38 new of 168 responses total.
<valerie thinks that in this case her memory hasn't lapsed>
<aruba thinks there's an awful lot of angle brackets and speaking in the third person going on here>
>>> (just to close off angle bracket mode...) Stopped by Great Bagels, the new bagel place on Washtenaw Avenue, to sample their wares. They have an "everything bagel" that's pretty tasty -- a bit of onion, a bit of garlic, some salt, sesame seeds, poppy seeds. Picked up a few of their others and will report back here after I've tried them. Somebody way back there suggested slicing bagels in half and freezing them for long term storage. I have been doing this and find that it works great. Nuking a half bagel in the microwave on 50% power for about a minute restores it to a state of tasty warm freshness.
Yep, freezing bagels does work for having fresh-like bagels later on!
Great Bagels bagels have turned out to be mediocre. Cake-like consistency. Barry Bagels remains my favorite in Ann Arbor, with Breugger a close second, Bagel Factory a somewhat distant third. Haven't tried Zingerman bagels since they switched to the Detroit supplier, but I'll let you know...
You can make some pretty passable bagels in a pasta machine in your very own kitchen-anyone want a recipe?
Sure! This sounds interesting! (I don't personally have a pasta machine, though, so if it's a pain in the neck to type in the recipe, you might wait for someone who actually *has* a pasta machine to request it.)
No problem. Here it is: 2 cups all purpose flour 4 Tbs sugar 4 tsp salt 2/3 c very warm water (120 F) 1 Tbs melted butter 1 egg white beaten with 1 Tbs cold water 2 tsp active dry yeast Set up machine with large circular die (bagel die). Place flour, 3 Tablespoons of the sugar and 2 tsp of salt in machine's mixing bowl. Cover and mix 30 seconds. Using a measuring cup, add yeast and margarine or butter to warm water. Mix slightly. Slowly pour liquid through opening in machine cover. Mix 4 minutes. Cover machine bowl with cloth and allow the dough to rise for 1 hour. Extrude dough through bagel die. Cut extruded dough into lengths 6-7 inches and form into circles. Pinch ends together and place bagels on greased baking sheet. Cover and let rise 1 hour. In large skillet, heat 1 inch of water, 1 Tablespoon of sugar and 2 tsp of salt to a simmer. Drop bagels into simmering water. Cook 3 minutes. Turn and cook 2 minutes. Turn and cook again for 1 minute more. !Drain on towel for 5 minutes. Preheat oven to 375. Place bagels on greased baking sheet. Mix egg white and water together; brush on bagels. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until nicely browned. If de!sired, the usual toppings may be sprinkled before baking; e.g., sesame seed, poppy seed, garlic, onion salt. Makes about 10 bagels. I don't see why you couldn't mix the dough in a food processor or a large mixer with dough hooks and roll it by !hand, then proceed from there. It's worth it, to have these right from the oven. We hafe a new shop called "bagel Stop" in Dearborn which has a decent product. They also give two free with every ddozen. Their cheddar cheese is good but the egg bagels are excellent. Also, it's the only place I know of around here where you can buy fresh lox.
Excerpt from a Washington Post article by Cindy Loose:
Forget the cream cheese - please pass the gauze!
'Bagel injuries' becoming more common as doughy breakfast treat rises
in popularity.
Every weekend they arrive at hospital emergency rooms with blood
dripping from their injuries: upstanding citizens, often leaders in
their fields, sometimes with their pajamas showing beneath their
coats.
It happened one recent Saturday morning to Eric Berman, head of
research for the Democratic National Committee. He tried to hide his
wound, wrapping it in a red kitchen towel. But when his face turned
ashen, his mother-in-law shoved him into a cab and took him to George
Washington University Medical Center.
"When I pulled off the towel, the doctor said, 'Oh, a bagel injury.'
He knew immediately," Berman said of the cut he suffered while slicing
his breakfast. "We get a bunch of these every Saturday morning," the
doctor told him.
Indeed, an informal survey of area hospitals revealed that
bagel-related accidents are, in the words of Mark Smith, head of
George Washington's Department of Emergency Medecine, "the great
underreported injury of our times."
.
.
.
A spokeswoman for Georgetown University Medical Center,
misunderstanding a voice mail message, returned a reporter's call
prepared to discuss fatal injuries. Informed of the real query, she
changed course without missing a beat.
"Oh, *bagel* injuries," Clarie Fiori said. "Oh yes, that's one of
our biggest."
rotfl!
The funny thing is, it is easy to cut a bagel. Place it on a cutting board. Assuming you are right handed, place the palm of your left hand on the bagel, keeping your fingers up. Cut 1/2 way into one side of the bagel. Turn the bagel on its side, with the knife at the top parallel with the counter. Hold the bagel from the top with your left hand, and finish cutting. Of course, there is the "Polly" method. Take the bagel in your left hand, and a butcher knife in your right hand. Swing the knife viciously so it sinks deep into the bagel, then slam the knife down on the counter to finish cutting through the bagel. (Polly has a *lot* of scars on her palm, perhaps inspiring the above story.)
Yesterday, I tried the Brueggel's Bagel shop that just recently opened downtown. They were pretty good. I'll probably be buying them again.
I think the easiest way to cut a bagel is with an electric knife.
An axe *must* be easier!
re #143: Not hardly. Cut a dozen bagels with an electric knife and
tell us how long it takes.
