When I was in high school I took one of those silly class trips to Costa Rica. Oh you know what I'm talking about: one of those trips that companies market to parents and teachers as great learning experiences for the young Spanish language student, but are in fact tidy commercial packages that involve schlepping said students from tourist trap to tourist trap, putting them up in 2 and a half star hotels designed for such tourists, and feeding them (awful) American friendly food. While the country was absolutely beautiful, I didn't learn a lick of Spanish and worst of all, the food was atrocious.
In fact, what I remember most from the trip is the day that my friends and I took a long walk down the road from our hotel and discovered a little cafe-again, obviously targeted towards the American tourist-and to our delight found that the restaurant served bagels. After having eaten horrible Costa-merican food (eg. lasagna layered with cheese and papaya sauce) for several days, we were delighted. The bagels were still awful but I guess the big ball of dough with a hole in its center was enough to please us at the time.
I was reminded of this story today. This morning I took a little spill off of my bike, and as I sat feeling sorry for myself I began to develop cravings for a bagel--a bagel and cream cheese are my comfort food. But alas, to my knowledge, there is not a good bagel option in the triangle area. And so I've decided: I'm making it my personal goal to find a descent Piedmont, NC bagel. I know, we don't have the NYC water, but whatever, despite this fact it seems like it should be possible to bake a descent bagel.
Anyone have suggestions for places to try?
