Just a schmear, please!

When life was uncomplicated, and fifteen cents could get me on the City bus, I discovered bagels and cream cheese. I was a Brooklyn girl, living in Flatbush, but what did I know from bagels?! All I knew was "chorta" which my mom and aunts would find and pick along the Belt Parkway. For those who may not know, that would be dandelions! Boiled and then served with olive oil and freshly squeezed lemon juice (with a chunk of feta cheese and a loaf of semolina bread for dipping), this was our Life's Staple. For years that's all I knew, until that fateful day, when at Garfield's Cafeteria, a friend suggested we split a bagel with cream cheese, for lunch. (Andrea Daskal, if you are reading this, thank you!) Well, we split the bagel and ordered our Tab sodas. The rest is history. I fell in love..with a simple piece of bread shaped to look like a donut!! From that day forward, until my graduation from Erasmus Hall, lunch consisted of a plain bagel with a "schmear" of cream cheese; otherwise, they would LOAD it with enough cream cheese to feed the Russian army. I introduced the "bagel phenomenon" to my parents, by dragging them one Saturday morning to Sol's Bagels on McDonald Avenue. "Why are we going to this bakery?" mom wanted to know. "Mom, it's not the kind of bakery, you are familiar [with]. They only bake one kind of bread..it's small pieces of bread..it's almost like rolls, but not really. Trust me mom, you will love it." We bought 6 plain bagels that Saturday, and a brick of Philadelphia Cream Cheese. By the time we had finished eating that afternoon, mom and dad were hooked. It doesn't take too much persuading to get anyone who loves eating, to enjoy a freshly baked bagel! So, the Greeks, (at least my family) began dipping their bagels into their "chorta," and into their tomato/onion/olive oil salad, and nothing beats feta on a warm bagel! As for me...here I am, 50+ years later..at Bagelicious, ordering "an everything bagel with a schmear of cream cheese!"     Peace.