Bagel Bagel

Back home in America there was no nicer way to spend a lazy Sunday morning than by reading the paper while munching freshly baked bagels bought from the neighborhood bakery. Bagels are the quintessential Jewish food and one of oddest things about Israel is how rare they are here in the Jewish homeland. It’s counter-intuitive.

Of course, there’s no end of round bread. But dense, chewy bagels are as rare as water in a desert. I’ve heard that there are a couple of places in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem where they can be had, but that’s too far to shlep. Once upon a time a local baker delivered lots of them to the kibbutz shop. These were golden days for me. There were plain bagels, onion bagels, garlic bagels, raisin bagels and – my personal favorite – blueberry bagels. But they stopped making them, no demand. I’ve been bereft since.

Then along came “The Jerusalem Post” with a bagel recipe which of course I had to try. I spent most of this afternoon kneading, shaping, boiling, glazing, baking and hoping for the best. Shaping them was the hardest part. After bagel number 8 I started getting the hang of it. 9 through 12 are ok, but the others are the ugliest things ever baked by man. How do they taste? Reasonable, but still not chewy enough. Maybe I’ll try again, but intensity of the labor is a little off-putting. Laziness after all is my weekend objective. I think I’ll go lie down.