too good to be true

i love lox, and to a lesser degree, it's uncured cousin - smoked salmon. in san francisco my saturday morning ritual was to walk down 24th st. in noe valley, browse the boutique stores, peruse the mini-farmer's market (occasionally picking up the random apple, plout or bag of cherrie), and getting a lox bagel from holey bagel to kick off my weekend. a creature of habit, i followed this same routine probably nine saturdays out of every ten.

which leads me to today, when i was delighted to see our cafeteria deli's daily special. not only was it smoked salmon with cream cheese on a bagel, it was a humongous mound of smoked salmon. the capers were missing, but i thought it a small loss for such a delicious, and well-priced at $4, lunch treat. i should have been tipped off once i got a closer look at the pallid, grainy texture of the salmon. my first few bites were coupled with thought of "maybe i'm getting to the good part," but with less than 1/4 of the bagel left, i sadly realized that there would be no good part. i'm not saying that i was sad on the level of "oh the humanity," or even agitated enough to "shake a fist." just bummed.

on a better note, here's something that's really good and true: trader joe's will be opening in new york!