Every Day Is Special: bagel

Showing posts with label bagel. Show all posts

July 26 – Aunts and Uncles and Bagels Day

Posted on July 26, 2017

Today is Aunts and Uncles Day in the United States and some other countries.

It is also the 32nd annual Bagelfest in Mattoon, Illinois, home of what is claimed to be the world's largest bagel factory:

Aunts, uncles, and bagels can all be very important parts of life!!!

(1) Aunts and uncles can be as important as grandparents! They have fewer of the cares and worries of parenthood toward their nieces and nephews, and yet they are younger and probably stronger and more vigorous than grandparents. Great combo for fun, right?

Naturally, some kids don't have aunts and uncles who are close, geographically or emotionally, and some kids don't have uncles or aunts at all. As a matter of fact, I've talked to some European people who do not have brothers or sisters, aunts or uncles or cousins, and - shocking to me in the more expansive U.S. - they don't even KNOW ANYONE who has brothers or sisters, aunts or uncles or cousins!

But other kids are lucky enough to have aunts who take them on outings, uncles who roughhouse with them, aunts who play sports with them, and uncles who spoil their appetites with ice cream cones.

Today, on Aunts and Uncles Day, call your aunts and uncles, send cards to your nieces and nephews, or make a plan for the next get-together!

(2) Bagels are so delicious! These dense ring-shaped rolls are made by boiling dough and then baking it. Yummm...chewy and delicious. Whether you prefer you bagels plain or seeded, sweet or savory, covered with peanut butter or butter or cream cheese or chicken salad or avocado...I'm sure you agree: Bagels deserve a BagelFest!

On this date in 1986, Murray Lender, owner of Lender Bagels, threw a free bagel breakfast in the factory town of Mattoon, Illinois. Since then the breakfast has grown into a five-day annual BagelFest, with everything from a parade and a beautiful-baby contest to setting world records!

If you cannot fly to Illinois this week, you could still hold your own BagelFest by eating bagels for breakfast, lunch, and dinner! I myself like a nice cinnamon-raisin bagels with butter to accompany my eggs, at breakfast time. I love a sesame seed bagel with chicken salad at lunch. For dinner, why not cut in half a plain bagel; top it with tomato sauce, Italian spices, and mozzarella cheese; and bake it? Yum, bagel mini-pizzas!

Also on this date:

Figure skater Dorothy Hamill's birthday

Maldives Independence Day

Birthday of rock musician Mick Jagger

Anniversary of scientists' first look at moon rocks

The FBI's birthday

One Voice

New York's statehood anniversary

Plan ahead:

Check out my Pinterest boards for:

And here are my Pinterest boards for:

February 9 – National Pizza AND Bagel Day

Posted on February 9, 2017

When I read that today was National Pizza Day AND National Bagel Day, I remembered that my husband really enjoys an occasional pizza bagel!

Pizza has been around since ancient times. Many, many cultures have created flat breads with toppings, but the word pizza comes (no surprise) from what is now central Italy.

We think of dessert pizzas as being
innovative, but most of the history of the
pizza has been sweet, not savory.

Of course, back in ancient times, there was no tomato sauce or toppings on pizza, because the tomato is a New World food. (Indeed, most pizzas were sweet, not savory.) The world had to wait until the late 1700s before tomato or tomato sauce was used on pizzas.

Who am I kidding? Italy started to enjoy tomato-y pizzas starting in the late 1700s (and immigrants to elsewhere enjoyed pizzas in their Little Italy neighborhoods), but the world had to wait until World War II. The Allied soldiers stationed in Italy loved pizza, and soon pizza began to be enjoyed by almost everyone, almost everywhere. Now pizzerias are the second most common kind of restaurant in America -- beating out Mexican food and hamburger restaurants, at #s 3 and 4, respectively. (The most common kind of restaurant in the U.S. is "varied menu.")

There are loads and loads of variations
of pizza and bagels!

What's your favorite?

Bagels are dense, chewy bread rolls made, like doughnuts, with a hole in the middle. This food got its start in Jewish communities in Eastern Europe; many people say it was invented in Poland. Jewish immigrants fleeing from war and repression took bagels to new lands. But like pizza, bagels were only made and bought and sold and eaten in Jewish communities, for years.

The holes in bagels make them easier to
carry, either on a cord (as in above) or
on rods (as in below).

Also like pizza, bagels began to be popular with everyone after World War II. Nowadays, these rolls -- which are boiled, then baked, unlike most breads -- are especially popular in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

A newly popular breakfast became bagels with lox (salmon that has been brined, that is, cured with salt) and cream cheese. Those who aren't crazy about fish still tend to enjoy bagels with cream cheese.

These days many cities have bagel bakeries, and people can often buy bagels at the grocery store. I have my choice, in most grocery stores, of bagels freshly baked in the store's bakery, or fresh but shipped in from a manufacturer, or frozen.

Bread tends to be very yummy, and pizza and bagels are both, ultimately, special kinds of bread. So delicious!!!

Also on this date: