Bagel Lover

After waking up, my dad follows a very specific ritual each morning.  He goes downstairs and sits in front of our Apple computer on the kitchen table to watch his stocks go up and down.  This coincides with his two cups of coffee and bagel with cream cheese.  Although sometimes he may have some scrambled eggs, or on a special occasion, huevos rancheros, you can almost always count on a bagel popping out of the toaster.  This is then followed by him yelling "Gail, where is the cream cheese?", when it is on the first shelf in the fridge.  Now my family is very picky when it comes to bagels, bread bagels from the grocery store or Starbucks won't cut it.  Instead, we stock our freezer every week with fresh bagels from the Eltana bagel shop on Capitol Hill. They start by boiling the dough in honeyed water.  And then wood-fire them to perfection.  This gives them that sweet yet smokey taste. Their chewy and crunchy outer shell goes perfectly with simple philadelphia cream cheese any day of the week (and sometimes locks, when we have them).

The only bagels I have found to remotely enjoy since moving to cali are those from Western Bagels.  I've been to to the one in North Hollywood, and the location by my aunts house in Calabassas.  Western Bagels offers the original, but best, bagel flavors along with a few specials (I noticed they currently have pumpkin bagels and spread).  I've tried their cream cheese and lox, pretty good.  And their wild berry cream cheese, good when you're in the mood for something sweet.  Must say my favorite is still the everything bagel toasted with cream cheese.

Everything bagel toasted with plain cream
cheese and a Naked Orange Juice.

This weekend my mom and I stayed the night at my aunts house in Calabassas.  We had to wake up early to drive back to school for my dive meet on Saturday morning.  We stopped at the Western Bagels right by the freeway entrance and got our breakfast for the drive back down south.  Just hit the spot.  I was feeling like something salty rather than sweet, especially because I had my meet in the next hour.  Didn't want to load up on sugar.  I decided to get my favorite.  Although it was ready quite quickly, I would have liked the bagel to be toasted a little more. It was still basically room tenperature. They do glob on the cream cheese like you haven't had it in months. When I was younger I used to put half a container on one bagel, but I've leaned to use it more sparingly as I entered high school.   I definitely think this is ok every once in a while, but with a good bagel, you even need that much. Here's my pre-competition breakfast:

Whole Foods sells Western Bagels.  I will definitely have to start buying packs there because the bread bagels they give to the athletes for free aren't up to par.