ISSUE T WO
successfully cutting our bagels for over a decade and has the words “Steak Killer” inscribed on the blade. We’ve traded one form of savagery for another. A few months after my sister’s wedding, her in-laws, who by that time had been over for bagels many times, gifted my parents a new bagel knife. It is a Cutco knife with the inscription “Bagels @ the Tzelnics” on the blade. It was a very thoughtful gift. Not long after getting the knife, my dad used it to cut a slice of bread. The bread was in his hand. Unused to the awesome power of a Cutco, he sliced right through the bread and then right through his thumb. Twelve stitches later, he returned home without any feeling on one side of his hand. Bagels are not so slowly killing my family. ~~~
T H E D I S PAT C H BY F O L K R E B E L L I O N
Each morning at the school where I work a smell wafts through the building and everyone knows Alex is heating up his bagel. I can’t seem to shake the routine, the comfort that comes from a crispy, doughy circle of carbohydrates. I like my bagels well done, and so if you smell something burning it’s just my bagel. Once, however, I left a bagel in the toaster oven too long and arrived in the kitchen to find that the burning smell was my bagel in flames. I blew it out and removed the charred carcass. It was carbonized and a bit too crunchy, but still better than a Montreal bagel. My parents moved to Cambridge a couple of years ago, and are now within two miles of Iggy’s headquarters. We live in a prosperous time, a pax bagela. My wife and I recently discovered a bagel pop-up called Better Bagels. It turns out they make the best bagels I’ve ever had. The bagels are miniature cannonballs, so dense, seed-drenched, and flavorful that the second time we found the pop-up I bought 36 (including a dozen for my parents). The founders told me they are a New York-style bagel, and to me, they are the holy grail of the genre. I suspect that my parents, despite their praise for this new brand, prefer Iggy’s. They’ve knelt at the altar of Iggy’s too many times to convert so casually. My dad just turned 70. It is hard to say how many more years of bagels at the Tzelnics there will be. I understand that one day my parents will no longer have us over for bagels. By “understand,” I mean I can intellectually grasp that fact, even if spiritually and emotionally I can’t even begin to. Luckily, my parents have passed on a spiritual, emotional, and edible tool for coping. When the unthinkable happens, and I’m overcome with grief and emptiness, I’ll at least have the means to fill myself up again. I know of no other tradition that is so figuratively and literally sustaining. I know of no other breakfast that is so holy.
20