Feature
Day For Knight
BMCC's chess team, the best in the country, has players from Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Egypt. But Kasaun Henry may have come from the greatest distance: a crushingly poor background in Harlem.
By Steve Fishman
On the day that 21-year-old Kasaun Henry's team played the top-ranked University of Toronto, Kasaun went with his thug look. Other competitors at the fifty-second annual Pan-American Intercollegiate Chess Championship appeared as usual, scrubbed, tidy. Day in and out, they'd slipped on colorful school jackets or else nifty sweatshirts with seals and Latin words. Kasaun, captain of his team, had packed complete outfits in his luggage. He needed luggage -- two thick suit bags and a carry-on case for the four-day tournament. He was representing himself and also, perhaps, confusing the enemy. One day, he dressed in an Italian suit, a green-and-white check so loud he figured it could be seen a mile away. On the day his team played the top seed, Kasaun transformed his look. Tommy Hilfiger jeans. Mountain Gear boots. A hooded gray sweater three sizes too big. A gang-style scarf. A brown Fubu stocking cap. Had the nation's most prestigious college chess tournament ever seen the likes of him? Kasaun looked like he might rob the place, he thought happily.
There are two ways to win a chess match. You can checkmate an opponent or force him to use up his time. Kasaun glanced at the clock. Not only was he in a winning position, but he had five minutes remaining. His opponent had just four seconds. Spectators circled the board, itchy for the New York thug to finish off the nice young man from Canada. Kasaun twisted his scarf over his mouth, leaned back into his hood. You could barely see his face. Then he plunged in, picked up his pace.
"It was a miracle," Kasaun would say of what happened next. The unhappy kind. In a blur, his opponent picked off Kasaun's queen, his most powerful piece. "I lost my cool," he'd say. It was a fatal blunder, the worst he'd ever committed. "I was embarrassed," Kasaun would say. And defeated.
Kasaun and his teammates are an unusual bunch, in part for their diversity. The team -- an Egyptian, a Ukrainian, a Kazakhstani, an African-American -- can barely communicate with one another. More unlikely still is that their school, Borough of Manhattan Community College -- the type of two-year college recently disparaged as an academic backwater -- has emerged as America's dominant collegiate chess power. Three times in the eighties, Harvard won the Pan-Ams, the only college chess tournament that matters; Yale won twice. By the time of Kasaun's match, however, BMCC, a school whose student body is more foreign and less affluent than almost any other in America, had also won twice. In 1993, BMCC's first year in the tournament, it bumped off Harvard, most of whose team had never heard of BMCC. (That was the year one BMCC player trained at the Blimpie's near City Hall.) This past year, BMCC aimed for a record third title in five years.
Of course, if that was to occur, Kasaun had to get on track. BMCC's top player, Ukrainian-born Alexander Stripunsky, 27, a grand-master candidate, was prevailing, but in grueling six-hour matches -- twice a day at times. Also winning was the smiling Akhjan Esjamov, 21, from Kazakhstan, who'd recently metamorphosed into John Easton. ("Call me John; it's easier," he'd say, and he had business cards printed with his new name.) But Egyptian Sherif El-Assiouti, 37, an international master, the rank below grand master, had a throbbing earache. He mustered only a few hours' sleep a night and played quickly, intent on holding his own. Kasaun's games were thus essential and, now that he'd squandered one, precarious. After all, he recalled that in a previous tournament, a single loss had bedeviled him, a precursor to three more defeats. For that to happen again would be disastrous for the team's hopes and for Kasaun's.
Alex might say, in rudimentary English, "I love chess," and dream of being world champ, which some thought he could accomplish. To hear Kasaun talk, chess was love. He'd been homeless, impoverished, physically threatened. In all those situations, he'd counted on chess. "If I have chess, I don't have to depend on people," Kasaun would explain: "I have something people can't affect or change."
The night of his blunder, Kasaun thought he'd never been so exhausted. He returned to the University Plaza Hotel in Bowling Green, Kentucky, site of the tournament. He shared a room with Sherif, a soft-spoken engineer who smoked Marlboros until the room clouded over. "Try to remove any bad feeling in your heart," Sherif told him. "We need you."
"Keep fighting," Kasaun told himself. "Keep fighting."
"You have to fight," Sherif agreed in his enthusiastic new English. "Without fight, forget about it."
