New year. New resolutions. New Bagels? Not so much.

As us Bagels were wondering what special treats we would give for our readers in 2011, we were really feeling the wind of change, until the cold hard truth hit us: why change something that works? So as our readers and fans have praised our work so willingly, we decided that the Bagels aint changing. We are going to keep our traditional style, look and perspective to life. Like bagels, we are a never changing classic. However, we shall continue to amuse ur Sundays and bring light to ur sad little lives (yeah even tho the christmas break has been messy, Sunday will remain the official International Bagels-day in 2011), and always strive for better. We want to take this moment to thank our fans, whom without we would not be standing here right now. Also thanks for blogspot which still remains free of charge. YAY.

Since New Year's eve is really not about food, its all about  champagne, we're just gonna skip that and go on to New Year's day, which is all about food. When everywhere else is closed on this holy day of universal hangover (and for people under 18 just universal boredom), pizza places everywhere are open. Our dear friends Tomi and Patrick were able to order pizzas with just a click on the internet! Isnt it amazing what the kids nowadays can do online..  So if ur working in a pizzeria, take the new years day off. Its gonna be busy and people are gonna be cranky. We'd also like to take this moment to remember those who were so hungover that they could not leave the bed to eat a single bite and felt like dying. If this sounds familiar to you, us health conscious bagels strongly suggest a new years resolution of controlling the consumption of alcoholic beverages on New Year's and replacing them with water.

Speaking of new year's resolutions.. well we hate them. No one sticks to them, and you just feel guilty throughout the year for not doing so. And most of all, nobody has the energy to concentrate on them after staying up until 00.00 the previous day (i mean my god, CSB likes to go to bed early but on New Year's everyone just expects her to stay up. Thats just plain mean). So we'd like to quote our biggest idol Bridget Jones, since she so well puts it:

"I do think New Year's resolutions can't technically be expected to begin on New Year's Day, don't you?  Since, because it's an extension of New Year's Eve, smokers are already on a smoking roll and cannot be expected to stop abruptly on the stroke of midnight with so much nicotine in the system.  Also dieting on New Year's Day isn't a good idea as you can't eat rationally but really need to be free to consume whatever is necessary, moment by moment, in order to ease your hangover.  I think it would be much more sensible if resolutions began generally on January the second." 

Thank you, Bridget Jones. Could not agree more. And seriously if u need a resolution to scream over the fireworks, then take something easy. Like we did. Our resolution is to buy candy at least once a week, and remain honest to each other (meaning also that insulting is permitted and the other one cant get mad).  If u choose to stop biting ur nails or always do ur homework, you'll just fail to keep it, get a really low self-esteem and eventually be miserable and self-destructive. Is that something u really want? REALLY?

Anyway, we'll be writing again in two days, but till then u can reminisce the year 2010 through our blog entries. Now let's welcome TWENTY ELEVEN !!!

xoxo,
CSB & VB

 

Xmas time = 2 weeks of constant eating

Once a year we get a two week Christmas Break from school. It involves sleeping all day and eating all night, and occasionally singing some well known christmas carols such as fucking in the winter wonderland or how to get a christmas  fuck buddy. However, eating is the most dominant one, for sure, and now we shall take a closer look at christmas time eating.

CHOCOLATE. You always buy some before christmas eve, then u get like 5 boxes from santa and ur set for ruining ur skin with pimples. But you just dont get enough of it, and during christmas time u dont have to feel guilty about eating it (not that we ever do ofc). For breakfast, lunch, dinner and always in between. If ur interested in getting us bagels a chocolatey present, dont get anything with marmalade and u should do fine. THANK YOU, we really appreciate it!

Fish. Oh so healthy and oh so good. Fish babies or grown up fish, we dont care. Even VB (veggie bagel , u know the vegetarianism duh) cant resist it. We personally like fish roe the best, but salmon is also super good on rye bread. During christmas time, fish is everywhere and we dont mind.

Rice porridge <3 our baby. Especially when grandma makes it with whole milk in the oven, its perfect. Its as good as dessert but u get to eat it in the morning, and christmas wouldnt be the same without it. OO and the best part is that theres always an almond in the porridge and whoever gets it can make a wish. Our secret is to eat as much as it takes to get the almond. It works every time.

Glögi. The non-alcoholic one ofc.. Theres nothing better than coming home from the freezing outdoors and having some hot glögi under a blanket. And watch friends while doing this but you guys already know that thats a given. The glögi season is long, all the way from november to january. At least for us bagels.

Ok this was a very brief Christmas special, since this is our christmas break and we're extremely busy doing nothing. Enjoy the holiday season, or whats left of it anyways.

Christmas cheer for everyone near, like CSB (christmas spice bagel, for the day) so often puts it.

Yours truly,
IB's

FUN WITH FONDUE!

