Via the comments, I see that the we are only beginning to understand the magnitude of the liberal/Dijon conspiracy:
Today, Judge Sotomayor’s culinary tastes range from tuna fish and cottage cheese for lunch with clerks in her chambers, to her standard order at the Blue Ribbon Bakery: smoked sturgeon on toast, with Dijon mustard, onions and capers. She works out three times a week, putting in three miles on the treadmill in the court’s gym. Divorced and with no children, she enjoys the ballet and theater and lives in a condominium in Greenwich Village — both a subway ride and a world away from the housing projects where she grew up.
How far does this conspiracy go? How many other Democrats in high places are also openly feasting on Dijon mustard?
On a serious note, that piece gave me a serious craving for a bagel with cream cheese, lox, red onions, capers, sprouts, a big thick slice of ripe tomato, and salt and pepper. My roommate in college used to make them every now and then, and they were just the best thing in the world. I have not had a good bagel in so long I would probably just cry if I bit into a real Jersey bagel. About the best bagel you can get around here is a Bruegger’s, and that is in the ‘burgh.
Johnny B. Guud
From the Village no less…
Dave
Yes, dijon is so fucking radical and highbrow that French’s makes a squeeze bottle for it.
frenchs.com/product_m_hd.php
They also make Horseradish. If you eat it, I think that means you’re an anarchist.
beltane
But I read elsewhere (TPM, I think) that Judge Sotomayor likes to indulge in scary Puerto Rican food like pigs feet with chick peas, although probably not with Grey Poupon. She is therefore an elitist Puerto Rican Mexican.
4tehlulz
Dijongate was merely a warmup for….patitasgate:
Teh Hill
-500 troll points to The Hill for not claiming that her love of pork products indicates Antisemitic tendencies.
schrodinger's cat
I don’t understand this stupid obsession with food. What are “regular Americans” supposed to eat anyway?
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
Someone needs to express ship you some fresh Montreal bagels from a wood oven, John. (Hell, someone needs to ship me some bagels.)
The Grand Panjandrum
Best bagel I ever ate came from a little shop up in Jackson Heights, Queens. Man they were worth the trip out on the 7 train. The baker/owner was a Chinese guy who had worked for the previous owner then bought him out when the old man retired. That was almost 30 years ago and I can still taste them.
Here in the Upper Connecticut River Valley we’ve got a couple of bakeries that make good bagels. Boiled, of course! Depending on my mood it may be buttered or if I get wild a crazy, a schmear of cream cheese with lox.
Persia
@Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse: Nah, New York bagels.
I am in a quandary about bagels. I am trying to eat less, and have found that a normal bagel is ‘too much.’ But half a bagel is woefully insufficent. I feel exiled from my beloved carbs.
Carnacki
I was going to snarkily write their real issue is it’s a brown mustard. Then, as I thought about it more, I wasn’t sure that was snark.
TR
Freedom fries. Freedom toast. Victory gin.
Englischlehrer
I had a cheese flambe with salami and leek with a side salad for 4.80euros today Sometimes this blog makes me think about food a little more. My girlfriend also does that to me. Not to sound like a cretin but I’d never been that into goat cheese (or a lot of other cheeses I’ve since come to know) and just this year we started frying it for a bit in a pan and putting it on top of a salad and it turns the most mundane greenery into an adventure of various involvements of goat cheese into your mouth and how you want to say that you love the cheese but the cheese has bribed your entire mouth into suckling.
Anyway, I had a 90-minute open dialogue about Dialects and Accents, a topic which is much more interesting when discussing German than English. I worked at 4 different companies in 2 different cities. I mailed a letter to the government, taught the phrase “til the cows come home” in terms of how much grammar we would be doing if they didn’t speak in English while rebranding a Spanish energy drink in new markets, a hypothetical group work exercise.
I am drinking some Disarnno amaretto on the rocks, watching the Champion League Finale Barcelona vs. Manchester United, reading my news, and relaxing. No more German people today! Oh yeah, I’m listening to a live show of the New Earth Mud from Memphis in October 2003. NEM was Black Crowes singer Chris Robinson’s solo band he had for a few years.
Cheers ya’ll!
ps I told my girlfriend about the Dijongate flap and she thought it was totally stupid. Interesting to see the outside perspective.
Keep up the good work, guys but please update more often, when I do my newsin’ in the evenings I take about 3 hours and will check back often, ciao!
grimc
cottage cheese = only French people live in ‘cottages’
sturgeon = caviar = French
Dijon = insidiously French
ballet, theater = Frenchy French French France
Greenwich = only a Frenchy Frencher would take an ‘e’ and ‘w’ out of the pronunciation.
Conclusion? Commie.
flukebucket
@schrodinger’s cat:
Shit. And they had damned well better like it.
Johnny B. Guud
As if there was another way…
Mnemosyne
So, eating squirrel = completely normal and all-American, but eating pigs’ feet and tongue = bizarre and foreign?
I guess that’s why I can walk into any McDonald’s and get a McSquirrel for lunch.
wasabi gasp
Fuck the dijon, I wanna see all the crazy brought to the arroz con gandules. Then, maybe, my momma will come back from the dark side.
Keith
I just bought a bag of bagels and some smoked salmon last weekend. Unfortunately, the geniuses working the grocery store bakery apparently didn’t know that bagels are supposed to be boiled before being baked, becaue they were like dinner rolls.
Kevin K.
Thank god this isn’t a food blog or message board. Online “best bagel” disputes have been known to leave them in hulking piles, emitting sparks and with only a few survivors pulling themselves from the wreckage.
stevie314159
Being married to Mrs. Heinz ketchup didn’t help John Kerry.
Maybe the Republicans just have something against handing out condiments in schools.
Carnacki
@TR:
Gin is too British. Has to be American whiskey with an ‘e.’
Just Some Fuckhead
Sotomayor is prolly gay which is why they nominated her to replace Souter.
I still think we have way too many Catholics on the high court. I imagine in a few more years every legal discussion will devolve into a discussion of Catholic theology between eight of the jusitices with the occasional “Shut up Christkiller!” directed at Breyer.
NonyNony
@schrodinger’s cat:
McDonald’s hamburgers. Pizza Hut pizza. Taco Bell tacos. Kentucky Fried chicken. Wash it all down with either a Coke or a Bud. Anything less and you hate America and Freedom and the flag and mom and apple pie. (Oh, apple pie is probably on the list). And when you have fish, it must be batter covered, deep fried, and served with french fries.
And if you eat more veggies than what you find on a typical pizza, you’re probably a Commie. Especially if you’re eating that funny-sounding arugula stuff that they only grow in France and Russia.
Zifnab25
Which crackerjack future Walter Cronkite got the enviable job of stalking the judge around town and timing her on the treadmill? Oh MSM, what pointless trivial factoid will we receive next week? I can hardly wait.
Anne Laurie
The GOPers better tread carefully here; didn’t St. Richard the Nixon eat cottage cheese & tuna fish for lunch?
(Of course Nixon being a Real Murkin(tm) put catsup on his cottage cheese, and presumably Miracle Whip in his tuna salad.)
TR
@Carnacki:
You’re right that today’s conservatives would sneer at gin, but that was a reference to the patriotically correct liquor from “1984.”
NutellaonToast
The worst part about living in the ‘burgh was the lack of Dunkin’ Donuts and the lack of bagels in the DD’s you could find
schrodinger's cat
Since the US is a country of immigrants, the only real American food is what the native Americans ate.
Krista
A very sensible lunch and exercise routine for anybody, but particularly for someone with Type I Diabetes.
But why does anybody give a flying fuck at a rolling (Montreal, please!) bagel what she eats for lunch? The petty and inconsequential shit that people get wound up over just makes me shake my head and want to send them all to a refugee camp in a developing nation to work for a year so that they can gain some goddamn perspective.
AhabTRuler
I know those words, but that phrase makes no sense.
kwAwk
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
A wood oven sounds about as safe and effective as a condom made of Kleenex.
Or perhaps I’ve just had too much cold medicine today.
Anne Laurie
Bruegger’s bagels are… not inedible. They’re the best my Bronx-born palate has been able to find here in the Boston suburbs, although I’m p*ssed that they discontinued their salt bagels. About the other local contenders I will only add that my less-picky Midwestern-born Spousal Unit has learned to refer to them as “bagel-shaped bread products” to avoid the lectures.
The Moar You Know
@schrodinger’s cat: The casino out by my house has a prime rib buffet you wouldn’t believe.
