Bagel Day

It's the last week of August, and I admit I'm looking for things to write about. As I've mentioned before, in my office we have a weekly bagel breakfast on Wednesday mornings. Staff take turns supplying the grub, and this week it was my turn. (There's a master schedule, and each person ends up feeding everyone else about twice a year.)

But one can't just get some bagels and be done with it. Additional forms of sustenance are required. Naturally, there needs to be cream cheese. There also needs to be some sort of fruit, for the appearance of healthiness. (We publish health newsletters, after all.) And there's a certain amount of what I guess I'd call "light peer pressure" to bring other things that are tasty and interesting. There usually ends up being at least one sort of baked good, and some other snacky stuff: possibly some type of nuts, or maybe some candy, or dried fruit, or trail mix, or yogurt pretzels, etc. There are at least a couple of people I work with who like to bring something homemade. Good for them.

If I drove to work, I would probably just leave my house a little early and stop at a supermarket along the way. Since I don't have that option, I've found that it helps to plan out my bagel day strategy ahead of time. First I made a list of everything I wanted to get. Then, on Monday evening the Mrs. and I went to the grocery store, where I picked up a coffee cake and some peanuts. Can't buy baked goods too far ahead of time, but a day doesn't make much difference.

Yesterday afternoon, I walked over to the Stop & Shop near our office and bought fruit (grapes and strawberries), beverages (cranberry juice and Newman's Own limeade, which has proved popular at other recent bagel days), two kinds of cream cheese (plain and chive), and a bag of dark chocolate peanut M&Ms. That took about fifteen minutes. I deposited all of this in our office refrigerator, so all I had to carry with me this morning was the peanuts and coffee cake.

(Speaking of carrying, I'd gotten about six steps off my front porch on the way to the bus stop when one of the handles ripped off the Trader Joe's bag I was using to carry the coffee cake and peanuts. Not helpful. And it wasn't even heavy, so it must have had insufficient glue.)

Next, where to get the bagels? Obviously, they have to be fresh (otherwise what's the point?), so they really should be purchased on the way into the office. In my opinion, the best bagels that I can pick up easily on my way into work are from Finagle A Bagel. (If I lived in Brookline, I'd probably go to Kupel's, but from my current commute that would be seriously out of my way.) There's a Finagle right on Boylston St., across from Copley Square. I can walk up Clarendon St. from Back Bay station and be there in a couple of minutes.

Since I've done this a few times now, I go so far as to prepare a list of how many of each kind of bagel I want and hand it to the cashier, who hands it to the order packer. It seems that they appreciate this, as opposed to the people who stand there staring at the bins of fresh bagels going, "Um... two plain... um... two sesame..." while everyone waiting in line is sighing and tapping their feet. (This place is pretty busy in the mornings, and it's small; today the line went right out the door onto the sidewalk.)

Bag of bagels in one hand, bag missing a handle in the other, I scurried across Boylston and diagonally across Copley Square to the 39 bus stop across from the Copley Plaza hotel. A bus pulled up just as I got there, which was nice. Once I was on the bus, I consolidated everything into one bag, and made it to work about ten minutes later. I got out some trays and bowls from the kitchen, arranged everything on the conference room table, and then it was time to eat.

The coffee cake was a hit, as such things usually are; by the time we were finished, it was completely gone. There were only a few strawberries left, and no grapes. There are usually a few extra bagels, because not everyone eats a bagel, and not everyone who does eats a whole one. But these are often gone by lunchtime. Anything else left gets nibbled away as well. In all, it went fine. It would be easier to transport everything with a car, but it's not that big a deal.

Hopefully, no one will ever decide to have their bagel day catered.