Got to Get Up and Make the Bagels, at 3AM.

I was only 5 years old when I first learned to cook. In my household,

we all knew when my favorite French dish (chocolate soufflé, an early obsession) was going to be made because we were told to be quiet, “do not disturb” the soufflé, so that it will rise above the ceramic casserole dish we could see under the small, oily light bulb lighting the oven.

I then began to cook for my birthdays and on certain occasions.

One day, I decided I wanted to learn about bagels.

I had finished college and intended to move to Japan. Japan had amazing pastry’s, but no bagels in the early 1990s.

A close friend was a senior manager at Ito Yakado, a huge Japanese retail company that also operated Denny’s Japan. He liked the idea of offering real New York-style bagels at Denny’s. So back in Miami, I reached out to Brickell Emporium, Bagel Bar, Bagel Cove and other places with in-house baking.

I would wake at 3AM and drive down to Brickell to bake with the lead baker.
I typically finished around the time they opened for breakfast, at 6AM.

I would get a dozen or more and leave them for friends at their doorstep. & believe me,

my family was delighted with daily fresh bagels.

It took me a few weeks to find the supplier of high gluten flour, malt, and yeast. Naturally, I tried different waters. Available at wholesale only, I had 50 lb bags at my parent’s new waterfront townhouse.

I would sleep until noon and make bagels by hand, then proof them late in the afternoon by turning the thermostat up to 90 degrees.

My father said the same thing every day he got home,
“Why is it so hot in here?!”

My reply,
“I got to make the bagels!”

When I moved back to Japan a few months later I needed to adjust a full kitchen into working with a tiny gas-powered oven, and my beautiful bagels needed to shrink in size by 90% for me to practice the process.

Finally, the day had come to make bagels at the Ito Yokado test kitchen near Tokyo Tower.

The bagels were properly proofed; boiled in water; and, baked in an industrial oven.

They were beautiful. Full-sized. Delicious.
Quite like a New York style bagel!

The managers who tasted and took notes were impressed. Already, we got into volumes per store; how much to charge; where to make them; and, how to build a business from scratch…

literally.

But – where was the thorn in this rose that brought my dreams to a halt?

The upfront expense.

I was offered distribution if I was willing to make the bagels in the 500 sq ft apartment I shared with two other young American professionals.

I just couldn’t work the risk numbers to justify the reward. And, I couldn’t convince my roommates that making bagels in our apartment was a good idea…

it wasn’t meant to be.

Oh well.

Today, I still make bagels. And what I learned is there are no “failures” in entrepreneurial endeavors. They always result in a new skill and, at the very least…

a fond memory I’ll never forget.