My madeleine of Proust!

I would like to find a clever introduction for this but there isn't one. I simply love bagels, it's as simple as that.

I ate my first bagel 10 years ago, almost to the day. I worked in America as an au pair, in the state of New Jersey and the family I lived with introduced me to this delicious type of pure doughy goodness.
A big bag of them would be purchased almost every week, my heart would fill with delight whenever I heard the brown paper bag making a delicious entrance. I never learnt the name of the bakery they came from and sadly never enjoyed a better bagel since. New York could not compete with the bagel master of New Jersey!

I would have one for breakfast, toasted with some Welch's jelly, one for lunch with some cream cheese or just one whenever the carbohydrate monster dictated me! I am partial to a plain bagel however and thus have no time for the sesame or poppy seeds, which leave your teeth looking a mess, or the onion bagel which, in my opinion, severely restricts your choice of toppings.

When I left America, I learnt to live without the delicious foods the country had to offer, devil dogs, giant pizzas, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches...Yet, the souvenir of the bagel lingered. I tried other bagels in the UK but they left me disappointed. The supermarket ones are so tough, they could be used in the construction industry as some sort of insulation device and the ones I made were lacking something as I am no baker and surely no bagel master.
All changed when I moved to London and discovered Brick Lane in East London, home of the best bagels London has to offer. I visit the bakery every weekend religiously, get half a dozen bagels and devour one of them on the spot as I walk back to the tube station.

I love them because they taste great but also because they remind me of a certain episode in my life. Indeed, a particular time when I was a 21 year old girl in a foreign country all by myself, a time when I was discovering a new culture, making new friends, getting to grips with looking after 2 teenage girls, a time when I spent all my weekends in New York City, me, a country girl who had never even been on a family holiday, a time when I met my future husband and finally a time when more of the people I loved walked this earth.
It's more than just a circular bread with a hole in the middle, it's a bite of my life. I think Marcel Proust would agree!

While I can't show you my New Jersey bagels, check out some of my London ones.