Hey fooddabbler-- couldn’t stop laughing (in a good way) about your bagel analysis. As I learned in Spanish II, “De gusto no hay escrito: There’s no accounting for taste”. Your favorite round bread product is up to you, no matter how I or anyone else feels about it. My guess is, that you may live in NYC part time, and may have tried many bagels there. But I don’t think you or your parents grew up there. While I could describe “a NY bagel” here, it’s ineffable. It’s bound up in memories of when bagel shops were open all night, and didn’t sell anything else–you’d have to get your cream cheese and lox somewhere else. It’s bound up in memories of walking home in the cold with a (paper) bag of hot bagels keeping you warm. It’s bound up in the disgust you felt the first time you saw an “asiago” or “french toast” or (god forbid) a whole wheat bagel. However, I must tell you all–part of this a matter of age: my sister, who is 17 years younger than me, prefers a cinnamon raisin bagel, and would be ok with getting one at Dunkin Donuts.
I live in Watertown (after other years of living in Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, and Arlington), and I don’t mind trying local products. But the search for the bagel that reminds me of my youth has been mostly in vain. Even when visiting a place that carried “H & H” bagels, brought in frozen from Brooklyn, one realizes that Boston folk just don’t get it. After asking the young counterperson for a “bagel and lox”, that’s what I was handed–a bagel with lox (nova) on it–no cream cheese.
“Shnorrer?” your definition? Mine is a sponger–a taker. Bargaining for overpriced milk is “hondling”. A shnorrer will take a cigarette to share a smoke at break time, and then take 3 or 4 more “for later.”
$8 for a dozen eggs is scandalous! I buy large brown Grade A eggs (Outdoor Access) at my local Whole Foods (Marlboro, NJ) for $3.39.
I’m torn between a desire to support local businesses - the $7 eggs are from Valley Shepherd, until very recently in Essex Market - and a desire to not pay a stupid amount for eggs.
I agree w/you, but it’s not just Boston. These days anything round w/a hole is sadly considered a bagel. Was in Natick over the summer and tried the bagel table. Sad. Nice people, nice place, not bagels. That said the person who posted their comparison chart was ding a righteous survey. The bagel place of my youth, Turnpike Bagels in Queens did sell cream cheese and fish, but didn’t make sandwiches and their lox was the crummy stuff in a Styrofoam package. Even in the UWS/10025 a good bagel is really hard to find, really hard.
I can understand wanting to support local businesses. But, sheesh! Honestly, even though I can afford $7 for eggs, I definitely have my limits.
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It’s actually a Latin phrase “de gustibus non est disputandum” – but any member of a food board knows quite well that ‘de gustibus’ are absolutely ‘disputandum.’ QED on every other thread here 
https://es.m.wikisource.org/wiki/De_gustos_no_hay_nada_escrito
“De gusto no hay nada escrito” is a Spanish phrase with its own history.
“There’s no accounting for taste” is a pretty good equivalent idiom in English.
While it means the same type of thing as the Latin phrase, I prefer the “There’s no accounting “ because some binary thinkers think there is an accounting for taste, like it’s an applied math of some sort.
It’s the same root, tho, and pretty much the same gist.
It’s all relative and it’s all derivative. 
There are only so many things people can talk about century after century
Yeah, I started to write that I’m a “hondling schnorrer,” but decided that was just wee bit over the top!
I had lunch with a friend who reminded me of delicious clam chowder one could get in Boston, though I haven’t been in years. Assuming (hoping?) that’s still the case.
I love the “cruelty free” marketing and what it says to people who don’t purchase from them. Brilliant!
I don’t want to malign them - they’re nice people. But I think the whole market could be classified as “cruelty free,” so I’m not sure what the point of that specification is.
I buy their mushrooms, which seem more reasonably priced.
you want to compare two places based on some to be determined metric which, in the end, can’t be measured and declare cambridge the winner. and they have better bagels.
lol, I mean really, it’s silly and why would anyone care?
There’s a large blue collar demographic in ossining, at their farmer’s market stands selling $6 cruelty free lettuce and $10 string beans receive very little traffic. But there’s a farmer who sells fresh chicken and eggs, eggs are around $6-$7, chickens run $25-$35 and the line can run 20 deep.
Took me a couple of years to try a $35 chicken but turns out there is a pretty big difference in taste. I couldn’t taste the difference in his eggs but they were cage free (not sure what cruelty free means but as a former business owner, I do think it’s a piece of brilliant marketing) but in the end, decided I wanted to support his business.
best,
best
What now? Is there a People for the Ethical Treatment of Plants? Or are they just very nice to the people who work for them?
And yeah - a lot of my calculation is based on wanting to make sure these kinds of farms survive.
After seeing what some cabbage moths and slugs will do to my lettuce and brassica, I don’t have much empathy for them.
