The following Winter Olympic Games received’t roll round till 2026, when snowboarders, skiers, and curlers will descend on Italy’s snow-capped mountains. However on Sunday, New Yorkers bought a style of that aggressive spirit when the BagelFest Winter Games rolled – fairly actually – into Downtown Brooklyn.
“Bagels are an amazing food because they bring all of us together,” mentioned BagelFest founder Sam Silverman, wielding a bagel torch at the Opening Ceremony. “In a world in which it’s kind of difficult to see eye to eye with your neighbors, with the people that you live with in the city, the bagel is the one thing that can unite us. It’s circular and it brings us all together.”
Gathered at CityPoint, a number of the metropolis’s most devoted bagel-lovers engaged in a bagel relay — groups of two folks took half in bagel-stacking, bagel-rolling, a bagel toss, and even bagel curling.
Bagel-stacking proved to be the most well-liked occasion, as duos stacked the doughy rolls as excessive as they might inside quarter-hour, then stood, watching the delicately-balanced towers sway, hoping to maintain them upright for 60 seconds.
Stacking may need been the most well-liked, however the primary occasion, the bagel-eating contest, had the largest prize. Harry Harkins, an Astorian, ate 5 total bagels in eight minutes and received the competitors and $500 in money, plus a deluxe present package deal value $200 from Bagel Boss.
BagelFest actually isn’t new to Brooklyn, however this 12 months’s competitors was. Normally, the occasion is a celebration of New York’s favourite baked breakfast meals — an expo of types that includes dozens of bagel-makers and connoisseurs, the place Brooklynites can pattern totally different bagels and spreads and even vote on their favourite.
Silverman, a lifelong bagel-lover whose ardour reached new heights when he moved to New York Metropolis, mentioned he was impressed to create one other themed consuming occasion to enhance BagelFest.
“Growing up, my family called me a bageltarian,” he mentioned. “And I grew up in Massachusetts eating Dunkin’ Donuts and Panera [Bread], so when I moved down here and had a New York bagel for the first time, it absolutely blew my mind and that’s kind of what sparked my passion to bring all this together.”
The precise dates for BagelFest 2023 haven’t been set, however vendor applications for bakers and makers who wish to partake are actually open. Pop Up Bagels has received “Best Bagel” two years in a row, and final 12 months received one free month at DeKalb Market Corridor and a $20,000 advertising and marketing grant.
“The bagel shop owners, the bakers, the rollers, these people are New York and I love celebrating them,” Silverman mentioned.