First Crush

 

Ah, mid-September in Potsdam, NY and I was back at college. I am transported back to my college days in my mind as I experience my favorite season of autumn in my favorite place to experience it. But this day I was literally back at college. No, I wasn’t going back to school for a class. I was participating as an aged sorority alumna in the SUNY Potsdam Greek Summit.

 

It was lunch break for the summit, so my friend (and contemporaneous sorority sister) Charlotte and I went home and got Julie (future sorority wannabe) and headed to downtown. We would usually go to The Bagelry, but we knew it would be packed, so we went to a place I hadn’t been before, though Julie of The Project had. Coffee bar by day, wine bar by night, bistro whenever, First Crush is love at first sight.

 

At 32 Market Street, this cute business front is at the intersection with Elm Street. As we settled into the last empty table, Charlotte wondered what the location of this narrow space was at the time of our college tenure. I reminded her that it was quite literally a corner store where one could purchase, magazines, newspapers, cigarettes, sodas and beer, at greatly inflated prices than if you walked your butt further away from downtown. In the wintertime, which can be bitterly cold here in the greater St Lawrence River valley, the distance saved was well worth the higher prices.

 

They have morning, afternoon and evening menu options. Bagels, panini toast, oatmeal, rolls and quiche of special varieties are listed for breakfast. The take-out menu I have from our visit doesn’t include dinner, but I have seen the dinner options on the website. Because I am lazy and writing this four months after the fact, perhaps it’s a recent addition. Or maybe since delivery is only available for lunch hours, they don’t include the dinner on the paper, take home menu.

 

Gourmet salads, wraps, and panini sandwiches are the lunch options. The dessert list, Starbuck’s coffee drinks, and seasonal cold drinks are listed for any time of day. Julie ignored the children’s menu of simple traditional fare and went straight to the sweets! Apparently some of the morning menu is available afternoon because that is where her fruit and yogurt parfait with raspberry and blueberry is offered. She also had the Cookies ‘n Cream from the frozen, non-coffee drinks.

 

I got the Rubini, a reuben sandwich on rye panini bread and Charlotte got the Calabria sandwich of roasted chicken, mozzarella cheese, roasted red peppers, and pesto mayonnaise on rosemary focaccia. Those come with potato chips. Charlotte had water with lemon. A pint of Harpoon India Pale Ale washed down my Rubini most excellently.

 

We had to get back to the afternoon session of the Greek Summit on campus so Julie walked the short couple of blocks back to our house as we headed the opposite direction. It was a very satisfying lunch. I would like to eat here again, maybe even in the evening. Some of the dinner options look tantalizing.

The Bagelry

Oh, The Bagelry! In the heart of downtown Potsdam, NY at 9 Market Street, this choice little specialty sandwich shop is near and dear to my heart. Back in my youth, eh hem, of college in the mid to late 80's, The Bagelry was a shining beacon of gastronomic desire. Alas, it still is. It is worthy of a food pilgrimage across a continent to indulge in a type of food that is simply not available in the USA properly west of the Mississippi River. At least not in my experience, and I have lived and traveled across the continental United States to Hawaii. You simply CANNOT get a properly made bagel outside of the northeast except in a few very rare places, which I did not live in and have only heard about from possibly suspect sources.

When I lived in Wyoming for years, I once had my visiting mother-in-law from the Potsdam area bring me garlic bagels from The Bagelry on the airplane. Though quadruple bagged, the garlic fumes of her carry-on baggage turned heads on the plane. I was sooo grateful for her sacrifice. Even three day old bagels from the Bagelry are a Godsend in the wasteland of Wyoming, where we bought bready "bagels"at the grocery store to serve as hamburger buns.

A perfect, delicate crispness to the exterior coupled with a softly dense interior is just pure culinary artistic mastery. Though I now miss many types of regional cuisine from my travels, there was nothing I missed more than being away from a proper bagel for the last twenty plus years. And now, I am back! And The Bagelry is more than just dear to my heart, it is NEAR again.

As readers of this blog know, I lost my camera. I had planned to take a picture of the lovely bins of seasoned and other variety bagels to post with this. (Edit: my friend took a picture recently and I have now added it, YAY!) There are plain, wheat, sesame, onion, garlic, cinnamon raisin, italian, salt, poppy seed, everything, oh... Then, of course, you have the toppings or sandwich selections to be made. All sorts of tuna melt, breakfast egg, Gobble (deli turkey), Nova Lox (with cream cheese, onion and capers), Fresser (piles of different deli meats with cheese), Reuben, ham-n-cheese, etc. That list is huge and I can't possibly remember them all.

Back in town, we come here often now, almost always just to get a half or baker's dozen to bring home to make up ourselves. This day in early June, Julie and I decided to have breakfast here before school as a treat. Julie had never tried the lox spread (lox mixed with cream cheese) and I had a feeling she would like it, fond as she is of cream cheese and also has a taste for fishy stuff, as do I. We were picking up a half dozen to go (wheat, cin-raisin, garlic) and then got a prepared toasted garlic bagel with lox spread to eat in, split between us. I got onion and tomato on my half and we each got a pickle slice. Nice breakfast... I sent her to school with garlic, salmon and pickle on her breath!

We sat at the outdoor tables on the sidewalk of old downtown. It was a beautiful morning, still cool at the street corner by the Raquette River. There was a light breeze and long shadows of the morning to escape into, but you could tell it was going to get hot this day. When we were finished, I sent Julie to school on her bicycle from there. It is nice to be back in Potsdam!