Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

I come from Brooklyn, where one of my fondest childhood memories is the daily walk I took with my father and uncle to the neighborhood bagel bakery (in Boro Park).

I now live in California, after living 20 years in Massachusetts. I have never been able to find a Brooklyn-style bagel, and I wonder if they still exist.

My childhood bagels were hard and chewy, there was no way to make a sandwich from them. I ate them radially, schmearing the exposed end with cream cheese and eating my way around.

At the company cafeteria today, everyone was talking about bagels, and all but one person laughed at me for eating bagels the way I did. The one person who concurred with me, was a Bulgarian. He was a true Bagel maven.