MY BAGEL DIET
My diet was sesame and poppy seed bagels. I thought it was a smart way to lose weight. Bialy’s Bagels in University Heights was my go-to place. My back-up was Amster’s at Cedar Center. The counter woman at Amster’s, Marilyn Weiss, volunteered for school levies and racial integration projects, and did a ton of schlep work at my shul. (She died in 2000 and Amster’s closed a few years later.)
I also shopped at Better, as in “Better Bagel,” on Taylor Road. The owners were New Yorkers who wore yarmulkes and Brooklyn Dodgers shirts. I figured they knew bagels. They didn’t. Their bagels were too doughy and not crispy enough on the outside. Better Bagel eventually changed its name to Brooklyn Bagel. No better.
I never buy bagels now. (My bagel diet didn’t work.) I hear Cleveland Bagel is pretty good. I have a friend who swears by Bruegger’s. Pathetic. I’d go back to Bialy’s if I ever go back.
2 comments
Thank you for starting my morning with nostalgia. Living close enough to REAL Bagel shoppes really spoiled us. Happy to read your memories. Happier to hear your music.
Marilyn Weiss was a treasure for anything she decided to volunteer for. Lillian didn’t think Rabbi Hecht appreciated her sufficiently, based on what he said one time after she worked to get Beth Am ready for a Hts. Thanksgiving Service. The bagels of the bagel places are much better than the commercial ones but don’t tend to last as well. Of course, I recall when bagels were pretty much associated with Jewish (except maybe in NYC) and they were, by today’s standards, all smallish and only came in six varieties or so (plain, pumpernickel, onion, garlic, poppy seed, sesame seed). The first “non-Jewish” bagel I got was at a German bakery in German Village in Columbus in 1974. It enlightened me. “Bagel places,” with a wider variety than was common for generations, appeared in Rochester a little before Cleveland – in ’74 or ’75 (e.g. generic Wegman’s in Pittsford) but soon after we got our chains. Fortunately we still have Bruegger’s and Einstein. Bialy’s is a shadow of what it was, when lines used to go outside the building many an evening.
Maybe the bagels haven’t changed much but the hours and popularity sure have!
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