Versatile

Lately, we've been buying "Everything But the Bagel" seasoning. The Mild Wife had come across it somewhere before, and she was excited when she spotted it on the supermarket shelf. So, naturally, she got some, and we started putting it on some of our breakfast items. We actually had a fair bit of cream cheese on hand after we made our "store bought" cheesecake, so the plan was to sprinkle the seasoning on top of the cream cheese.

I like bagels and cream cheese, but this was entirely new to me. I don't generally put anything else on top of the cream cheese, let alone a seasoning that combines several different spices. Still, the Mild Wife told me it was really tasty, so I was more than willing to try it. That was a good thing, too, because I ended up liking it.

I thought that was the end of it, but one day, we started cooking with it. I don't know if the Mild Wife saw this on a recipe somewhere or if it just occurred to her to use the seasoning naturally, but either way, this was a turn of events that I did not expect. Remember, I'd barely had it on a bagel, so it was entirely foreign to me. I hadn't even considered that you could put it on something other than a bagel, let alone that you could use it to flavor dinner.

In hindsight, though, it makes a lot of sense. If you look at a recipe for the stuff (like, say, from the Food Network), it's comprised of garlic, onion, salt, and some seeds. The first three of those things are used in all sorts of recipes. In fact, I have been known to jokingly describe Peruvian cooking as "onion, garlic, and whatever you actually want to season the food with." Let's just say that I chopped a lot of onions and garlic when I helped prep for dinner as a kid.

So it wasn't so much that it was a strange suggestion to cook with the bagel seasoning as it was just a new idea to me. At this point, we've also done it a few times, on various different items. I've yet to come across a scenario where we regretted this, so I'd say the Everything But the Bagel has proven its versatility.

Still, I can't help but chuckle whenever I reach for it in the kitchen. I just picture the scenario where someone asks what I seasoned the fish with, and I respond with, "Everything But the Bagel. No, seriously! Trust me, it's good." It's going to happen, just you wait.