Recipe: Big Fluffy Bagels of Sorrow and the Pain of Growing Alienation

For the Bagels:

2 and 1/2 cups of white flour.
1/3 cup of oat bran, ground fine.
1/2 cup of whole oats, ground fine.
1 teaspoon of salt.
1 teaspoon of yeast.

For the water:

Brown Sugar
Salt


For the Sorrow:

The news that someone you love deeply will be taken far away from you, to not only grow apart, but potentially even begin working against you. This needs to be a betrayal you are entirely powerless to prevent, yet something that is considered an inconsequential loss by society at large, so that your family and dearest friends cannot even begin to comprehend the depths of your emotions at this moment.

Suitable sorrows, ranked from highest to lowest yield:
-Delonte West, the best and greatest and most awesome basketball personality to cross the TD Banknorth Fleet O'Rama Parquet, getting traded to Seattle, which means he'll end up in Oklahoma, which means it will be hot and nobody will come to see him, and no one will care about the things he wants to do, like strip naked and drive down crowded highways in a convertible, or believe that he really did talk to Bugs Bunny one time.

-The cancellation, mid-show, of a Morrissey concert. (hi nichole! my bagels refer to you!)

-Kitten abortion.

Assemble dry ingredients, oatbran flour, oat flour, white flour, salt, and yeast, in a bowl. Add, slowly slowly, and mixing from the sides of the bowl, slightly more than one cup of warm water. After dough is mixed, dump into a slightly greased bowl, cover, and set aside for two or three hours.

During those two hours, mope as necessary.

Turn dough out onto floured board, and work until dough is somewhat elastic and oblong. Cut into eight hunks. Shape hunks into bagels, by poking your thumb through, and in a wringing motion, as if you're ringing out unshed tears, form the bagel with your fingers. Set each bagel on surface, cover, and leave to double in bulk.

After dough has nearly doubled, take out your biggest pot, and fill nearly all the way with water. Add salt (again, think tears) and sugar to the water (bittersweet, such is the nature of loss. Also doughy.) Put on high heat and bring to a really, really rapid boil.

Drop bagels two by two into the boiling water. Cook for 3 or 4 minutes each side, and set on dish towel or pile of paper towels to drain. As you're nearly halfway done, preheat the oven to 425. When all bagels have been boiled, allow the last batch to drain for at least five minutes, then place on waxed paper on cookie sheet, and bake for 30 minutes.

Bagels, sorrow, unfathomable loss - good with peanut butter.