Back In The World Of Round Food... Genuine Round Food!!

MAPLEWOOD, NJ - All of you New Yorkers can have the day off..... this post is for Ljiljana, Michele, Mo & Rikke and all of you who think you know what a bagel is. (Mo knows, he's just been out of town too long)

Those of you who've been following along know that I'm nostalgic for the New York area. Living in Chicagoland, despite a rich culinary history there, I've noted a deficiency in round foods, specifically bagels and pizza. It's just not the same. Michele knows what I mean, I've been telling her about this for years; and more recently anyone else who will listen, especially in the midwest, has gotten an earful from me on round food.

Okay, so all of you non-New Yorkers pay attention: above is a picture of a raisin bagel procured fresh this morning from Sonny Amster's a/k/a Sonny's Bagels in South Orange, NJ. Note that the texture is rough hewn, from being hand-rolled and boiled before baking! If you could bite the picture... don't, you'll get a mouthful of glass... you'd notice that some of your teeth are loose after you've eaten it. That's a bagel!! Everything else is ersatz, fake... phony.

Don't anyone write back and tell me about Dunkin Donuts bagels and how good they are or how good their coffee is. I'll cover those misconceptions in another post.