I’m posting this here because facebook wouldn’t let me post the whole long thing.

Thanks for coming and taking all my stuff! Well, not all of it, but a goodly chunk of it. As a requested, here is my Great Grandpa Abe’s bagel recipe.

• 2 pkg yeast
• 2 cups warm potato water (boil a potato in water and eat it for dinner the night before or for breakfast, but don’t leave the - water on the stove all night as it will get fuzzzunky.)
• 4 eggs
• 1 tbsp salt
• 1 tbsp malt aka barley syrup (or sugar if you must) (at most health food stores)
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil (use decent quality, because you can taste it)

• Approximately 8 cups flour (you must sift the flour: a sieve is easy and fast) (On a damp day you will need more flour)

• 2 egg yolks beaten with 2 tbsp water (I make this one egg at a time, because it gets gooey if it sits on the counter between baking batches)

• Everythings for the tops: sesame seeds, poppy seeds, minced or dried garlic flakes, onion flakes, kosher salt, etc.

Soften yeast in 1/2 cup of potato water (heated to 100 degrees if leftover from the night before).
Beat eggs in a large bowl. Blend in softened yeast, rest of potato water, salt, malt syrup, oil, 2 cups flour.
Stir in rest of flour to make a soft dough.

Knead on a lightly floured board for 10 minutes, adding a little flour to make a firm, but not stiff dough. (I usually leave it a little sticky, and flour only the outside to keep it from sticking to my table.) If you add too much flour, the bagels will be dry and tough inside. Place dough in a greased bowl, cover with a clean dishtowel, and let rise in a warm place until doubled.

Punch down, and knead the dough until it’s smooth and not much more. Again, too much flour and maybe too much kneading makes the bagels tough. (I don’t remember what Grandpa said specifically, but I vaguely remember him cautioning against too much kneading with a dismissive hand wave, as per usual.)

While you form the bagels, bring enough water (dutch oven size pan) to a rolling boil with 1/3 of a cup of malt syrup. (”Enough water” was actually part of Grandpa’s instructions.) The malt syrup seems to make the skins more glossy and nice. Again, sugar is ok, but after using malt syrup today, I’m sold on Grandpa’s method.

This is the part that is more about practice and personal preference than instruction, but I’ll try. Divide the dough into small pieces. My recipe says 32 pieces, but that seems like way too few. I like small bagels for the best ratio of soft innards to crusty outside, and I think we got about 60 or 70 out of the batch today. I think I make my ropes of dough about 4 or 5 inches long. Form each rope into a loop, and don’t just pinch the ends together, they have to be worked together so they’re really one unbroken ring. Otherwise, they’ll come apart in the boil. Let them rise about 10 minutes before boiling, no longer. We learned today that you have to boil them right after forming them, or they over-rise and then get really soggy and gross in the boil.

When you have a rolling boil, drop (gently, no splashing) your bagels into the water. Only put enough bagels in each boiling batch to cover about 2/3 of the water’s surface. They expand in the water, so best to put fewer in than crowd them. If you crowd the bagels (Grandpa’s dismissive hand again), they won’t cook properly and they’ll be doughy and wet inside. After they’ve boiled for 2 minutes, flip them and boil the other side for 3 minutes. This step is something you learn by doing: you are cooking the bagels at this step until they are more firm. I touch the tops in the water to feel when they’re done, but you may develop a better method for you. I ruin plenty of bagels this way, but they always get eaten anyway.

Remove the bagels with slotted spoon to a greased baking sheet. Brush the tops with egg wash, and sprinkle your seeds, salt, garlic, etc on top.

Boil enough bagels to fill a cookie sheet. Bake at 425 for 20 minutes.

While you’re baking one sheet, boil the next batch, and so on, making sure not to let them rise too long.

Gorge yourself on bagel-y goodness and lay on the floor patting your distended belly. A good bagel doesn’t need to be toasted.

Of course, call me with questions.

We’re moving!

Our new apartment is in a coop building with a ground floor courtyard.
The owners are thrilled that I compost, are happy to let me to lead the composting effort for the building, and are letting me have at the yard to do what I want. They may even pitch in for plants and let me do flowers out front. I think petunias are the best, don’t you?

O happy day!

I’ll do a soil test to make sure 100 years of lead paint haven’t ruined the soil too badly, but I have high hopes, given the 2 miles we’re putting between us and the Gowanus. It’s at the top of the Prospect hill, so nothing’s been rolling down on it for a hundred or more years like the old spot. I will post photos at the beginning of April.

In the meantime, it’s a great time to get your soil tested, and CUNY is now doing it for cheap in the 5 boroughs. I’m pretty sure that students and scientists are using the data for research, which is always nice. Also, their turnaround time is only 2 weeks.

In other news, Wednesday is St. Patty’s Day, which as we know from last year, is Pea Planting Day. I can say with certainty that it was effective to plant that early. I’m gonna put my peas in a little late because of the move, but if you can, plant early. My peas were in containers, and even with a pretty heavy snow after sowing, they were bountiful early.

If urban gardening interests you, check out a video of Leslie’s garden in Braddock, PA. She’s across the street from a steel mill, and has done amazing things designing her garden with Permaculture principles to maximize water retention, etc.