Kasaun took up chess as a 12-year-old student at Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Junior High School on West 129th Street -- one of the first students to learn the game through a then-new inner-city program, Chess-in-the-Schools. Looking for someone to practice against, he wandered into Marcus Garvey Park, where one player proclaimed "I'm the best here" and took Kasaun under his wing. He'd teach him rough, fast street chess and keep him safe. At first, Kasaun was a laughable competitor. One friend would finish a game of baseball and call out, "Let me go beat Kasaun real fast at chess before I go home." ("I'm going to crush you," he'd tell Kasaun, as he did just that.)
Soon, though, Kasaun had joined the Raging Rooks, the chess team at Adam Clayton Powell. School intimidated Kasaun. Nearby crack houses were one fearful element, his fellow students another. "We" -- the chess team -- "had an underlying fear of being jumped," says Kasaun. "We wanted chess, so we went to school." He reached school an hour before classes started -- to play and also to duck conflict. He played during lunch and then over the phone once he got home -- he'd fall asleep playing and wake up with pieces stuck to his face. His mother, a minister in a Pentecostal church, initially worried that chess was "the devil's game" -- it did, after all, seem to take over her son. But, says Kasaun, "I realized I had to stay away from trouble. It was easy to get sidetracked."
At home, insecurity came in other forms. "He's from a very poor, a deadly background even," says Maurice Ashley, 32, the Raging Rooks chess coach at the time. Ashley, who's from Jamaica, learned chess growing up in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn before becoming a Chess-in-the-Schools employee and, later, the highest-rated African-American chess player. Kasaun hardly knew his father. When his mother, a teacher, was out of work, Kasaun remembers, he received 25 cents for dinner -- and bought five nickel candies. His family must have changed apartments a dozen times, looking for better, safer, cheaper, or just new spots. "I felt like a nomad," he says. After a fire -- a fire in which, he says despairingly, he lost twenty chess trophies -- he and his mother ended up in the Harriet Tubman shelter. He had no money to wash his clothes and so walked the halls of Adam Clayton Powell smelling like a house on fire.
Chess, though, was lovely and peculiar and different from the rest of life. For one thing, it didn't depend on circumstance. He played at every apartment to which he'd been ferried; he played at the homeless shelter. Sometimes Kasaun played without board or pieces -- with a friend, each calling out moves, or even by himself, staring at the ceiling, wide-eyed and happy. "If I feel bad, I go play chess," he'd say. "I feel good when I play chess. Chess is very powerful. Chess is inside me."
When Kasaun was 14, five years after chess was introduced to Harlem schools, the Raging Rooks became national co-champions -- the first time in four years that Dalton, a private school on East 89th Street, did not win the title. That same year, Kasaun competed for the Mayor's Cup, awarded to the best players in New York City schools. In the championship contest, he was losing. "Kasaun's talent is that he understands what's presented to him very quickly, assimilates it and diversifies all the responses, then multiplies them into possible applications," says Ashley. "That's a great gift." Kasaun sacrificed two pawns to a private-school kid, who took them with a patronizing air -- as if being ceded the win by an opponent he all along believed inferior -- only to fall into Kasaun's "vicious combination."
Amazingly, after being a national team champ and individual city champ, Kasaun dropped chess. He remembered why. Ten girls walked down the hall, giddy and with arms linked, and shouted at him: N-e-r-d. He'd grown sensitive. In high school, Kasaun stumbled onto more sociable preoccupations: girls and music. He could hear music a couple of times and play it back on the organ at his mother's church. After school every day, he'd head to Sam Ash, the music store on West 48th Street. He'd study sheet music and memorize a melody; if he stayed too long, they'd kick him out. Then he'd skip next door to Manny's Music to try out what he'd learned. Kasaun stayed for hours, practicing on the keyboards, always promising salesmen he'd buy. Eventually, he'd win a scholarship to Harlem School for the Arts.
A study commissioned by Chess-in-the-Schools would determine that playing chess correlated to better reading skills -- and, it's fair to imagine, to better grades -- but that was only if a student attended class. Kasaun preferred to sneak into empty studios and practice piano. He nearly flunked high school, and didn't know whether he'd attend college.
That's when Maurice Ashley, Kasaun's former coach, called Professor Howard Prince, a chess coach at BMCC. Prince is a chess activist -- currently, he's president of the Marshall Chess Club in the Village -- and advocate: He'd helped get the Laurence Fishburne character in Searching for Bobby Fischer a teaching spot at BMCC.
