I have been craving Montreal Style bagels ever since I left Ontario. In Toronto, we would get them regularly from St. Urbain, and in Ottawa, Kettleman’s sufficed.
As near as I can tell though, there’s no Montreal style bagels made in Edmonton. Which left me craving. About nine months ago, I figured out that St. Viateur would ship from Montreal to Edmonton. I loved the idea, but shipping costs for a small number of bagels were pretty high (nearly 200% of the bagel costs). Playing around with their tool, it seemed clear though that shipping costs would come down on a per-dozen cost if I could order more.
Still. I left it for a while. Recently though I had the hankering, badly, for bagels. So I started my search again. Finally I figured: Why not see if I could get some friends to order with us. Surely as a group order we could get the costs down. I phoned St. Viateur and figured out their shipping rates. Then I started asking friends if they wanted in. Soon enough I had seven interested friends, more than enough to start putting it together in detail.
I sent everyone a price list, sounding like I was fundraising for the PTA, and asked for orders. My original aim was to fill two boxes of 9-dozen bagels. By the time the orders came in, without Andrea and I we had 20 dozen bagels requested. Andrea and I filled in the third box with 7 dozen (note! Bagels freeze excellently, so having huge quantities around isn’t an impediment to enjoying them — you can space it out with your freezer).
Soon the order was in, and 324 bagels were planned to arrive.
Then I got the shipping notification: Estimated weight: 66 lb. Holy moly! The math checked out, but wow.
Wednesday morning I got the notification that the bagels were on a truck. I had been sitting on the deck working, and ran into the house, like an excited Carb Revere, announcing loudly “The Bagels are Coming, the Bagels are Coming!”
When the bagel’s arrived I was so excited. I had to open a box immediately to see how the shipping had turned out.
It turned out fantastic. The smell was as if I was standing in a bagel shop. I quickly opened a bag and took one out, toasted it, and ate it. Delicious. I suspect I will be doing this again.