Greetings from the bagels' computer class and we have just been speaking about how much we would give for a pot of fondue right now in the cold wintery afternoon (VB is ready to give up her right arm). As you should know (and if you dont then shame on you) there are many different kinds of fondue. Fondues for dinner and dessert! This week we shall enlighten you on how to make them, how to eat them and why you should totally reward yourselves during the holidays with a steaming hot pot of fondue and share it with a loved one. (If you dont have one, just go lesbian with your girlfriends like us bagels do ;) ) no really.

First of all..... MEAT FONDUE

MEET MEAT FONDUE! (hahahaha) Meat fondue or more formally knows as fondue Bourguignonne is a pot filled with hot oil into which you can dip pieces of meat or chicken. The best part is that it comes with baked potatoes (the big ones) and lots of other stuff too like yummy sauces!

thennnnnnnnnnnn we haveeeeeeeeeeee..... drumroll please

JEEZ! ITS CHEESE FONDUE! (we are so funny) Cheese fondue is originally swiss and is basically a pot full of hot cheeeeeese. Now, you might say that this is not that cool , but MY GOD when you dip bread, broccoli, muchrooms, pepper, tomatoes, potatoes whatever you like in there.. its like god came and cheesed us.. thats not supposed to be perverted!

and last but certainly not least.......

CHOKE ON CHOCOLATE! yes it is white or milk chocolate melted until its all warm and smooth and pwhoooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaar SO GOOD! and you can dip in just about anything from bananas and strawberries to marshmallows and crackers =) perfect!

Now before we end this beautiful and educational blogpost on fondues, we should inform about traditions that come with fondue! In our opinion the best traditions are that if a man drops his food in the fondue pot he buys a round of drinks and if a women drops her food she has to kiss her neighbors! There are also other traditions that include singing and so on but these are what we have been dealing with...

until we meet (meat hahahahha) again

THE BAGELS

ps, we are off to the shop to buy fondue now

The obstacles we face while baking and how to overcome them

You've already read the success story of making the Ultimate Birthday Cake, The cake that shall not be named or whatever u wanna call it. That really showed the positive side of baking and how much fun it is; that is when everything works out well. However, even us bagels dont always get it right. This week we're gonna tell u all about the blunders of baking and how they can possibly be conquered.

Well for one we strongly discourage you guys to use any Finnish ready-to-bake kits. THEY SUCK. For example, a week ago VB arrived at CSB's house to make brownies, and VB had bought a great brownie kit, or so she thought. All you had to do was add water and put the whole thing in the oven. We couldn't have done it wrong. This is what we got as a result. ^
A hard, giant cookie that didn't even taste good. FAIL.

This particular ready-to-bake kit was for dieters, so it had only like 9 % fat in it. And no, we most certainly are not back with the 4 day wonder diet (NEVER are we gonna do that again), but our friends seem to be constantly dieting so we figured that they could eat this. They didnt. Anyway the reduced fat crap never really works. Thats why we, from now on, buy our baking stuff from Stockmann's American Food department. They always work well and are most certainly not for dieters.

Moving on. A few days ago VB got a sudden desire to make gingerbread, so VB decided to go to the grocery store to get some dough (duh it takes like two days to prepare ofc we buy it from the store). VB, however, had not thought this through, because as she soon discovered, she had no baking paper. It was time to be creative. This is what happened.

This actually worked out rather well, tho it does look kinda funny. However, there were more obstacles to come. VB failed to find gingerbread muotteja (no idea what theyre called in English) so, again, creativity (as in CAS) took over.

You dont really need the muotit, its a lot faster this way. You just take a small amount of dough in ur hand, flatten it and VOÍLA!

These were the most recent examples of us bagels failing when cooking or baking. But we learn from our mistakes and move on, for instance from now on, we never buy anything that says reduced fat again, we always go to Stockmann's American food department and we always check that we have everything we need for the recipe in question. We screw up a lot and we make a mess but you gotta be able to see the funny side of it. Thats what makes baking fun for us.

Till we meet again,
BAGELS <3

ps. never try to make cookies in the microwave, it doesnt work.
pps. we are planning on making the ultimate chocolate cake pretty soon so you guys have something to look forward to for sure ;)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY FINLAND!

So, yesterday it was independance day here in finland so let all of us finns stand up and say: "PERKELE!" Us bagels are Finnish and BLOODY PROUD OF IT so this blog entry will be all about finnish independance and how the finns celebrate it foodwise =)

sorry, not very appetising is it..

OKAY SO ANYWAY FOOD:

The finnish families usually spend their independance day with eachother eating nice food and watching tarja halonen (OUR BEAUTIFUL PRESIDENT) dress badly.. So what foods go together with Tarja's clothes? Well heres some examples of appetizers:

no its not nemos egg baby HAHAHHAHA its roe!!! again!!! our favourite food!!! AND WE GOT IT YESTERDAY!

salmonnnnnnnnnnnnnnn =) no explanations needed we hope

HAHAHAHHA no really, we eat liver.. but not human liver.. i think?