Well, now it's 1999, the last response in this item was in 1995. Great Bagel has since closed. Brueggers near Busches on Main/A2-Saline is still around and going strong. Brueggers has a second location, on North U, near State St. Right around the corner, on State Street is an Einstein Brother's bagel. Up on plymouth road, there is "Bagel-Fragel" which is some sort of a franchise of the Bagel Factory. Most of the bagels I eat right now come from the North U brueggers. Their sesame bagel is downright tasty. Einstein does not come close. I don't get over to Barry's much, but I didn't like their bagels the last time I had them. Bagel Factory has better raisin bagels than Brueggers, but I prefer fragels. :)
I was disappointed the one time I bought bagels from Einstein. Bruegghers comes the closest to a real New york style bagel in the area. I wish they didn't close at 7 PM, though. That's usually about the time I think about going out to buy bagels.
Breugers seems to be aiming at people buying lunch-type food like sandwiches, just looking at how they've priced things. I imagine they don't do much business in bagels-by-the-dozen.
And now it's a year later and Einstein's is gone. I guess arabella hit the nail on the head in being disappointed in their bagels.
What happens with a lot of chains, particularly when there is a somewhat complicated product to make, is that the franchise provides an initial management team to get the franchise off the ground, followed by the local management assuming responsibility for the operation. Although steam ovens provide what is probably the simplest means of baking bagels, you still need fresh dough. You still cannot let the dough sit out to long, sit in the cooler too long, or sit in the freezer too long. You have to sometimes take a hit on the unused dough, rather than baking dough that won't make good bagels. Given the margins in food service, and the levels of pay usually afforded to baking staff, those aren't small issues.
resp:141 Cutco makes a sandwich spreader knife that is great for cutting bagels.
So where are the good bagel shops in the AA area these days [especially outside the campus/downtown area]? When I was in Durham, there were a number of Bruegger's in the area but I haven't seen any at all since moving back here a year ago.
There is a Bruegger's in that shopping center at the corner of Ann Arbor Saline Road and Main St. I think there is also one on N. University downtown.
There's a Bagel Fragel in Plymouth.
There's a Bagel Fragel on Plymouth (just east of Murfin). Zingerman's makes bagels.
There is something not quite right about Zingerman's bagels but I can never really put my finger on it. There is also Barry's Bagels too. Their bagels are ok but I like Bruegger's better
Zingerman's probably doesn't boil them correctly. I've seen very few bakeries that also did bagels correctly.
That's the problem with the bagels at Panera. They are good but just not bagel enough
We have this line of bagels out here called Chompie's. They are awful. I don't even call them bagels - they are glorified dinner rolls. My only recourse is pretty much Einstein Bagels.
I got some bagels at an Italian bakery in Melvindale one time and they were EXACTLY like italian sandwich rolls in taste and texture. It was my day to get the bagels at Ford and my co-workers laughed for weeks about it.
Well, I know that when I visit my friend Shannon in Sebastopol, California, there isnt a good bagel to be had anywhere. It seems odd too since there are a lot of people who used to live in NYC there. You would think that there would be a market for good bagels there.
The people at the Plymouth/Murfin bagel shop are the legitmate inheritors of the Bagel Factory fragel trademark. Dunno about how well they make bagels, though.
From what I understand, the person at the Plymouth/Murfin bagel shop (The Bagel Fragel?) is the son of the original Bagel Factory owner.
I wrote up the dissertation elsewhere but will have to hunt it down. Don't have time to go into the historics.
re #162 & 163 Here is my response to item 9 on M-Net's Ypsi/A2 cf: #11 I.P. Freehly (tod) Wed, May 2, 2007 (18:04): I worked with Natasha at Bagel Factory back in the early 90's. She opened up Bagel Fragel on Plymouth Rd and continues the tradition. We used to work late all nighters with Mike Kolko. Kolko was managing the place for the owner (and my landlord of the house on Dewey) Peter Johnson (aka Vidouris.) Peter Johnson learned his bagel trade from some of my grandfather's childhood chums from Detroit and opened the original Bagel Factory in Southfield. Then, he got into business with Barry Greenblatt for the one on South U. Barry had brought in Kolko (my boss.) Barry later had a falling out with Peter and opened Barry Bagels. Peter was pissed. He once threatened tsty for calling the housing commission on him because I was living in the basement of one of his rentals and blah blah..long story there. Anyway, Peter moved his franchise to Toledo and Kolko tried a go of it himself for a while. I delivered the bagels (took trex a few times) all around SE Michigan. That was a cool job but it was 7 days a week from 1am to 9am and wore me down. It was fun being a part of bagel history. Those guys were tough mf'ers.
Stopped by the Bagel Fragel a few weeks ago, and there was a sign on the door saying family difficulties, would be closed a few days, and reopen under new managment. Haven been by since then, but I'll try to get there soon for an update.
I havent been there in years
Went by the Bagel Fragel on Plymouth Road again. Good news for bagel purists! It's open again, and still run by the same family. Slight change in some of the accoutrements, but otherwise same menu of handmade, old style bagels. Don't know the address, but it is in the strip shopping mall on the south side of Plymouth Road where the north end of Broadway intersects. Next to the Shell station. Across the street is the bigger mall with all the wonderful Turkish and Middle Eastern bakeries, restaurants, and food stores, Wendy's and Cafe Marie.
You have several choices: