends there are more than a few bagel experts--individuals who have come to see themselves as the food's self-appointed defenders and trustees. It's as though they've all secretly swore an oath of regional loyalty, one which bars them from acknowledging the integrity of any foreign product. Eventually my sister entered the debate, breaking the deadlock and introducing a sensible if still questionable explanation for discrepancies in bagel quality: bagels are best if boiled, she intoned...