My dad used to make me this one amazing dish, the kind I ate so regularly that I still associate it with my childhood. When I come across it. Which is never.
The steps in making this meal, which were so extraordinarily complicated I let him do it even when I had reached both adolescence and the age at which one should have some cooking skills (then again, I've made it another decade and a half without acquiring those, so...), were the following.
1. Lightly toast a blueberry bagel.
2. Butter the bagel. Add chunks of cheddar cheese and turkey, thinly sliced.
3. Pop into microwave for just enough time for the cheese to melt.
4. Serve to happy, and increasingly-chubby, daughter.
Before you say ewww, remember: Fruit and turkey go together. (Cranberry sauce, anyone?) Cheddar and turkey go together. Cheddar and fruit go together. Therefore, fruit, cheddar and turkey go together. (Also, kids are weird).
Needless to say, I haven't had one of these in years. (Well. Except for when I was at my dad's house for Christmas. So.)
But I recently came across the following sign at The Perfect Bun's new bakery:
Bagels, in my East Coast opinion, are always worth getting excited about. Especially since they're just flour, sugar, salt, oil, and yeast. Or something. I mean, how could something so great come out of so few ingredients?
But if you live abroad, then you know that bagels (like Twizzlers, and Golden Grahams) are really worth getting excited about. They just don't do 'em here like they do back home. Or, really, at all.
Needless to say, I marched in and purchased my bagel.
€1.50 and a half an hour later, I was still so excited about this that I took one (okay, several) bagel portraits. (Yeah, okay, maybe I was pretty excited about my new macro lens, too).
Looking a little introspective, but maybe it's hard not to be turned inward. For a bagel.
Its fresh face thus captured, I put my bagel in the toaster. Or, really, panini press, but it's almost the same.
Then I realized there wasn't anything I could really do with my bagel. I didn't have cream cheese. Or lox. Or much at all, since my fridge usually looks something like this:
That's on a good day. And I have a roommate.
I did, however, have sliced turkey. And a rhubarb jam I'd brought back from visiting my grandparents at the Chesapeake. Ordinarily, I'd also have brie tucked away somewhere. Not today.
Still, my turkey and jam bagel was actually pretty good. If you're looking to approximate something weird to begin with. It did not, however, come anywhere close to my father's specialty.
Nota bene: The bagel, I have to say, was actually pretty darn good. And was indeed fresh.
