Laura Sugarman bakes at Pizza Delicious twice weekly.
You never forget the moment you first bite into a genuinely delicious bagel; the taught, shiny crust and dense, chewy crumb slathered with a creamy shmear and topped with super-thin slices of briny locks, sliced onion and tomato. Traditionally, bagels are a yeasted wheat dough that are mixed, kneaded, shaped, proofed for up to 12 hours and boiled all before baking. These days, many high production bakeries have turned to steaming the bagels, and though it considerably reduces manufacture time, it also greatly alters the flavor and texture of the finished product.
Contrary to popular belief, it is possible to find delicious bagels in New Orleans, most re cently at the newly opened Artz Bagels near the corner of Harmony and Magazine Streets. Owners Art & Kim zacharczyk moved back into town from Northeast Pennsylvania (where Art had several bagel shops) in 2005 just before the storm and have been urged by friends and family to get back to making Art’s delicious bagels ever since. Their mission? To provide the city of New Orleans a place where you can enjoy traditional, “madefrom-scratch” bagels created fresh every morning. The zacharczyk’s have a theory about the perfect bagel, “When you bite into a bagel, it should fight you a little bit, but you should still win!” Not only does Artz make a variety of bagels, from plain and sesame seed to onion and Asiago cheese, they also offer a variety of “shmears,” specialty sandwiches and salads. Along with plain and fruity shmear, Artz also offers New Orleans inspired flavors such as Spicy Cajun, Creole Veggie and Pecan Praline. For sandwiches, there’s the classic “Uptown” with lox, cream cheese, red onion and tomato; a “Marigny” with sun-dried tomatoes, cream cheese, fresh avocado, mushrooms and sprouts; or a “Treme” with roast beef, provolone, red onion and horseradish sauce.
There are other great bagel sources in town, but you might have to do a little digging to find a few. One such obscure bakery is Hungry Little Bird run by two young women, Dixie Kimball and Megan Demarcay. They don’t have a storefront yet, but you can get a taste of their bagels (and various other baked goods) at the Covington Farmers Market or you can drop them an email at hungrylittlebird@att.net.
Although they bake up everything from ciabatta to French baguettes, they like to let their creativity run rampant and experiment. I have to admit, they have created bagel types I have never encountered before. How about a chocolate espresso bagel with your morning coffee? Or what about chocolate cherry? They also feature flavors like olive and thyme, sourdough sage and pine nut, cherry almond, and sun dried tomato walnut pesto...as well as the usual suspects.
Another unique, yet hard-to-find bagel source is Laura Sugarman in the Bywater. Baking out of the Pizza Delicious kitchen on Rampart Street (that’s another story!) twice a week, Laura offers delicious home made bagels in the traditional flavors and, with a bit of advanced notice, she can whip up batches of blueberry, satsuma/ginger and rosemary bagels too. You can contact her at laurasugarman@gmail.com or find her goods at various local farmer’s markets.
However you slice it, there ARE delicious, bagels to be had in the Big Easy. You just sometimes have to look a little bit harder...
Artz Bagels