Zandar
CAPERS
The woman is a monster! TO THE FOOD NETWORK STUDIOS!
LarryB
John,
Don’t forget the lemon wedge with that bagel, now.
Ash Can
Oh man, that sounds phenomenal. I’m so glad I’ve already eaten; I’d be biting hunks out of the edge of the table otherwise.
Krista
Oh, gross. (Not just the Miracle Whip, as I’m a Hellman’s fan, myself, but ketchup on cottage cheese? Please tell me people don’t actually do this!)
Jess
Try it with lemon pepper–mmmmmnn!
Krista
Heh — they’re wood-burning ovens AFAIK, usually constructed of brick or stone. The hubby and I are thinking of building an outdoor one at our place, to make pizzas and bread.
devopsych
Wasn’t there a book out in the 70’s called “Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche”? Probably formative for Chris Matthews.
DZ
What is it with the food? No right winger ever ate Dijon mustard? What about Moutarde de Meaux – Pommery mustard – or is that just for us liberal elitists?
gbear
Not Ronald Reagan! He re-classified catsup as a vegetable while slashing funds for school lunch programs.
gex
@schrodinger’s cat: Pork rinds. I believe Bush I campaigned on eating pork rinds and not liking that elitist broccoli crap.
LarryB
@wasabi gasp: Grey Poupin is the Heinz ketchup of mustards. Amora fine et forte is the shiznit.
gizmo
The Right has to make some noise about Sotomayor. If they didn’t, people might notice that they are totally irrelevant.
schrodinger's cat
@Krista
Let us know when you build it, then we can have a BJ meet-up at your place, and you can make pizzas for all of us.
NonyNony
@Anne Laurie:
Ah – Panera. Home of the bagel-shaped bread. Tasty bagel-shaped bread, but still – a dinner roll is not a bagel.
(If you don’t actually boil it I don’t think you should call it a bagel. Perhaps that’s just me being overly picky, but IMO boiling is an essential part of bagel-ness.)
Indylib
@Krista:
Whoa, there, you’re getting frighteningly close to BOB terrritory.
AhabTRuler
@Krista: SHUSH! Do you want B.O.B., to hear?
DougJ
Damn straight. I’ve had what are supposedly the best ones in NYC and they don’t compare. Ditto for NYC pastrami versus Schwarz’s smoked meat.
dmsilev
@Anne Laurie:
If you’re ever in the Brookline/Brighton area, try Kupel’s on Harvard Street. Great bagels. One word of warning: they keep Orthodox kosher, and hence are closed on Saturdays.
-dms
Comrade Darkness
(If you don’t actually boil it I don’t think you should call it a bagel. Perhaps that’s just me being overly picky, but IMO boiling is an essential part of bagel-ness
YES.
We make our own. With a bread machine and a little organization and practice, this is not a problem. Oh, and a pizza stone. That helps too.
AhabTRuler
@dmsilev: Here is a nit for you, and freshly picked too:
The one has nothin’ (directly) ta do with ta other.
Loneoak
Making bagels at home is surprisingly easy, John. Easier than most bread baking, actually.
I have a love for Montreal style bagels and I’ve lined my oven with plain brick tiles to get the wood oven effect. And my favorite bread cook book—The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum—has some very specific instructions on making a New York/New Jersey style bagel. But it doesn’t need to be even that involved: you just shape, boil, and bake. Easy-peasy. Takes 2 hours and is way better than you’ll get anywhere but the bagel-havens.
KRK
Have we heard from Jake Tapper yet whether Sotomayor is hiding a smoking habit?
Homemade bagels are yummy.
smiley
I want to meet Roxana Saberi and make her fall in love with me – with Dijon mustard.
fledermaus
I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who thought that.
Tax Analyst
Probably eats that arugula stuff, too.
Tax Analyst
Probably eats that arugula stuff, too.
Comrade Darkness
@Krista: How can you make tuna salad without miracle whip?
Yeah, I grew up in the midwest, who’s askin’??
