Bagels.

I've been thinking about my next new recipe and I've got the crazy idea to make bagels from scratch. I always complain about how you can't get good bagels over here, especially outside of London, so I thought I'd give it a try. I've always thought that bagels were probably impossible to make - you have to boil and bake, for crying out loud - but I've done a little research and I think it just might be possible. 

Although the first shock was that there IS NO BAGEL RECIPE IN THE JOY OF COOKING. I couldn't believe it. The Joy of Cooking tells you how to make anything and everything. But it wasn't there. It's just not in it.

So I looked online, and there are some recipes and some commentary, and indeed some videos on YouTube, though I haven't actually watched any of them. I'm going to try one of the New York bagel recipes. Everyone talks about wanting to try an egg bagel recipe, but I'm not sure I want to go there just yet, and I'm not really sure what the difference would be anyway.

I might try it this weekend, depending on whether or not I can find malt powder, which seems to be important. One of the reasons I thought about trying to produce my own bagels was so I could have a blueberry bagel, which you really genuinely can't find outside of London, unless you order them online, which is very pricey (and you have to order in lots of 72 bagels!!!). But as I was researching, I ran across a blog post from a native New Yorker about how everyone outside of New York is eating faux bagels or "bagels" (which is the way New Yorkers seem to refer to these monstrosities when writing about them online) and that things like blueberries and sundried tomatoes are just ridiculous. So although my alternate preferred topping of "everything" is acceptable by New York standards, I think this time I'll probably stick with a plain bagel recipe before I branch out.

I'll let you know how it goes, but in the meantime, I'll leave you with something to chew on from the aforementioned blog post, about blueberry bagels in particular:

"A bagel, you see, isn't meant to be a muffin with delusions of donuthood."