When I graduated and had my first agency job, I'd stop by another of their locations about halfway through my journey across town, have a couple of bagels with cream cheese and some coffee, then meet one of my coworkers at the gym before finally heading into the office.
After I transferred to the Seattle office, I was happy to find that the Seattle Bagel Bakery was in the building next to our office building. I stopped by every morning after the gym for one bagel and a banana. Nothing on that bagel, during that period I just kept a jar of flavored peanut butter at my desk.
Later, when I was unemployed and broke, I visited a friend who worked at Noah's bagels just about every day. I ordered a Lox and Chives Egg Mit on an onion bagel, toasted, with tomatoes, onions, capers, and cheddar, plus another sweet bagel with cream cheese. She was pissed that Noah's corporate refused to put a tip line on the receipts for credit card payments, so she always rang me up for the price of a single plain bagel. I paid with a $5 bill, and tipped her the $4+ in change. It was a great system we had worked out.
Fast forward a few years. I still didn't really know how to cook, but I at least wasn't broke any more. I started to get extremely adventurous with bagels, and documented the whole thing here. Here are some highlights from the flickr set, which now has 135 pictures! Holy shit!
Bagels have definitely been vilified in this carb-fearing society, but I certainly was thinner back when I ate two a day. I was also much younger, so there's that. I definitely need to have them more often, though. I'm not sure who supplies the ones they sell at WinCo, but they're amazing. I bought a dozen this week.
Lox and bagels is one of my favorite meals of all time. They're such a pain to put together, but always so worth it. For those who aren't familiar, these onion bagels have cream cheese, capers, lox, red onions, tomatoes, salt and pepper, plus a wedge of lemon for squeezing. Perfection.