@fledermaus: Specifically from Zingermans.
gorp
Back when my kids, one boy, one girl, were growing up I wanted to instill strong liberal values, so I forced them to eat unpatriotic food such as roast duckling with garlic, rosemary, and orange sauce, wild rice and broiled mushrooms with a touch of olive oil and salt, or braised lamb chops marinaded in red wine, pomegranate and honey, with a little garlic and black pepper, or filth such as garlic and shrimp pasta. and on and on….. Needless to say, they now vote democratic, support gay rights, have friends of other races, etc. Unfortunately, they both have good jobs, pay their own way, are thoughtful and civic minded, and willing stand up for people who are weaker or less fortunate. Well, you can’t have everything.
lemma
Actually I think it was Ford who liked cottage cheese with catsup. When he became President I remember photos of his simple lunch and also of him making toast for Betty. Maybe all fake but after the madness of Nixon a bit reassuring. Don’t remember what Nixon ate.
Professor Fate
“If you don’t actually boil it I don’t think you should call it a bagel. Perhaps that’s just me being overly picky, but IMO boiling is an essential part of bagel-ness”
if you don’t boil the dough it’s a Baily and try getting one them outside of New York. Hell these days even inside of New York – along with the Hot Dog cart Kinish – it’s hard to find.
Professor Fate
“If you don’t actually boil it I don’t think you should call it a bagel. Perhaps that’s just me being overly picky, but IMO boiling is an essential part of bagel-ness”
if you don’t boil the dough it’s a Baily and try getting one of them outside of New York. Hell these days even inside of New York – along with the Hot Dog cart Kinish – it’s hard to find.
dmsilev
@AhabTRuler:
Yes, quite right. That’s what I get for trying to post a comment and carry out a completely unrelated conversation in meat-space simultaneously; brain bandwidth gets saturated. Just be glad that the content for the one didn’t bleed into the other, or I would be recommending that people try the *lovely* bismuth nanocrystal schmear that the bakery offers.
-dms
The Saff
The bagels at the Pinnacle deli in NYC (3rd Avenue near 43rd, I think) are the best. And the coffee is excellent, too.
We have to go through this silliness for the next 2 months?
AhabTRuler
Thx, but I’ll stick with the cool, refreshing glass of LOX I ordered.
Absurd
In WV, you have Tim Horton’s though!
freelancer
Renato answered this question weeks ago with what is, IMHO, the comment of the year so far:
Comrade Darkness
I gotta get off this blog. I have half a duckling about to go under the broiler to be basted in butter until it is a crispy skinned thing of the gods and what I really want is carne asada with a side of bagels.
Throwin Stones
@Krista: Some family members of mine put Catalina dressing on cottage cheese. It’s not bad. However, catsup on cottage cheese sounds awful.
Michael
John, how would you plan to eat such a creation? The verticality would be a bit…daunting.
Loneoak
@lemma:
Puppies, unicorns, and sunlight.
ohio
pretty good and easy bagel recipe here:
melindalee.com/recipearchive.html?action=124&item_id=423
found it a couple weeks ago by following the links in this story:
slate.com/id/2216611/pagenum/all/
Johnny B. Guud
@Anne Laurie:
After visiting several times, I’ve found that finding
an ediblea decent bagel in or around Boston is near impossible.AhabTRuler
@Loneoak: I was gonna say hope and prosperity, but at’ll do, pig, at’ll do.
random asshole
During my years living in the ‘burgh, one of the few good things about periodically going back to New Jersey was tolerable bagels. You’d think Squirrel Hill would do a better job at bagel-making, but you’d think wrong.
r€nato
@freelancer:
You like me! You really like me!
HyperIon
@AhabTRuler:
That’s what I thought.
Here in Seattle there are no REAL bagels to be had.
Recently I went to the toney UVillage QFC which has a bagel store just inside it. I asked the guy if the bagels were boiled and he looked at me like I was crazy.
Wow, I miss good bagels…the best thing about living in Manhattan..if you include all the great lox and whitefish with the bagel.
Krista
Our oven would be made out of stone, not brick, as the husband works at a sandstone quarry. So unless B.O.B. wants to change his name to S.O.B. (heh), I think we’ll be all right.
I didn’t realize that Timmeh’s had spread that far. Neat. Do they have the maple-glazed there, or are those just too damn Canadian?
And I’ll echo those who suggest making your own bagels. I’ve tried it, and the results were pleasing. I’ve also made my own soft pretzels, using much the same formula (boil, then bake), and was also delighted with the results.
