Bagel Memories

The first time I ever ate a bagel I was in Washington, D.C., specifically I was in Georgetown. I was with a group, but on this morning I was on my own exploring and I found this little deli, it was either up or down some steps, I remember steps. The atmosphere of Georgetown to me is rather quaint and charming. I can't think of anywhere in the Atlanta area that corresponds to it, but there probably would be, I don't know Atlanta all that well. There are a few place in Honolulu, that might have a similar feel, with a Hawaiian twist. I grew up in Chicago, it used to have lots of places like that...it's a certain feeling that you can only find in a big city, sort of a cozy place where you can eat a bagel anonymously but, ... I don't know how to explain it.

So I had discovered bagels and I came back to Georgia and suddenly I'm discovering that bagels are everywhere, they were the new thing in food, like yogurt once was and tiramisu. It seems odd to me the timing of it. Did everyone just recently make a trip to a Jewish deli?

Another memory I have about bagels is eating some that were homemade. There was this fellow in my folk-dance group who was older (probably in his 50s), he played some musical instrument with the band that was associated with our group and he had this wonderful smile. He brought some bagels that he had made to our dancing night. I don't remember whether they were especially great, being homemade and all. No, what I remember was thinking, I should try to do this--make bagels. But so far, I have yet to do so.

And then there was eating bagel sandwiches at the bagel place in Budapest. I think it was called New York Bagel. We ate there several times, and by we I am meaning the group I was touring with. It was like the best food for the best price that we found. I also remember several of the other places we ate. There was this quirky pizza place. For one, it had Hawaiian pizza on the menu, I guess if you put pineapple on a pizza, it's Hawaiian. Since I was over there with a group of folks from Hawaii, I suppose I noticed that. The pizza was okay, I don't remember it, but the atmosphere was interesting, sort of urban-political-hip with slogans and paintings on the wall. And we went in search of some more traditional Hungarian food, several times actually. I don't know if we ever found anything that was like what I supposed Hungarian food should be.

One the best places I ate at in France was a Greek restaurant. I'm sure there are some great French restaurants serving French foods in France, and somewhere there is some great Hungarian restaurant, maybe it's in New York.

So this is where following the rabbit trail of memories about bagels has led me.