Last weekend, Laurnie—the vegan light of my life—visited me in San Francisco. Saturday morning, Laurnie and I met up with my friend Luke to explore the Ferry Building Farmer's Market, a fresh food paradise that I conveniently live right next to.
We started our farmer's market journey with a San Francisco staple: $9 freshly squeezed juice. As I sipped my kale-cucumber-mint-apple-pineapple juice and sampled ripe peach and pluot slices, I was constantly on the lookout for bagels.
Lo and behold, I stumbled across Marla Bakery's stand, where they sold savory and sweet galettes, brownies, and bagels. Joe Wolf, the owner of Marla Bakery, told the New York Times that "San Francisco has struggled with the bagel," in a relevant article published yesterday. This is a man who knows that he's facing an uphill battle.
I eyed the bagels, charmingly presented on a wooden cutting board. They looked small, but had a promising color. I asked for a poppy seed bagel, which was covered in enough poppy seeds to kill a child below the age of five, or possibly make you fail a drug test after one bite. I asked for my bagel with cream cheese, and learned that they had only "farmer's cheese," a spreadable cheese with chives. Although this seems like an unnecessary bastardization of cream cheese, an already perfect bagel spread, I grit my teeth, swallowed my pride, and handed over $5 for my bagel.
I ate my bagel slowly, still sipping the now uncomfortably warm and leafy artisanal juice and looking out on the Ferry Building's stunning view of the Bay Bridge. The bagel had good heart, although still lacked the signature texture of a quality New Jersey bagel. And, although I truly love poppy seeds, this bagel was just a bit too aggressive with them—there were poppy seeds in my teeth for approximately the next 5 hours. It was smaller than a typical bagel, but had a satisfying bite.
The bagel came with some aggressively brightly colored pickled vegetables.
Marla Bakery's bagel, as Elizabeth Weil wrote in the Times, "is a truly accomplished round bread product, with a tight crumb and a hint of sourness." That is to say, it's not bad—it's just not really a bagel, in the purest sense of the word. Wolf, owner of Marla Bakery, and his partner and wife Amy Brown, did not base their bagels on a New York template, but rather worked off their own palates, which might explain some of the discrepancies.
Laurnie, Luke, and I left the Farmer's Market for Berkeley, a vegan paradise where we indulged in meatless Mexican food from the unique Flaco's Tacos. I was tempted to seek out new bagels to try in Berkeley, but even I can only eat so many bagels in a day.
Bagels in San Francisco are the red-headed step child of the bagel world—unwanted and unloved, but clamoring for attention nonetheless. It's sad, in a way. This weekend I will continue to drag my friends to out-of-the-way bagel places, seeking closure for my futile quest.
Bonus picture: Laurnie and I in Berkeley.