AhabTRuler
Well, I hope he wears the proper breathing apparatus to protect him from developing Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.
gocart mozart
I know all right thinking Americans are supposed to only use French’s Mustard on their hot dogs, but what I don’t understand is, isn’t French’s also Eurofaggy like Dijon? It’s right there in the name ferchrisakes. What, American’s mustard aint good enough for them?
Marlowe
Well, I suppose it’s what you grow up with. In the ’80s, this lifelong yiddishe New Yorker ate a pastrami sandwich at what was described as the best deli in Montreal (I don’t recall the name). The kindest I could be is to say it wasn’t inedible.
Wingnut Central: Pasta Division
Re: The Pasta Question.
The only two types that are acceptable are Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and spaghetti and meatballs. If it is the later, the sauce must be out of a can and be either of the brand name Ragu or Prego. Anything else is Islamocommieeurofaggy and will be frowned on by all real Americans. I hope this clears it up.
AhabTRuler
Oh, and for the confused, this should explain some things.
mellowjohn
of course you have a hard time finding a decent bagel… YOU LIVE IN WEST VIRGINIA!!!
reminds me of an old emo phillips bit about his sister’s german-born boyfriend complaining about his difficulties in finding good bagels in berlin.
“and just who’s fault is that?” emo asked.
Xenos
@Marlowe: Schwarz’s was past its prime by the 80s. It has been run by Greeks for decades. And smoked meat is not the same thing as Pastrami, but I am not a fan of either, so what do I know?
Next time you are in town, though, give it another chance and try the liver. Amazing.
Xenos
@Marlowe: Wait.. was it a big 50s era deli downtown with lots of neon, linoleum, and bakelite tableware? That would be Ben’s, and I would agree that the food is lousy.
Chris Vosburg
I don’t understand this stupid obsession with food. What are “regular Americans” supposed to eat anyway?
They might enjoy George and Laura Bush’s Deviled Eggs, which contain not only Dijon mustard but a shot or two of Habenero sauce, and actually sound pretty good.
Recipe here.
Gocart Mozart
Also, and this is important, if real Americans must eat spaghetti, it must be overcooked. Al dente pasta is prima fascia evidence of subversive anti-American activity.
Doug Wieboldt
@lemma
Nixon was fond of ketchup and cottage cheese (shudder).
I don’t know about Ford.
Really ripe tomatoes (and a light touch of sea-salt) with room temperature cottage cheese and lots of freshly ground pepper make a great snack!
Gocart Mozart
True story, I have a couple friends who lived in Kentucky for a year and opened up a bagel shop. They told me the local would ask “Why to these rolls have wholes in them.”
smiley
Bagels are great. I prefer beignets and cafe au lait. A side of bacon is good. And eggs. I like eggs. And smoked salmon. I like that too. And Coco Puffs. I’m coocoo for CocoPuffs.
DonkeyKong
“Why to these rolls have wholes in them.”
Then they said “Are these them jew muffins from New York?
“
alias
its bialy, not baily.
pretty great bagels and bialys are available for shipping from kossars bialys on grand st on the lower east side. and while your at it, hit essex pickles a block over. then head a couple blocks northwest to russ and daughters for your lox and cream cheese.
chopper
bagels from jersey? montreal??
come over to brooklyn, people. home of real bagels.
brooklyn.
jesus, montreal? for real?
jvill
Drop the cream cheese and lox, replace with whitefish salad. And sprouts? WTF, no. Everything else is good. Surprised there’s been little discussion about the bagel type. Garlic, onion, or everything are the way to go here.
Credentials: Grew up Jewish in NJ, bagels at grandma’s every Sunday, now a Brooklynite. Mom and grandma were partial to the creamed herring.
Spent 4 years in Maine for college. The bagels made me cry. Packed sawdust. When people ask why I hate the goyim, Maine bagels is the answer — otherwise, truly a lovely state.
Big yes on the Russ and Daughters (there’s even a documentary floating around). And make sure to practice your Spiddish (Spanish & Yiddish) before you stop by.
cia
What happened to all the bagel places in squirrel hill? I haven’t lived in Pittsburgh in over twenty years but I can’t imagine squirrel hill without a decent bagel place. Where you in Pittsburgh when the Gazebo was around in shadyside? That was some very good deli food.