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Bagels are under siege, and if you need proof, I offer a single word: Airy. Bagels, which have always been synonymous with chewy, have recently been described — approvingly — as airy on both coasts and in Canada. Also, fluffy.

NYC bagel mavens are boiling mad and ready to throw down some dough. The cause of their outrage? A recent New York Times article claiming that “the best bagels are in California.” “I am personally peeved. If California wants to go head-to-head with me, I am ready,” said Brooklyn-raised bagel-man Scot Rossillo, 55, owner of Park Slope’s the Bagel Store. Rossillo says the Big Apple’s bagel superiority goes beyond New York’s famously soft water, which weakens gluten and increases chewiness.

You know, the Jewish American breakfast staple with a slice right down the middle, often topped with lox and cream cheese. Yum! But wait...what is...THIS: A style of slicing bagels as you would a loaf of bread — aka bread-sliced — has caused OUTRAGE among a lot of people this week. (Ok, so not real outrage, but, like, bread outrage.) The drama all started when Alek Krautmann, a St. Louis native and employee of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, tweeted a photo Monday of a box of Panera bagels looking like they’d gone through a paper shredder. “Today I...

Doubtless some people, when informed that there is now such a thing as a "cragel," will think, "OMG, no. Just no," while others will jump with joy at the prospect of maybe, possibly getting to wait in the rain for three hours for something. And they're both wrong. The cragel is imminent, it is delicious and it's not a day-old gimmick flown across the country. It's in the Richmond, at House of Bagels. See Also: CDXX, a Burger Joint in the Bayview, With a Croughnut! They've been working on a gluten-free objet d'manger for eight years, and an organic bagel...

Passengers claimed man had suspicious package in the overhead compartmentA Florida professor was arrested and removed from a plane Monday after his fellow passengers alerted crew members they thought he had a suspicious package in the overhead compartment. That "suspicious package" turned out to be keys, a bagel with cream cheese and a hat. Ognjen Milatovic, 35, was flying from Boston to Washington D.C. on US Airways when he was escorted off the plane for disorderly conduct following the incident. Monday's incident is another example of other passengers essentially becoming the authority on terrorist activity on planes. Recently, passenger complaints...

What's the tax on a bagel? It depends how you slice it—or in the case of New York, if you slice it. State tax officials, under orders from cash-strapped Albany to ramp up their audit and compliance efforts, have begun to enforce one of the more obscure distinctions within the state's sales tax law. In New York, the sale of whole bagels isn't subject to sales tax. But the tax does apply to "sliced or prepared bagels (with cream cheese or other toppings)," according to the state Department of Taxation and Finance. And if the bagel is eaten in the...

PITTSBURGH -- A Pittsburgh woman found guilty of stabbing her live-in boyfriend during an argument over a cold, uneaten bagel was sentenced Monday to 5 to 10 years in prison. Patrice Rogers was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the Feb. 25 killing of Geno Crenshaw on Kingsboro Street in the city's Mount Washington neighborhood. (Watch The Channel 4 Action News Report From Feb. 25) Police said the argument between Rogers, 23, and Crenshaw, 30, began when she didn't eat a bagel he had bought her because it was cold.

AP, link only

About 15 tons of it on a recent day, imported from China, neatly pressed into mats and ready to ship to farmers and nursery growers who swear by the horticultural benefits of Blacker's hairy wares. The mats stored in southern Miami-Dade County are part of a world marketplace for human hair. Uses range from the obvious, such as false eyelashes and wigs, to the more obscure: it's a common raw-material source for l-cysteine, an amino acid frequently used in baked goods such as pizza dough and bagels

The New York Times May 29, 2006 METROPOLITAN DIARY Dear Diary: The Everything bagel has always made me smile. It combines seasonings from sesame, garlic, poppyseed, onion and salt bagels -- and it's really delicious. In New York City, it makes perfect sense to order "Everything with nothing" -- an Everything bagel, plain, without butter or cream cheese. One morning this month, a mother and her boy were placing a breakfast order at the Market Cafe in Citigroup Center. The store was busy and ready to get busier, with fresh sandwiches, pizzas, fruit, rolls and salads stocked behind the counter....

PARIS (Reuters) - Why have French baguettes become more expensive? Because of France's shorter work week, French Finance Minister Thierry Breton said on Tuesday. ADVERTISEMENT Breton, who has been a vocal critic of France's 35-hour work week, said the price of a baguette had risen by 23 percent over the past five years, while the price of German bread had fallen by 3 percent over the same period. "The cost of the 35-hour week is included in the rise of the price of a baguette since 2001, and this has been hidden too much from the French," Breton told L'Express...

Was Life Better When Bagels Were Smaller? By ED LEVINE ARIS has its baguettes and Dublin its soda bread. San Francisco trades heavily in sourdough, while New Orleans greets each morning with beignets. It wouldn't be Philadelphia without soft pretzels and it couldn't be Bonn without pumpernickel. But no city, perhaps in the history of the world, is so closely identified with a breadstuff as New York is with the bagel. The bagel is to a Sunday in Manhattan as the mint julep is to Louisville, Ky., on the first Saturday in May — an indispensable accompaniment to ritual,...