Local food mega-site the Heavy Table recently stirred up controversy by deeming, after conducting a metro-wide tasting, the Bruegger’s bagel to be the best bagel in the Twin Cities. To have a giant national chain beat out all the local options was understandably upsetting to the many people whose culinary ethos is built around eating as locally as possible. I fall into this camp, when it comes to bagels at least, since I almost always choose Common Roots, for reasons entirely related to the cafe’s proximity to my home (this is a lazy decision, not an ethical one). Still, people are passionate about their bagel purveyors, and if you’d like to avoid the debate altogether your best bet is to make your own.

As with so many things bread-related, the first place to turn is Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. His bagel recipe takes two days: one day to mix and shape the dough, an overnight refrigerated fermentation, and the second day to boil and bake the bagels.

The dough consists of a sponge (1 tsp or .11 oz instant yeast, 4 cups or 18 oz bread flour, 20 oz water) that is mixed and left to rest two hours, until bubbly. To the sponge is added another ½ tsp or .055 oz instant yeast, 3 ¾ cups or 17 oz bread flour, 2 ¾ tsp or .7 oz salt and 1 Tbsp or .5 oz barley malt syrup.

With a total of 35 oz of bread flour hydrated by only 20 oz of water (57% hydration) this is a very thick, heavy dough. In the days before I owned a stand mixer I would labor for ten minutes kneading this dough into shape, and it was tough. A stand mixer with a dough hook makes the kneading easier, but be careful: the thickness of this dough will heavily tax the mixer’s motor and on weaker models could even cause failure. Pay attention to how your mixer is holding up throughout the process.

After the dough is kneaded together — whether by hand or by machine — it should be immediately divided into balls of 3.5 oz each. Rest the balls for 20 minutes under a damp towel, and then comes the fun part: shaping. There are two methods: the dough can be rolled into a thick rope and then doubled back on itself to form a ring, or — and this is my preferred method — you can punch a hole in the center of a dough ball and gradually enlarge the hole around your thumb, rotating the bagel. After each bagel has been formed it should be placed on a parchment-lined sheet pan.

Reinhart recommends letting the formed bagels rest at room temperature for ten to twenty minutes until a bagel dropped in a tub of water floats after ten seconds. When I was last making bagels I completely overlooked this step and the bagels came out fine, so you can do with it what you will. In any case, the bagels should end up covered in plastic wrap and in the refrigerator overnight.

If you’re very industrious and/or intent on having fresh bagels for breakfast, the next morning wake up early, set a large, wide pot of water to boil and heat the oven to 500ºF. When the water is boiling, place as many bagels as will fit comfortably — no crowding! — in the water; the bagels can come straight out of the refrigerator. Boil for one to two minutes on the first side, then flip and boil another one to two minutes on the second side (boil longer for chewier bagels). After both sides have been boiled, place the bagels back on the parchment-lined sheet pan — maybe sprinkled with a little cornmeal in the intervening time to prevent sticking — and top as desired. I sprinkled on sesame seeds or dehydrated onion in this case. Continue boiling and topping all the bagels.

After every bagel is boiled and topped, they are ready to be baked: bake 10 minutes total, rotating the pans halfway through. Allow to cool 15 minutes before eating. They are great fresh and also freeze very well; cutting the bagels in half before freezing facilitates easy future toasting.

Two days making bagels might seem like a lot of time, but it’s not actually that much active, working time. And when compared to the alternative — trying to navigate the minefield of the bagel shop preferences of your friends and loved ones — it’s a fairly easy choice to make. After all, after two days spent making them, nobody will have the nerve to tell you your bagels aren’t the best.

A marathon doesn’t begin at the starting line. It begins with dinner the night before…  a starter,

and a strong finish with carbo-loading-nara and grocery-freezer garlic bread:

The morning of the marathon, at the recommendation of Ed Kohler of “The Deets,” I dropped Tom in downtown Minneapolis and headed to the Rose Garden at Lake Harriet. Here I first saw Tom: mile 7 (viewing point 1). He was looking great:

Does it look trashy? It’s supposed to look trashy. Marathon lit explained that runners are meant to throw their watercups to the ground rather than seek out a trashcan. You can’t handle the trashcan when you’ve got 26.2 miles ahead of you. That’s what volunteers are for.

