onion bagels

Every morning I have an onion bagel for breakfast. I eat half a Lender's brand bagel, with Philadelphia cream cheese on top. It's always a half, unless I'm eating really early, and it's always full-fat cream cheese. The bagel is toasted until lightly burnt (medium brown, not black), and the bagel is allowed to cool for a minute or so before the cream cheese is added on top. The goal is for the bagel to be hot, but for the cream cheese to remain cold. The cream cheese is shmeared on in a semi-thick layer, not thin like butter, and not so much that the texture of the cream cheese will overwhelm the texture of the bagel. I always eat it off of a pink, plastic, heat-warped, sparkly plate that my wife acquired in college. We used to have more colors, but her college roommates slowly melted them all past repair by putting them in the dishwasher.

When I was a child I went through different breakfast phases. There was the cinnamon sugar Poptart with no frosting phases, the no breakfast phases, and the bagel with cream cheese phases. I never had cereal, especially not with milk, and I never, ever had eggs - I still have trouble eating anything except for hard boiled or scrambled eggs. When I was younger and would have a bagel, I would eat it off of one of the hand-made and hand-glazed plates my father had made for my mother. I'm not sure where they are now, but even after their divorce, I think my mother still has them. Back then, Lender's bagels were bought frozen, not refrigerated, so you first had to thaw the bagel, and then toast it. I often remember eating breakfast on top of the table in my parents' kitchen, the table that now resides in my studio, its beautiful metal top covered by my rotary cutting mat.

I still love something about the luxury of an onion bagel, even though it's neither a luxury nor a very good breakfast. It's something I miss horrendously when I have to skip, whether it be from traveling or running out. I'll eat any kind of onion bagel, esepecially the New York-style ones found locally(-ish) at either Ellwood Thompson's or Bodo's, even more so if they're found above and below an egg and cheddar breakfast sandwich. But, somehow, my heart still belongs to Lender's. I think it's the sentimentality of it, because I am nothing if not sentimental. Deeply, to my core.

My dad used to eat bagels for breakfast, too, occasionally. He would toast both halves until it was absolutely burnt, take it out, add cheese between the layers, and smoosh it. One of our favorite activities was to be able to make a "daddy bagel" - if we got to help, we were in charge of the smooshing. He would place the bagel between two pot holders and let us sit on it (the potholders were allegedly there to keep butt germs from getting on his bagel)!

Every once in awhile you'll still catch me making a daddy bagel. It usually happens when my wife has forgotten to buy cream cheese or I'm really hungry or I need something that I can carry easily. Havarti or cheddar are my two go-to cheese choices, the choice usually dictated by how much melting I want (I don't eat melted cheese that much). I don't burn mine quite as much, but I still love smooshing it.