For years, he'd dreamed of a BMCC chess team. In this dream, he saw himself, a short, haimish chess coach who takes mighty drags on tiny Capri cigarettes, jumping in the air, celebrating a victory -- almost in slow motion -- glasses bouncing on his nose. He'd awake feeling exalted. Then he'd return to the chess club he'd founded to play with the rest of the patzers -- the term a skilled player uses for rank amateurs. In 1992, though, Prince and Vicente Revilla, a library-science professor who became co-coach, were playing speed chess in the cafeteria. A student challenged them. Usually, each player receives five minutes. The challenger set his clock to one minute. Prince, after being crushed, had one thought: "We have a chess team."
The key to winning college chess is recruiting. In this, Prince and Revilla have a few advantages. The primary one is that the New York area probably has the greatest concentration of chess talent in America. And then there's the money. Prince and Revilla control a rare thing in college chess -- scholarships financed by a garrulous midwestern millionaire who doesn't know the first thing about chess.
Sherif El-Assiouti, one of Egypt's top players, found BMCC through the Manhattan Chess Club, a building anomalously located a few doors from Orso on Restaurant Row. The club's manager told Prince that Sherif was a strong player embarrassed that his public-school students laughed at his English. (Later, he'd realize students laugh at native speakers, too.) Prince offered him a 75 percent scholarship to study English and play chess.
In Kazakhstan, John Easton worked with computers; when he came to New York at 18, he didn't know how to say, "I'm good with computers." He saw his future on Wall Street; to get there, he thought of his past. He'd been a chess prodigy -- at one point third in the Soviet Union in his age group -- tutored, in part, by his scientist dad. "I didn't beat my father till I was 11!" he reports in a scandalized tone. He, too, got a scholarship.
At the Manhattan Chess Club, John met Alexander Stripunsky, who will soon officially be a grand master -- the highest chess level; there are only about 30 active in the United States. Alex was the toughest sell. "English is important," John told him in Russian; plus, Alex loved Hemingway and Salinger. And he'd have to play only one tournament -- that's the entire season. With John translating, Prince hurried Alex through registration in the few days before the Bowling Green Pan-Ams.
When Ashley recommended Kasaun, Prince didn't hesitate. It wasn't as if Prince could try anyone out. Often, he didn't understand what his players were up to. "They'll calculate far in advance of anything I can see," says Prince.
Only after he'd enrolled at BMCC did Kasaun confess to his girlfriend, the first he'd ever had. "I play chess," he told her. "She didn't know about my chess history," says Kasaun. Secretly, though, he'd missed chess. Soon he was again playing for hours. Sometimes he'd stay at the chess clubs till eleven. "Getting in shape," he called it. Days, he worked as a chess instructor, taking a job in the public schools just as his mentor, Maurice Ashley, had. Kasaun had spent high school pining for the attention of girls. In college, when he finally got a girlfriend, he went back to his true love. He liked women, pursued their company: His girlfriend was Japanese, and he was studying Japanese; he'd been interested in Spanish women and had taught himself Spanish. Still, he says, "chess is more interesting than a girl, more emotional, more intimate, more reliable. I enjoy it more. I have a desire for a girlfriend, but it's not a necessity." Clearly, chess is. "Chess connects deep down," he explains.
In Kasaun's apartment, a one-bedroom he shares on 113th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue, clothes are everywhere, piled like mounds of snow -- a small car might be buried underneath -- and spread on a couch; in a closet; over a glass table boiling with CDs, sunglasses, Snapple bottle; behind the Yamaha keyboard purchased (finally) from Sam Ash; everywhere, it seems, but in a dresser, where he keeps books: of Japanese, piano sonatas, chess.
Kasaun is handsome and slim, a good fit for clothes. And he's a bit frantic as he talks about them. Emotions move in him. He races around, hunting for a camel-colored vest he says he loves. In seventh grade, when he wanted to be president of the United States, he owned a single suit and wore it every day. Now he'd like to own a hundred. Already he has twelve. He switches from one jacket to another -- from a light-blue to a dark-green to a salmon, which is the first suit he bought when he entered BMCC, to a dark one by Oscar de la Renta for which he paid $139, the most he's ever paid -- as if he were backstage at a bedroom farce.
These days, Kasaun wears suits everywhere. He teaches chess in inner-city schools wearing suits -- he's trying to re-create the success of the Raging Rooks. He shoots pool in suits. "I'm thinking of going three-piece now," he says, and then, grinning wildly: "My goal is cuff links."