YES OKAY SO MOVING ON TO OTHER THING US FINNISH BAGELS EAT

It is what we call karjalan paisti, and in english it shall be: KARELIAN HOT POT!!

salmon babyyyy

AND FOR DESSET THERE IS A RANGE OR EVERYTHING =)=)

thats us bagels reporting for duty :)

FINLAND ;) be afraid of us

be scared!

xoxo

FINNISH AND PROUD

bagels

Dining in the trenches of World War One (this is the real IB stuff)

Hello our dear readers, hope youre all doing well and enjoying life, just like us bagels are since we have an HL+SL history test tomorrow. YAY. (sense the sarcasm) Anyway, World War One is pretty much all we can think about right now, so we decided to include it to our blog as well. We're gonna be talking about the foods that the soldiers ate and the demands WW1 placed on the home front. So unless youre an IB History student (and maybe even then), this is gonna be really boring for you and we suggest you leave. Tho we ought to be studying so this isnt gonna be long.

Often food wasnt even available for the soldiers. The catering service wasnt exactly functioning if angry Germans were killing the French on the Western Front or the Russians on the Eastern Front. They didnt get a lunch break. Theoretically a British soldier would get this on a daily basis:

560 grams of bread OR 448 grams of flour OR 112 grams of oatmeal

84 grams of cheese

18 ounces of tea

112 grams of jam OR 112 grams of dried fruit

14 grams of salt

0,8 grams of pepper

1,4 grams of mustard

224 grams of vegetables

0,05 liters or rum OR 1 pint of porter

560 grams of tobacco

1/3 chocolate

112 grams of butter

56 grams of dried vegetables 

Now that might sound rather modest, when you take into consideration the fact that these people are fighting a war (imagine how much energy it takes to kill just one person and multiply that with 10438052. These people really need food. Or actually the better solution would be if people would stop killing each other just to expand their territory. I mean come on would you get over your problems and stop killing other living organisms for no good reason. Every living organism is a biological miracle, just imagine what a single cell can do, alone. Ok MOVING ON). However, when you compare it to this theoretical daily ration of a German soldier, the British are gonna start to seem fortunate. 

742 grams of bread OR 490 grams of biscuits

392 grams of egg biscuit

1484 grams = 1,484 kilograms of potatoes

126 grams of vegetables

56 grams of dried vegetables

Looks like the British blockades on Germany were working, huh. At least there was a bit more variation in their menu. Poor Germans. And they didnt even win.

USA used strong propaganda to appeal to their citizens, and that way save supplies for the Allied forces. Take a look.

 

These kinda posters obviously raised morale and the feeling of unity. And as you probably understood people were strongly encouraged to keep in mind the vast need of supplies on the front. And to eat corn.

Thats it for today, we bagels have to get back to studying. Hope you enjoyed this rare, never-ever-gonna-happen-again educational piece and learned something. Like every IB student knows, learning and education is a never ending process; one which you will never cease to enjoy. Learning is the road to happiness, indeed. And in case youre wondering, bagels became increasingly popular only after the WW1. But we'll tell you all about the history of bagels some other time. 

BYE and wish us luck. We're gonna need it.

xoxo,
Hitler and Stalin ;) (and dont think we dont know these guys werent around yet during WW1, we're not THAT bad in history..)

Because the french are so damn annoying.. but they make good food.

In honour of us bagels having a french test on wednesday, we have decided to be la crèative (yes we know thats not french and that were gonna fail) and write a blog entry on la cuisine de francais! Thats probably wrong too.. But yeah so french food is our topic of the week ;)

SNAILS! yes the french are insane or as us bagels would say: c'est très bizarre! okay so when theyre done the right way they look like this...

.. and believe it or not, theyre actually pretty daaaaaaaaaamn good!

Crème Brûlée is a very traditional french desert and tastes très delicieux! Its made of cream and.. brule? okay we dont know what its made of but its gooooooood...

This might be the greatest food known to frenchkind, the chocolate croissant (or as the french call it pain au chocolat ;)) Its got the same texture as normal croissants, not including the shape, except it has chocolate inside.. mmmm.. best when its fresh and warm so the chocolates all melted and yummy!

Now seriously, what else could you possibly need than wine and cheese. Cheese and wine. Weese and Chine. Its how the french do it and how everynone should do it!! And if you cant afford it just go to your local supermarket and wait for the free samples :) not that we would ever do that, we just hear that its possible..

Eclairs :) Full of whipped cream and with chocolate icing on top. Oh mon dieu !

Okay FRENCH fries. So did you guys know that FRENCH fries are not actually FRENCH but they are.. swiss or something? Why would the french want to take the glory and pride of making up this kind of food? BECAUSE FRENCH FRIES ARE TRES BIEN, thats why! And thats also why we added it to our list, even though its only wannabe french.

Thankyou for reading once again, it has been tres amusant!

xoxo

Des Bagels

wish us luck on our french test!

GISELA WE FOUND YOU ON THE INTERNET! (Gisela is our friend who walks like a penguin and loves france)