End of week 12. When I started I wasn’t expecting to write 20 of these posts. It doesn’t look like it’s going to end any time soon.
Chatting with a friend yesterday, we agreed that one of the best things you can do these days is cancelling a zoom meeting at the last moment. This used to annoy me to no end, but nowadays it’s bliss!
Have you ever tried an onion bagel with a fried egg?
It must have been around 10 years ago, in Don Winslow’s novel The Winter of Frankie Machine the main character describes to great detail his favourite breakfast: an onion bagel with a fried egg.
Wow…
I immediately though that it was a great idea, but at the time I was in Italy and had zero access to any type of bagel, let alone onion ones. Luckily in the period I was spending a lot of time on the West Coast. On my next trip I couldn’t think about anything else for the whole flight, as soon as I landed I dropped my stuff in my studio apartment in San Francisco, ran out and bought a bag of bagels, a carton of eggs and some butter.
My life has never been the same.
Since then I have eaten hundreds of bagels. After moving to the UK I found out about “proper” bagels from North London bakeries. Proper onion bagels make everything in your bags smell like onions for a week, but when they are fresh and still crunchy nothing beats them.
I tried different types of bagels, different eggs, tried them with smoked salmon or bacon, learned to keep my egg runny (unlike Frankie I eat them right away in a plate, not later a linen napkin).
Now I’m listening to Broken, Don Winslow’s latest collection of stories (narrated by Ray Porter, one of my favourite), and sure enough at some point one of the characters asks “have you ever tried an onion bagel with a fried egg?”.
I had to drop everything!
Stay safe, be nice, and keep in touch.
