Bagels

I was so excited. We new clerks had library orientation yesterday, and as at any respectable event in Fargo, we were fed first. Front and center was a basket of bagels from a nearby bagel bakery. Hooray! Salt bagels! They're hard to find sometimes even in D.C., and here were some to start my day:


It's a good thing I asked. Those aren't salt crystals you see on the tops of those bagels – they're sugar crystals. Apparently, there's no kind of baked good that can't be made more like a German dessert here in the Midwest. I sense hundreds of Jewish grandmothers spinning in their graves.

I opted instead for the jalepeño bagel (lower left), which sported cheese and a little grilled vegetables and was virtually a complete meal in itself, and only nominally a bagel. I know, I know, grandmothers would do a similar grave-spin over it. But it was quite tasty. Sacrilicious.