an old tradition made new

bagel with lox II, originally uploaded by shaunaforce.

Every Sunday morning, the last two years that I lived in New York, my friend Sharon and I had a definite Sunday tradition. We always rose late and sleepy on a Sunday, me in my bedroom close to Broadway, the street noise so familiar it had the lull of the ocean from seven stories up; Sharon in the middle bedroom of the apartment with the king-sized bed, the street noise muffled by the window facing east. Generally, we had both been out until two or three the night before. Sometimes we spent Saturday nights together — dancing our way to sweaty happiness with a group full of girls determined to dance without the boys intruding. Most of the time, we were both out with different people, listening to thrashing live music on the lower East Side or at a dinner party in Harlem. Coming home late on the subway, tired and alive from another week of living in the most sensory-overload city in the world, I always felt safe. I walked down Broadway at night by myself, knowing I was home. And knowing the safety of what awaited me on Sunday morning.

So, when we rose, Sharon and I greeted each other in the kitchen. Without saying anything, we went to our separate rooms for our shoes and wallets. Then, we descended the back elevator (the one that always smelled like a thousand corn chips) and walked the shiny tile floors of our building’s lobby to the front door. Turn right, then right again. Up Broadway, six blocks, past Mama Mexico, the Starbucks across the street, the dollar store, the greengrocers with the Italian ice cart in front in the summer, our favorite video store (the one that delivers in the snow), the Irish pub, and hundreds of people. There we were: 107th Street. Absolute Bagels.

Every Sunday, with the regularity of a chiming church bell, Sharon and I performed this ritual. Some mornings, we talked fast about our nights and the endless machinations of relationships and friendships. Most mornings, we didn’t need to talk. We just walked, side by side, uptown to our favorite place. Once inside, we waited in line, along with the rest of the Upper West Side, to buy our bagels. The word was out — this tiny shop run by Thais had the best bagels in the city. Wire baskets piled with fresh bagels lay within steamed-up glass cases. Every three or four minutes, a slightly-sweaty employee brought hot bagels to the cases on an enormous paddle. The man at the counter barked out the orders, and someone else snapped a paper bag and filled it with warm, chewy goodness. Sharon and I deliberated every week. Should we try the onion bagels? The sesame seed? The everything bagels, studded with seeds, dried onions, and little mouthfuls of herbs? Futile discussion, because every Sunday we called out our order like a well-worn litany, a text we had studied for years and knew by heart. Two cinnamon-raisin bagels, each. One with cream cheese and lox. The other with lox cream cheese. Two cartons of orange juice. When they put the warm bags, twisted up at the top into our hands, we turned on our heels and snaked our way through the crowd, past those still waiting to receive their communion. We emerged into the humid air, the sounds of the street, the towering buildings, the sliver of sky, the hum of humanity — our New York.

Then, we walked home, resisting the urge to break into the bags on the street, eat one of the bagels on the corner of 103rd. We waited, patiently. We raced up the seven flights as fast as we could make the elevator go. We burst through our front door. And then we assembled the ritual.

Paper bags flattened out, both bagels splayed. Sharon put on water for her King George tea. I made a pot of hot, strong coffee. I unwrapped the New York Times from its rubber band, and separated out the sections we had no intentions of reading. Secretly, I always enjoyed this small act. It had the satisfaction of ordering the world, laying out my pleasure, in a tactile fashion. We poured our orange juice into glasses. Then, we sat down. Every week, the only difference was this: do I eat the bagel with the lox first? or the bagel with the lox cream cheese first? This was the small delight awaiting me, that decision. Then, there was the eating.



The first bite was always the best, because our senses were keening for it. The salted oily texture of lox, the smooth milkiness of cream cheese, and the warm dense chewiness of a proper bagel. I’m pretty sure we both stopped in the middle of that first bite to look at the ceiling and exclaim at the taste. Every week. A sip of strong coffee, another bite of lox goodness, a glance at the Sunday Styles section, another bite. That first bagel went quickly.

We would sit and read, across the circular kitchen table from each other, the weak sunshine filtering in through the building across the street and the haze, into our kitchen. We would remark on news, read each other crazy stories, and laugh about ridiculousness that emerged from our heads. Most of the time we were silent. Unless one or the other of us drank too quickly or ate too big a bite. At that point, an enormous, rolling belch would erupt from one of our throats. We didn’t even comment on it anymore. We were that comfortable in our kitchen together, to let it all roll out.

(Sharon is a spectacular belcher. Dainty and feminine, with blonde hair and slender wrists — you would never know she had it in her. But spectacular she is, and she taught me how to belch without fear of embarrassing myself. My mother is still horrified.)

And so, our Sunday morning slowly unraveled, with section after section of the paper staining our fingers with ink, coffee cup drained, tea drunk to the dregs, and the second bagel just as satisfying as the first. Maybe more, because we ate it much more slowly. We sat, in companionable silence, reading and eating, feeling at home, together.

