Authenticity

As a young teen I moved from the west side of New York City to a small town in northern Vermont in the middle of the winter. Outside there was a lot of snow accompanied by frigid temperatures. Inside my unfamiliar high school, radiators hissed and moaned spewing too much heat emphasizing the smells of cow manure and bad cafeteria food.

There was one place to eat out in the center of the town with the unappetizing name of Dino's. One Saturday, shortly after moving, I trudged through the snow to meet my mother and younger sister, who were coming from my sister's girl scout meeting to meet me for lunch at Dino's. I sat on a spinning stool at the counter facing the window before they arrived and sipped on a Coke. In the reflection of the frosty window I spotted a tall heavy set woman with a black beehive hairdo undisturbed by a hat. She faced me until I slowly turned on my stool and she looked directly at me.

“Hi,” she said as though I was supposed to know who she was but I could not recall seeing her at the school or anyplace else in town even though she did seem familiar. She wore a thin black coat, sheer nylon stockings and black heels looking as though she had traveled through a tunnel from her car into Dino's.

“Are you OK here?” She wore gold clip-ons.

I was dumb founded by the simultaneous feeling that she was out of place yet familiar.

“How was the move for you?”

I found my voice and said, “The drive was long. I cried a little. Why do you want to know?” Her strange familiarity nagged at me.

“I just want to make sure everything is OK now. It will be an adjustment for you, less for your sister and brother, but it's just part of your journey. You will eventually appreciate the move.”

I then became distracted by the familiar faces of my mother and sister opening the door. We ordered oily pizza and something called a grinder. The pizza crust was a large grease absorbing English muffin textured piece of dough topped with suspicious cheese. The grinder was a heated up submarine sandwich on a roll that seemed too soft and store bought. After the Dino's experience, the three of us made our own pizza crust and french bread baked in aluminum foil boats with a pan of water in the oven creating a hard chewy crust. We also tried baking other types of bread with whole wheat flour, molasses or corn flour in response to the lack of bakeries. We made beautiful Challah's infused with honey and shiny with egg wash. Bread baking became a passion that we shared with family and friends who said we should open a bakery. We never did.

During a break from college I went with my family to the first authentic Vermont bagel bakery in Burlington, Vermont. The owner, it was rumored, was descended from many generations of Brooklyn bagel bakers. My mother, sister and I had only tried once to follow a recipe for homemade bagels. We dropped circles of dough into boiling water then baked the imperfect circles that came out dense enough to dislodge a wire on my braces. After that we waited for friends to bring us authentic bagel care packages from New York.

Dad had a big smile on his face when we walked into the bagel bakery because it smelled real. The smile lasted through one poppy seed and one onion bagel with cream cheese and lox. The menu actually said lox instead of smoked salmon. After our meal, they went shopping in downtown Burlington while I stayed to nurse a cup of coffee and write a letter to a friend in college. Remembering our move to Vermont and how we got inspired to bake bread by eating at Dino's, I looked up at the glass wall and got a chill as I pictured the out of place yet familiar woman with the black beehive hairdo who I never saw again yet would think of from time to time. I did not recall being afraid of her at the time yet I didn't know what I would do if I ran into her again just because she craved authentic bagels.

Someone approached the table just as I was picturing the black beehive hairdo, long black coat and impractical high heals. I stared at my coffee longing to know more yet feeling a little frightened.

“How was your meal,” said a voice too deep to belong to a woman.

I looked up to see a short twenty something man with brown hair and a mustache.

“Good.”

“That's all you can say. Good.”

He had unusually large eyes. Annoyingly, I continued to think of Dino's restaurant with its spongy pizza, store bought rolls and the woman who wanted to know if I was OK.

“Have you ever had a real bagel?”

“Yes, we moved to Vermont from New York City when I was fourteen.”

“Do you like real bagels.”

“Yes. I love them especially with real cream cheese and real lox.”

“OK so...”

“Yes. These are real bagels because they are soft on the inside, chewy on the outside and they have a certain flavor that's different from other kinds of bread.”

“Now let me get you a bialy.” He went behind the counter then returned with something behind his back.

“Close your eyes and take a bite of this without cream cheese or butter or anything.”

He seemed so excited that I had no choice but to indulge his desire. I closed my eyes.  He put the plate in front of me.

“It's an oniony cross between a bagel and English muffin but there's something more.”

“You can taste the blackened hand built stone oven direct from Bialystock Poland.”

“Are you serious.”

“No, but we do have a stone oven. I'll show you.”

As I followed him, I remembered awkwardly dropping the dough circles in boiling water and waiting for something magical to happen before baking.

He invited me for lunch every day that week, each time bringing out a new delicacy he was proud to sell to the hungry customers. We feasted on bagels and bialys with olive cream cheese, scallion cream cheese and even tuna fish salad during a time when bagel sandwiches were more of a concept than a reality. The possibilities seemed endless. When he made a special batch of minestrone soup just for me, I could tell that he was passionate about cooking. I complimented him on everything, found out his name was Ethan and that he was adopted.

“I thought you were descended from Brooklyn bagel bakers.”

“That rumor got started after I told someone that I learned bagel baking in Brooklyn where I grew up in an Italian family.”

“The minestrone.”

“Yes. My mother was not a good cook except that she could make minestrone.”

“Why were you adopted?”

“My parents were killed in a car accident when I was two and home with the baby sitter.”

Ethan's eyes looked large and I said I was sorry.

“No problem,” he said. “I don't even remember them although I do have a picture.”

Out of his wallet he pulled a picture of a couple. The man had a large mustache and big eyes just like Ethan. The woman had a pretty face and black hair in a bee hive accented by gold clip-ons.