For Kasaun, suits are partly dress-up, an impish idea in gangsta times; but they also seem to come from a transformational urge. Suits are there to package a new, emerging Kasaun. Grand masters often dress formally for tournaments, he knows. He'd like to be a grand master, but really, he wants the grand master's personality. He's after seriousness, focus, truth even -- things he suspects could easily drift beyond reach, the way college almost did. "Suits keep me studious at all times," he says. "If I'm wearing a suit, then I know I will study chess."
The day after his embarrassing loss in Bowling Green -- during which he'd shown his thug look -- Kasaun, perhaps wanting to dip into reserves of purpose, selected one of the two Brooks Brothers suits he'd purchased from a classified ad in Buy & Sell magazine. He'd paid $100 to a Wall Street guy, not including alterations. It was an understated gray suit with a subtle maroon pinstripe. He wore a white turtleneck. When he walked into the convention hall at the Pan Ams, people didn't know if he was the same player as the gangsta who'd shown up the day before, Kasaun thought, and he enjoyed that thought.
Throughout the tournament, John would handily win his matches. Alex, who'd first hesitated to cast his lot with BMCC, worked hard for the team. A dull pout on his big head, he played long matches. Prince paced off to the side -- occasionally sneaking out for tugs on a Capri. "Is he winning?" Prince would ask. During one game, Alex lost his queen in what appeared to Prince a disastrous turn. But a team member explained it was a very clever trap, and in fact, that win would be written up in the New York Times.
Still, the day Kasaun wore his gray Brooks Brothers, it would be his game that proved crucial. BMCC played third-ranked University of Texas. Alex drew his match. Kasaun realized his win could keep BMCC in first place; his loss would drop the team to fifth, probably an insurmountable hole.
"The only mistakes that count are my mental mistakes," he told himself as he sat in the conference room, which was silent but for whispering spectators. "Losing, that's your bonus lesson, that's what Maurice taught me," he thought. He knew what had gone wrong before. Chess, the way Kasaun discusses it, seems a course in personality, a challenge in self-control, in inner discipline. "This game is so deep," he says, "it makes me better at life."
Chess, it's sometimes said, is an elegant way of mugging people. Kasaun, suited in the armor of his Brooks Brothers and his studious self, repeated that whatever happened, he'd fight, even if he was down, which he quickly was. Kasaun showed no expression -- he'd been schooling himself to do just that. But he thought, "All the games I won, I was losing."
When Kasaun concentrates, he stares at the board as if it were an animal he cares for but doesn't trust. There are different ways of being down, he thought. "Don't panic. To have worse position doesn't mean you lose," he told himself. "Make the position ugly, get crazy." His opponent began making overconfident moves. Kasaun wasn't threatened, not emotionally threatened, which is what he'd say counted. Soon he had a counterplay. And once again, he found himself with a time advantage, ten minutes to his opponent's one. If his moves had proved so time-consuming for his opponent, he should stick with his strategy, he reasoned. "Now when I get the advantage," he says, "I'm tougher because it happened to me in the worst way it ever could." He settled in to play deliberately this time. "I played as hard as I could," he says; all the while he seemed to be thinking of something else, Japanese verbs or major chords. He refused to look at his opponent's clock, which soon expired. Kasaun's game put BMCC in first place -- to stay.
http://nymag.com/nymetro/urban/recreation/features/2806/
Showing posts with label Feature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Feature. Show all posts
Friday, March 16, 2007
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Everyday Heroes
Channel 9 features 'Everyday Heroes'
BY JOHN KIESEWETTER | JKIESEWETTER@ENQUIRER.COM
Heroes come in all types, big and small.
That’s the message of “Pepsi Everyday Freedom Heroes,” a local TV special (9 p.m. Friday, Channel 9) profiling the “Everyday Freedom Heroes” honored in November by the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.
The six range from a Canadian boy campaigning to end child labor and a Rochester nun helping feed the poor to Arnice Smith, a College Hill children’s librarian who holds after-school study sessions for at-risk students.
“I don’t think of myself as a hero,” says Smith, a Cincinnati native and Cheviot mother of two. “Because for me, this is what I’m supposed to be doing. This is why I am here.”
Smith started shelving books in 1982 as a part-time job at the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. She has been a College Hill branch librarian since 2001.
Two years ago, she was one of 27 U.S. public librarians to receive The New York Times’ Librarian Award for outstanding community service.