CUT TO:

INT — SEATTLE KITCHEN — MORNING

Sharon and I gathered again in a kitchen on a Sunday morning, this time in Seattle. The light coming through the windows was only filtered through green leaves this time. Sharon drank Irish Breakfast tea this time. The New York Times was missing the Metro section, since it doesn’t arrive bundled on the porches of homes outside of New York. And this time — of course — the bagels didn’t come from Absolute.

This time, I had made them.

The week before Sharon’s visit, I remembered our Sunday morning ritual, and I knew I needed bagels. Of course, I can’t eat traditional bagels anymore. But if there’s only one gift of this gluten-free life (and of course, there are many more), it has been my confident playfulness with food. I had never made bagels before finding out I should avoid gluten. But now, when faced with necessity, I felt comfortable throwing teff flour around and boiling dough for the first time. (In fact, I had been thinking about this for awhile. Urban legend claims that NY bagels are so indelibly good because of the tap water. On my trip to NY two months ago, I almost brought back a water bottle filled with the murky liquid. But I didn’t.) Turns out — this is fun. And surprisingly simple.

Of course, they didn’t taste like traditional bagels. But we were making a new tradition: me being able to eat bagels without having to take a two-hour nap afterwards. Nothing tastes better than good health, and sharing that with my friend.

We agreed — the plain bagels I made had no real taste. But these bagels I made with teff flour? They weren’t the consistency of traditional bagels, but they were chewy and pleasant. They tasted — strangely — like a dense, homemade wheat bread, with a hint of pumpernickel. They are smaller than NY bagels. They need to be toasted, twice, before they can be eaten. But they are, no question, an excellent receptacle for cream cheese and lox.

And for a Sunday morning with Sharon, they were a revelation. A new tradition.



Gluten-free Bagels

Let me warn you properly — these do not taste like traditional bagels. I’m going to keep experimenting, but I just can’t imagine that any gluten-free recipe will ever yield the kind of chewy, dense texture of an Absolute bagel. However, they are chewy and tender, in their own way.

Normally, I’m not fond of egg bagels. In fact, that eggy yellow color was my first experience with bagels, in a Jewish deli in my southern California town. Even then, I just didn’t understand the taste. But I found that adding egg whites to this mixture binds the flours together better than not. And since they are egg whites, you will hardly taste the egg. Decide for yourself if you want to brush the tops of these with the yolks — it will make the bagels shiny, but it will impart a bit of that egg taste.

Finally, there is the boiling. Boiling the bagels before baking them gives the crust the crunch you want, before you find the softness inside. The molasses in the water yields a slight sweetness, almost imperceptible, which cuts the teff well. Besides, it’s fun to watch the bagels bobbing in the boiling water.

one packet dried yeast (Red Star is gluten-free)
one tablespoon brown sugar
three-quarter cup warm water
two cups brown rice flour
one cup tapioca flour
one cup teff flour
two egg whites (reserve the yolks for later use)
one tablespoon salt
one and one-half cup warm water
two tablespoons molasses

Place the yeast in a warm bowl, then gently pour in the water. Stir in the sugar until it is dissolved in the mixture. Allow the bowl of yeast to sit and grow, foam and rise, until it has doubled in size. (This should be about five to ten minutes.) If the yeast mixture does not expand, you have dead yeast. Start again.

Mix the gluten-free flours together, then add the yeast mixture, egg whites, salt, and water. Allow these to mix in your standing mixer for awhile, until they have formed a dough. This dough should be not too sticky, and not too dry. (Actually, in its ideal state, it has the same tender texture as a baby’s cheek.) Divide the dough into eight balls of equal size. Poke your finger through the center of each ball, then twirl the ball around and around your finger until you have created a bagel shape. (Enjoy this part — it’s a tactile pleasure.) Cover the bagels-in-waiting with a tea towel, then let them rest for an hour. (Remember that this is gluten-free dough, so it’s not going to rise, really. But it does like to rest before you pull and shape it into bagels.)

Pre-heat your oven to 425°. Fill your favorite saucepan with about four inches of water, then stir in the two tablespoons of molasses. Bring the beautifully murky water to a boil. Gently, place four of the bagel-shaped dough balls into the boiling water, and allow them to bob to the surface of the water. After one minute, turn the bagels over and allow them to boil for one minute on the other side. Remove the bagels with a slotted spoon and gently place them on a wire rack. Repeat this process with the remaning four bagel doughs.

Place parchment paper or a silpat on your favorite baking sheet. (You could also lightly grease the baking sheet, then sprinkle it with cornmeal.) If you wish, you can brush the tops of the bagels with some of the reserved yolks of the egg, mixed with just a touch of water. Place the bagels on the baking sheet and slip them into the oven. Bake for about twenty minutes, or until they are browned and have the thump of bagels.