Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

My vote for Fairmount, the best bagel bakery in the world.

Important advice for bagel smugglers: NEVER put hot Fairmount bagels in those plastic bags. Keep them in paper bags until they cool and then transfer to plastic. If you do put hot bagels in plastic, PLEASE do not blog about it. Spare me the anguish.

In a wood-fired brick oven, sesame comes out best, natch. But be sure to try kimmel (caraway seed), too. Never found a kimmel bagel in New York. Only place outside of Montreal I've seen one is at Happening Bagel, the best bagel bakery in London. That's not saying much: I don't even mind much if you put a hot Happening bagel in plastic.

I like both, I was so blown away by my first Montreal bagel, that the next was better than the last. I didn't even realize I was eating Canada's best bagels.

St. Viateur gets my vote due to the fact that they also have a Cafe on Mont Royal that sells beers and great food put between two halves of your favourite bagel.

I'm a bigger fan of the Montreal-style bagels than the NYC ones. I dunno, the NYC ones always tasted much more doughy to me.

They're the Ugly Betty of veggies: not too enticing at first, but sexy and dynamic when you get to know them.

I've started slicing them and throwing them into my stir fries and warm salads. I'd also like to work them into an hors d'oeuvres, maybe roasted then skewered with fried chorizo and/or cheese.

I also am a "good" crust junkie. When my mother made pies she always had enough scraps left to make what we kids called piewheels. She would roll out the scraps into a rectangle shape, put a layer of butter then brown sugar and sprinkle with nutmeg & cinammon. It was the rolled up on the longer side, edges pinched and cut into little rolls. These were baked until golden brown & bubbly. I cannot make a pie without a few piewheels to snack on while the pies finish baking. Even friends ask me to make them.

A generation ago, New York bagels were more like these, although never quite as sweet.

I never cared much for brussels sprouts until later in life. They ain't strawberry shortcake but I can tolerate them. I think my palate was tainted by some poorly prepared sprouts in the past because I cooked up some fresh ones with just butter and salt for my wife and they surprisingly good -still not strawberry shortcake. Last Thanksgiving I made a sort of slaw out of brussels sprouts from a recipe in Bon Appetit magazine. They were a hit.

So I guess I'll try a couple of the recipes above and see how they fly. The cheese and bacon gratin sounds good.

CRUSTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!! Yes! Yes! Yes! Flour, butter, sugar, a pinch of salt, lovingly baked together..........H-E-A-V-E-N ON EARTH! Which is why my 3 favorite baked goods have always been plain scones [from Premier Gourmet here in Buffalo, NY-no one makes them better] shortbread cookies, and my piecrust made only with butter. Ya know, my husband will chow down.....no pun intended..... the innards of one of my fruit or pudding pies and leave the crust. He does it with everyone's pie......disgusting!!! However I usually retrieve the fluted edges of his discard to savor as dessert to my now finished piece!

I lurve the toasty taste of a nicely browned pie crust and I truly love nutty flavor of the crimped edge. That said, nothing tastes better than a crisp, well-browned crust with a tart-sweet fruit filling. Boysenberries, anyone?

I was a server a few years ago and I don't think anyone should be bothered by the "do you need change" question, but that being said, there are people out there who do take offense to it.

Another server told me about a good solution that worked for her:

Pick up the check and announce "I'll be right back with your change..." giving the patron the chance to say "Thank You" or "Go ahead and keep it."

I like them blanched, cut in half, and stir-fried with ginger, garlic, and a final seasoning mixture of sherry, soy sauce, corn startch, sugar, salt, and rice wine vinegar, which is a common mixture for stir-fried veggies. If you know how to wok, you know to heat about 1-2 TBLSP of peanut oil until smoking, add the minced ginger and garlic, cook until browned, and then add the blanched and drained brussel sprouts, stir-fry until they soften, and then stir in the final seasoning mixture. Sorry I don't have the measurements with me, but I think it is 1 tsp each of sugar, sherry, vinegar, salt, 1 TBLSP of corn startch and 2 TBLSP of soy sauce. Great dish!

I have ignored fillings before, yes. It is better when you can eat the filling and the crust together but the crust is almost never problematic.

After tax tipping. It's not that much after all.