The one-hour special, by local producers Jim Friedman and Addie Rosenthal, shows Smith providing dictionaries, calculators, paper and other supplies for her after-school study skills sessions.
Also profiled are Craig Kielburger, who as a 12-year-old in Toronto started “Free the Children” to stop child labor; Sister Beth LeValley, who works with Rochester poor; Azim Khamisa, a San Diego man promoting peace and forgiveness after a gang member murdered his son; Karin Rivas, from the Clearwater-based Florida Center for Survivors of Torture; and Daniel Beaty of Dayton, who performs a one-man off-Broadway show about race relations.
They were selected by the Freedom Center and Friedman’s company, which created the TV program two years ago. This year’s recipients were a departure from last year, when most of the honorees had an international impact.
“Last year we were looking at the absolute best, those who had done the incredible. This year we were looking for a balance, so people could see themselves,” he says.
All of the show’s music was composed by Cincinnatians Wes Boatman and Tom Steele. Most of the dozen people making “soap box” comments about freedom in the show are from Cincinnati.
BY JOHN KIESEWETTER | JKIESEWETTER@ENQUIRER.COM
Heroes come in all types, big and small.
That’s the message of “Pepsi Everyday Freedom Heroes,” a local TV special (9 p.m. Friday, Channel 9) profiling the “Everyday Freedom Heroes” honored in November by the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.
The six range from a Canadian boy campaigning to end child labor and a Rochester nun helping feed the poor to Arnice Smith, a College Hill children’s librarian who holds after-school study sessions for at-risk students.
“I don’t think of myself as a hero,” says Smith, a Cincinnati native and Cheviot mother of two. “Because for me, this is what I’m supposed to be doing. This is why I am here.”
Smith started shelving books in 1982 as a part-time job at the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. She has been a College Hill branch librarian since 2001.
Two years ago, she was one of 27 U.S. public librarians to receive The New York Times’ Librarian Award for outstanding community service.
The one-hour special, by local producers Jim Friedman and Addie Rosenthal, shows Smith providing dictionaries, calculators, paper and other supplies for her after-school study skills sessions.
Also profiled are Craig Kielburger, who as a 12-year-old in Toronto started “Free the Children” to stop child labor; Sister Beth LeValley, who works with Rochester poor; Azim Khamisa, a San Diego man promoting peace and forgiveness after a gang member murdered his son; Karin Rivas, from the Clearwater-based Florida Center for Survivors of Torture; and Daniel Beaty of Dayton, who performs a one-man off-Broadway show about race relations.
They were selected by the Freedom Center and Friedman’s company, which created the TV program two years ago. This year’s recipients were a departure from last year, when most of the honorees had an international impact.
“Last year we were looking at the absolute best, those who had done the incredible. This year we were looking for a balance, so people could see themselves,” he says.
All of the show’s music was composed by Cincinnatians Wes Boatman and Tom Steele. Most of the dozen people making “soap box” comments about freedom in the show are from Cincinnati.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Bagels at the Tasting Menu
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Entry: April 24, 2003
Thursday, April 24, 2003, 10:44PM
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Passover is officially over. What better way to celebrate than with a whole write-up about bread - bagels specifically. This is also finally the wrap-up of our trip to New York City. It took ten times as long to write it up than it did to actually go. Anyway... the bagel has been firmly assimilated into American culture. Thought of as a contribution of Jewish cuisine its origins in fact go back to Polish royalty.
Genealogy aside, a construct as simple as the bagel has many incarnations and can be found across North America everywhere from small family run bagel bakeries going back decades to faux Jewish bagel chains (and another, and another) and even McDonald’s. As with pizza, the Garden of Eden for this item is thought to be New York City. Establishments across the world claim to want to sell you a New York bagel. It seemed fitting as we hopped in a cab to head to the airport to fly home from New York to stop at a bagel place and get an authentic New York bagel.
H&H is commonly thought of as a premier venue for bagels in New York but multiple sources (publications and friends) told me the new king was Ess-a-bagel (“ess” being Yiddish for “eat”). We stopped there for a dozen. We ate a couple on the spot and stuffed the rest into our luggage for transport home to our freezer.
First of all, it is difficult to imagine almost any kind of baked item that is not delicious when fresh out of the oven. That said, our bar here has to be higher than that for we’re really seeking out the world’s best bagels. So out-of-the-oven freshness aside, the verdict on Ess-a-Bagel’s bagels (and New York bagels in general) was “eh”. It was really big, dense, chewy, and frankly not that interesting. It was like a more extreme version of what chains like Noah’s and Bruegger’s sell you. I could see what they were copying, but frankly, I found their commercialized versions even better.
