I bought an everything bagel for the first time in my life today. I could never understand these things. It always seemed like too much to put on a bagel. Too much… responsibility. Too many competing flavors. How can we as a society be so gluttonous as to request everything on our bagels? I would never presume that such a request could even be filled. Everything? Like.. with everything on it? Are you nuts? But there I was this morning, hungry and tired, ordering a toasted everything bagel with butter. What stunned me most was not that I didn’t get a muffin instead. It was that the lady behind the counter didn’t act bewildered by my order. Instead, she unthinkingly went about toasting the thing. Evidently, she’s been asked for everything before.
And you know what? This is not a tale of someone who had been missing out on something wonderful. No. I didn’t like my everything bagel. For starters, I was expecting everything on it. Much to my chagrin, all this thing had were sesame seeds, poppy seeds, salt, and garlic. When I order an everything bagel, that is what I expect. Furthermore, when you toast these things, the garlic gets burnt. So I’m eating a toasted “some things” bagel, with burned bits of garlic on it. Apparently, I hadn’t been missing much. It didn’t taste all that good. My reservations hadn’t been unfounded… and that made me feel good.
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A few years ago I was waiting tables in Short Hills, New Jersey. One afternoon I had the pleasure of serving Phil Rizzuto and his wife Cora. He lived in the area and I’d heard he’d come in before. All he wanted was a burger and ice cream. He explained to me that he loved our burgers. And prepared me way in advance that he’d be asking for the ice cream. I managed to get over being star struck long enough to tell him I was Italian and he asked where my family was from. We talked about it for a few moments, but as always in those situations, I had nothing good to say and managed to run and hide. He loved the hamburger and ice cream. When he asked for seconds on the ice cream I laughed and told him it was on the house. He was a handsome fella and Cora was very beautiful. A real gentleman.