BAGEL SNOB

Since I've been living in Ireland, I have discovered bagels.  Oh sure, I've eaten bagels in the States before - at least the ones I bought in the grocery store.  I used to think that all bagels were the same.  I don't think that anymore.  I recently went home for the Christmas holidays.  While I was there, I bought the some bagels from the grocery store.  I used to buy these bagels all the time when I lived there.  The next day I ate one and was astonished to find that it didn't taste like  the bagels I am used to eating here.  In fact, it tasted so different that I wished I hadn't even bought them. 

We have lots of bagel shops here and if my husband and I are out somewhere and need to stop for a bite of lunch, we quite often go to the Bagel Shop.  One day when we were in Dublin, we went to a bagel shop that actually had a cheese and jalepeno bagel.  I was in heaven!  It definitely has to go into my "Most Favorite Sandwiches of All Time" list.  I eat a bagel every day for lunch with lunch meat and cheese.  I don't use mayo or mustard, but "do it the Irish way" and use butter for my spread.  I buy my bagels at the grocery store, and right now all I've found there are either plain, whole wheat or ones with whole grain seeds on top.  The brand says they are "New York Bagels".  Who knew you could buy them over here?  :0)

I have a friend who used to live in New York.  She ate a lot of bagels there and since moving out of that state and into mine, has declared herself a "bagel snob".  She says she doesn't like the bagels from the store and she goes to a bagel shop in town to buy hers.  I've decided that I will probably have to do that when I leave Ireland.  The grocery store bagels here may pass my test, but the bagels in the grocery stores in the States sure don't.  My husband says that at the cafeteria at work they have a bagel slicer.  He loves it and wants to buy one.  In the states, the ones at the grocery store come already split, but here they don't and you have to cut them.  My husband hates to cut them because he can't get each side even.  Must be the carpenter in him. :0)  I guess I'll have to look for a bagel slicer to buy for him.  Hey, maybe I'll get him one for Valentine's Day!