No Reason to Ever Come Back to New York

Okay, that's an exaggeration. I'm sure I will be back to visit New York as frequently as my schedule and budget allows.

I have often joked with friends and acquaintances that some morning in Portland undoubtedly I will wake up and say, "I need a bagel!" and hop on jetBlue and fly back to Manhattan. Of course, they have bagels in Portland. Blueberry bagels and strawberry bagels and apple cinnamon bagels and all manner of heretical, unorthodox bagels. (I may be in favor of openly gay bishops, but I am conservative enough that I am opposed to non-traditional bagel flavors. It's just wrong, folks, and if you don't understand why, there's something wrong with you, too.) But it's not just the questionable new flavors, it's the consistency. Maybe it's New York's godawful tap water, or the pollution in the air, or some ontological mystery, but New York bagels are just better. They're definitive. In Portland, any dinner roll with a hole in it can be called a "bagel."

And so imagine my joy when today during confirmation class, one of my table mates passed me an article he'd cut out from The New York Times about Portland. It turns out H&H bagels are available at Mother's Bistro on Stark Street.

Oy, it's a mitzvah!