My boyfriend Aran is amazing in many ways, but one of the most endearing things about him, I find, is his knack for making NY style bagels. We lived together for a short time in Jersey City this past winter (across The Hudson from Manhattan) and there was this hole-in-the-wall kind of a place across the street from our apartment called Wonder Bagels. Wonder Bagels wasn't open for very long during the day. In fact, they only stayed open a few hours in the morning. Funny little place, really... The folks there hardly ever got your order completely right. Their coffee tasted like shit (they always put too much sugar in it). They interrogated your order out of your mouth (no time to contemplate how you might like your bagel that morning). Their fruit cups were overpriced and the seating was maddening, but Goddamnit do they know how to make a bagel. NO WONDER IT'S CALLED WONDER BAGELS!
All I could think of when I ate a Wonder Bagel was the scene in So I Married an Axe Murderer, where Mike Meyer's (playing the Scottish father) says the following about KFC chicken: "They put a chemical in it that makes you crave it fortnightly, smaaaaaart-ass!" I don't know what they're dusting into the 'ol bagel batch down there in Jersey City, but whatever it is, it got us hooked, BAD.
After we came back to live in Maine, Aran started hankering for the bagels from Jersey City. I was saddened to tell him that Portland, Maine, as far as I know, has no breakfast joint that serves up a bagel even remotely like the bagels at Wonder Bagel's.
So what did he do? He made his own.
(To be continued...)