Next, we met just before Lake Nokomis (viewing point 2) where Tom decided to remove his gloves:

We saw each other again as Tom came off Lake Nokomis (viewing point 3). I have not included a second picture, because you can imagine for yourself all of the people in the picture above, still miraculously on pace and running together—only they have their backs turned toward you and they are running away from rather than to the lake.

I missed Tom on the West River Parkway (viewing point 4), which is, by the way, a lovely spot to watch the marathon. My tardiness was due to a coffee stop at the Caribou on Lake Nokomis Ed kindly mentioned in his spectator’s guide. I don’t even like Caribou, but it was there, I had a coupon, and I had my mug with me for the purpose.

Once I figured I’d missed Tom, I trotted over to the other side of the Lake Street Bridge where I caught Tom on the East River Parkway (viewing point 5), still going strong. Here he is envisioning himself crossing the finish line:

If you’re following along with the spectator’s guide, you’d realize this was the last time I saw Tom before I raced to the finish line (viewing point 6) in my Volkswagen Golf to watch him run up and down to the Capitol in St. Paul.

Just after crossing the finish line (you can watch a video of the very moment with the “results feature” here), I caught up with Tom and was able to hand him the phone so he could speak to his mom and dad and confirm that he was still in fact breathing:

And that was the 2010 Twin Cities Marathon, just nine days after we were married, and one day before Tom turned twenty-six.

The Heavy Table has a great post today which combines all of the secrets from yesterday’s live tweets (follow @heavytable to keep in the loop) with photos to help your imagination along. For those of you who can’t make it, this post will give you a picture of the best-of eats on day one of the fair. If you’re like us, and you’ve LIVED IN MINNEAPOLIS FOR A YEAR AND A HALF WITHOUT GOING TO THE MN STATE FAIR, this post will convince you that you are CRAZY and that you should GO TODAY. Incidentally, we’ll be heading to St. Paul this evening, tomorrow evening, or both, and we’ll definitely keep this list of suggestions in mind (along with the google map, thanks guys!).

From what our friends at The Heavy Table shared, it’s the beverages I’m most excited about. I’m currently craving the $1 Cider Freeze, the trio of Summit beers on a stick ($7.50), and Stanly’s Sugarbush Maple soda ($4). The last of these looks to be the most promising. As The Heavy Table puts it, Stanly’s is

A local alternative to soda… not just “as good as a Coke” good, but “far, far better than a Coke” good. It’s got an almost creamy flavor, a maple kick, and a refreshing hit of carbonation.

Based on the prices shared here, it looks like we’ll need to carry plenty of $5s and $1s with us in preparation for this 4,000+ calorie snack-feast.

Image: Becca Dilley, The Heavy Table

I just got a new bike. I am enjoying riding all over Minneapolis. I’m enjoying it so much I even folded up the bike to take it home to Michigan for a ride or two. Related to that enthusiasm, I’ve thinking about purchasing one of the many bicycle related prints of Adam Turman, a Minneapolis illustrator, designer, and screenprinter.

When we first arrived in Minneapolis in February of 2008, one of our welcome presents from Marcela was a postcard of this print, of which Julia owns a screen printed poster. Like this one, much of his work highlights Minneapolis the city. Evidenced above, this is clearly a man who loves bikes and Minneapolis. While not a native, I love Minneapolis. I love my bike and enjoy prints. It all makes sense…. now which one?

Adam uses PayPal on his site and sells his work at shows around Minneapolis. These prints (though the last is sold out) range from $10 to $30. We discovered on a recent trip to the Four Firkins that he makes an exclusive print for them, too.

See more of Adam’s work at AdamTurman.com or check out Adam’s blog. Images, Adam Turman