My suspicions about my lack of ardor for New York bagels had been forming over years of trying them and while Ess-a-Bagel is not my only basis for judgment, it was my confirming evidence. I know lots of people swear by New York bagels but to me they're like something Texas would be proud of – “hey, it’s big!”.
So the question remains, what constitutes a good bagel? And where can you get one? My home Seattle is definitely not an answer as the bagels here are sad affairs making the New York bagels look interesting. The answer comes from an unlikely source. Despite its national massive insecurity complex and its unremarkable contributions (Labatt's, Canadian Bacon, Poutine Galvaude, and Salt and Vinegar Potato Chips) to the world food corpus, the best bagels in the world come from Canada – that’s right Canada.
Who would have ever thought it possible. Someday I’ll spend several months investigating the genetic history of the bagel and the reasons why these different strains of bagel have survived in Canada. That day is not today, but I can still speculate. Much of Canada’s surprisingly large Jewish community is centered in Toronto and Montreal – with some significant population in the national capital Ottawa as well. While I was born and raised in the U.S., I do have significant extended family located in Toronto and Ottawa. This has led to my exposure to Canadian bagels.
Battles between Toronto and Montreal Jews over bagel identity are common. Each city claiming to have the right bagel angle. After tasting a variety of bagels I’ve come to know of two specific bagel archetypes that I have found to be the best bagels in the world. Let’s start with Gryfe’s bagels in Toronto.
They are truly the best I’ve ever had. Deceptively light, I’ve found it possible to scarf down two or three as I walk from the store with my fresh “catch” to the car 50 feet away. How is this possible? They’re incredibly light and airy bagels. They still have substance and flavor but they are consumable in great quantities. There are certain bagels known as “bread bagels. I think the Gryfe’s bagels are different as they really aren’t bread per se but are sort of a cousin.
To simplify matters, Gryfe’s doesn’t sell 50 varieties or have any asiago/jalapeno flavors in their bagels (nothing against a little cheese and pepper of course). At Gryfe’s there’s plain, poppy, and sesame. My parents grew up friends with one of the Gryfe boys and got to eat these bagels growing up. In trying to recreate these bagels at home I’ve grilled my father for any secrets gleaned from his time at the bakery. He apparently was too busy eating the bagels to see how they were made. I’m sure that method is a closely guarded family secret anyway. But that hasn’t stopped me from trying to recreate them.
On a side note I’ve recently gotten some Gryfe’s bagels delivered to me by family. They were really delicious. That said, they weren’t quite as perfect as getting them fresh from the bakery, which seems reasonable given that they were a couple of days old and had been frozen in the interim. But even after their cryogenic travails these were still better than any bagel I’d had anywhere else on the east or west coast.
Before I get into my latest efforts at recreating these bagels at home, let’s first acknowledge a type of bagel I’ve only recently been introduced to that I think is also pretty fantastic. In discussions with a friend at work (Joey) who’s from Ottawa, he’s been good enough to supply me every so often with a few bagels his parents bring to Seattle from the “old country”. (Last time he came to my office as if holding an organ ready for transplant with the clock counting down. Bagels are important!) They came from the Ottawa Bagel Shop and Deli.
Joey claims that the Ottawa bagel is a "total rip-off of the Montreal Bagel" and that these bagels are the closest he's seen to Montreal bagels" - an assertion backed up on their website where they talk about being from Montreal. According to Joey, St. Viateur's are apparently the best Montreal has to offer.
For the purposes of this assessment I'm assuming that Ottawa and Montreal bagels are essentially the same. They're diminutive like the Toronto bagels, but they have bigger centers whereas the Gryfe’s bagels close in more. (Both are dwarfed by the Manhattan monstrosities we got at Ess-a-Bagel.) But the difference in appearance is not the main factor.
