bagel house, right after it finally opened on darling street, was strangely empty. for weeks, it seemed as though the only people i could see through the clouds of steam emanating from the back room, were the people behind the counter. these days, there are queues at the counter, and the historic mirror-topped tables are usually occupied. it could be just because i’ve been going in on the weekends… clearly i will have to make more mid-week visits, just to see.

when we arrived today, after walking through the summertime, it was bustling. we bustled ourselves a table. the kid, having learnt from the last time that cream cheese, capers and chopped onions are not her friend, customised her smoked salmon bagelwich to contain just the smoked salmon, and some sliced tomato. on a cheese bagel. it was a great success. have you seen how they make the cheese bagels? through the glass window of the operation’s nerve center, you can see neat rows of already-boiled, not-yet-baked bagels, each one with a uniformly square slice of cheese perched on top; it bakes down into a bubbly, crunchy, cheesy crust. and the bit that has melted into the hole? huf!

fearing that i was stuck in the rut of reuben on dill bagel (pastrami, sauerkraut, pickles and swiss cheese — the greatest of ruts to be stuck in), i ordered the portobello mushroom melt, on an onion bagel. in my head, i envisaged a great big field mushroom, as wide in diameter — if not wider — as the bagel, meaty and dark, grilled with garlic and fruity olive oil. instead, it was a modest scattering of regular button mushrooms, finely sliced. they had been grilled, and were tasty, but they lacked that satisfying bite of a monster mushie. still, it was in itself pretty monstrous, and eaten in large mouthfuls, with the pesto, red onion, grilled capsicum and swiss cheese, it was a delicious lunch.

afterwards i walked to the supermarket to stock up on nappies and tinned tomatoes, and popped my head (the body followed unquestioningly) into adriano zumbo patissier to see if the pink biscuits were on today. they were not, and saturday afternoon is crazy, so i spun on my heel for a quick retreat. even quicker though, charlie counterboy brandished an acrylic-framed label at me. i knew from the small print that it was for the gorgeous glass of sticky-rice-coffee-lemon-orange which i had encountered earlier in the week. back then it hadn’t yet been christened, and now it had. in boldface, they had named it after me!

!!!

remember when santos made the raging yoghurt cupcake? i felt all strange and tingly. it was like that all over again; almost brought a tear to my eye. “are you happy?” asked charlie.

darn tootin’.