Hi everyone, I hope you are well! In this week’s blog, I’m going to write about a saga that recently came to pass at Amherst College: the battle for bagels. If you have any questions, please email me at sgoldsmith24@amherst.edu!
Tandem Bagels
Every Saturday for the last couple years, Val, the dining hall, has offered Tandem bagels on weekends. Tandem is a bagel store in driving (but not walking) distance of Amherst, and their bagels are so much better than the bagels we get during the week. They used to give us prepackaged bagels that you can find at the grocery store Monday-Friday, so Tandem was a treat, but last semester they started sourcing bagels from a different bagel place and got rid of Tandem altogether. The idea was that we would have middling bagels every day of the week, instead of bad bagels during the week and good bagels on weekends.
Student reaction
Of course, students revolted. We were upset. We love our Tandem. There was a petition that went around and gathered signatures, and I didn’t think anything would come of it, but it was announced after the petition that Tandem would return for the first Saturday of every month – a partial success. Obviously we would prefer Tandem each weekend.
A surprise
And then, come this semester, Tandem bagels started appearing in Val every Saturday and Sunday, regardless of whether it was the first weekend of the month. I’m not sure why, I’m not sure how, but I’m thrilled about it. Every Saturday I go to Val at 8 to grab my bagel and sneak it out of Val. I do my long run (yay marathon training!), and for lunch, I take the bagel back to Val, because they are typically out of Tandem by then, and toast and cream cheese it. What a delight.