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I think the maple syrup and walnuts will make this often dry bread into a delicious addition to Thanksgiving dinner. I'm going to give it a try!

I also love the pastry snails made from leftover dough, butter, sugar and cinnamon. I like crust, but not the bottom soggy crust. Usually pick around it and leave it behind. Lately I've been making little tarts and putting just a dab of whatever homemade jam or jelly is around. I use less sugar so the fruit flavor is more pronounced. Good way to clean the refrigerator out of too many jars with just a dab in the bottom. I've also used guava paste and quince paste with good results. I have silicone tart pans and a tart tamper gadget that takes the work out of pressing the dough in place. It really works! Can't live without it now. Here is my dough recipe. It exactly fits two 12 cup tart pans and I whip it up in the food processor. A fast sugar pastry fix!
JAM TARTS
6 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg yolk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup unbleached flour
1/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
Cream butter and sugar. Add yolk and vanilla. Mix well.
Add flours and salt. Mix just to combine.
Pinch off about a tablespoon of dough, roll gently into a ball and press into tart mold.
Fill with a teaspoon of jam or jelly.
Bake at 350 for 9 to 11 minutes. The edges should be very lightly golden.
Cool on rack. Make a pot of tea and try not to devour them all.

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.

This sounds exactly like my Asian family. Everything is "too sweet! too sweet!" We also scrape most of the frosting off cakes. I'm a savory kind of gal, but my favorite sweet pie is when the fruit filling is a bit tart.

i could never resist fruit pie filling! But, that being said, i used to make little pie crust cut-out cookies for an old boyfriend. He loved them - they were little, flaky bits of goodness that were covered in cinnamon and sugar. Good alone, with milk, or sprinkled over ice cream... mmmmm :)

I think whoever said "maybe crust haters are used to store bought crusts and never had a scratch crust" might be onto something. Well-made scratch crust...OMG, nothing like it. And you KNOW that someone making a scratch crust would not waste such a labor of love on acky Sandra Lee canned filling.

I loooooooove pie crust unplugged, especially hot, with a glass of ice cold (whole) milk. I usually make a two crust recipe even if I just need one for a pie so I can have a special treat.

@PommeDG: Knowing Robyn's mom personally... yeah, this conversations definitely happened.

@PommeDG: Yeah, she was....I talked to her on the phone yesterday afternoon before I wrote this post. (Can't say I have a recording of the conversation, but my coworkers overheard me.) After she told me how much she liked crust and how not into filling she was, I said something like, "Uh mom, people usually like to eat both together," and she she responded with surprise. Not that she doesn't understand that people tend to eat both together, just that her tolerance for sweetness must be so low that she's surprised most people enjoy the fillings, or something like that.

charging extra for toasting is insane.
but more important is that a toasted bagel should not be shmeared until it is room temperature cream chees should never be melted it is just too gross
also the biggest pet peeve is the fact that the jokers behind the counter put the butter or crean cheese on one side only and then close the bagel and cut it
everybody should know that it does not taste the same as being spread on both sides.
to alweays get it done i have to demand it mostly at murray's
gosh this old fart hates the way bagels have gone downhill
but in flatbush in the 50s and 60s the bagel shop just sold the bagels
you had to go to appetizing stores for everything else
what do you expect from a country where dunkin donuts are the biggest sellers of bagels.
go to maple glen bagels in fair lawn new jersey for the best bagel and lox sandwich in the world
lox from acme on a non toasted flagel with scallion cream chees and very thin red onions and the kicker is hot peppers sliced very thin
sheer bilss
go late morning eat have a cup of coffeeand then walk a few feet to johnny and hanges for the best texas weiners and slaw/sweet relish wash it down with a boylan's birch beer

oh the humanity and sheer joy

As a business owner, I understand that you have to do what you have to do to make a living these days. With that said I find it quite unconscionable to charge to toast your bagel... Guess you could just take your own blowtorch with you in the morning and get your toast on for free...

I'm a fan of Lenny's sandwiches, but this is definitely not cool. I totally agree with others above, it really doesn't take that much time to toast a bagel and there's nothing keeping them from helping the next customer. They do that anyway when they're making sandwiches. Goodness. I definitely won't be buying a bagel at Lenny's anytime soon.

The current daughter of Russ and Daughters has been recorded as saying that no fresh bagel should ever be toasted: toasting is only for day-old bagels.

But that's not he point. The point is, if you ask for a toasted bagel, should there be a charge for it? And the answer, unequivocally, is NO. That is offensive to the point of insanity.