Most recently I got six of these Ottawa bagels – all sesame. In Jerusalem, you can buy these things that the Israeli’s call “baygeleh” from Arab peddlers standing on the street in various parts of the city. (I always got mine at Jaffa gate outside the old city). They are like someone rolled out the dough for a four bagels and made one huge hoop instead of four small rings. They are no thicker than a typical bagel (maybe even a little smaller, but they are much much longer and end up hanging on pegs and settling in a lopsided oval shape. Most importantly, almost every square millimeter of them are covered with sesame seeds. The dough itself is strangely devoid of flavor. But the incredible roasted sesame flavor is the star. The texture is also a touch crispy on the outside and chewy yummy on the inside. I haven’t eaten one of these in at least four or five years and I can still smell and taste exactly what they’re like. That’s the kind of impression they make on someone.
Now, imagine these same “baygeleh” in the size of a bagel with all the great sesame goodness, but a flavorful bagel dough. That’s the Ottawa bagels I’ve been getting every so often. Frankly? They’re delicious. They may stand up even better to freezing and transport than the Gryfe’s. To be fair, I haven’t eaten these fresh, but they were very very good. Again, better than anything I’ve had in the United States, ever.
So, here’s the question: how do you get these bagels unless you live there (or have friends and family who are willing to deliver)? My approach has been to try making them myself. Since I’ve only (relatively) recently been introduced to the Ottawa bagels, I decided to tackle recreating Gryfe’s Toronto bagels, and still my choice for the best bagels on the planet.
A la America’s Test Kitchen, across several sessions (often with my brother-in-law Gil) I tried experimenting with different bagel recipes. We started by scouring every cookbook I have as well as the web for bagel recipes. On the web I tried to focus on recipes that purported to result in authentic Canadian bagels. (This is where I first saw the heated battle between residents of Toronto and Montreal about their bagel supremacy.)
We ended up with about a dozen different recipes which were then analyzed for ingredients, quantities, and methodologies. Those recipes that were almost identical were treated as one. We were really hunting for core schisms in techniques that could lead to such a wide array of bagel possibilities. Recipes that claimed to make “real New York bagels” were set aside as we weren’t interested in making New York bagels.
As mentioned earlier I grilled my father for secrets from his youth hanging out at Gryfe’s. He thought he remembered that they used to make the dough, let it sit in the fridge all night, and then boil and bake first thing in the morning. In some of our early experiments I tried this to less than successful results. Either my father’s memory was faulty or I misapplied the technique. I think it was the latter. I’ve heard of other people doing this since, so it bears further investigation.
Ultimately we ended up trying variations and combinations on a few different recipes. For example, we liked the texture in one recipe, the flavor in another, and so forth. One recipe was for “Montreal Bagels” adapted from A Treasury of Jewish Holiday Baking by Marcy Goldman, and another from the Canadian Living Test Kitchen. I’ve been experimenting mainly with different quantities of sugar as well as ratios of flour to yeast to water. I might say at this point that the recipe is a work in progress, but in this endeavor, the reward may be the journey. Will I ever think I've hit perfection? Will there always be a slight enhancement and adjustment to try? Whether we're on the journey or have reached the destination this recipe makes some delicious bagels right at home that in my mind are better than any you can buy in the United States. I’ll continue to update and tweak the recipe as I experiment over time, but this is a good snapshot of where I’m at right now. I promise, you won’t be disappointed.
Ingredients
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 cup lukewarm potato water (This is essentially the water left over from boiling potatoes. Covered, this will refrigerate for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 4 months. You can also dissolve 1½ tablespoons of potato flour in 1 cup of lukewarm water, but I haven’t tried this.)
1 envelope of yeast
1 tablespoon beaten egg
3 tablespoons canola oil
1 tablespoon malt syrup
~3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tbsp granulated sugar
1½ teaspoon Kosher salt
Poaching Liquid
16 cups water
1/3 cup honey
Glaze
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon water
poppy or sesame seeds
Instructions
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In a large bowl, dissolve 1 tablespoon of granulated sugar into the lukewarm potato water.
Sprinkle the yeast on top and let it stand for 10 minutes or until it gets frothy.
Stir the tablespoon of beaten egg, canola oil and malt syrup into the yeast/water mixture.
Stir together 1 cup of the flour, 2 tablespoons of the sugar, and the kosher salt.
Slowly beat these dry ingredients into the yeast mixture using an electric mixer until smooth. This should take about 2 minutes.
Use a wooden spoon to gradually mix the remaining flour in to the mixture resulting in a soft sticky dough.
On a lightly floured surface knead until the dough is smooth and stretchy. Make sure to get all the dry isolated flour spots worked out of the dough. This should take 5-10 minutes.
Place the dough in a greased bowl, rotating the dough around the bowl so its outside is covered in the grease. Cover with plastic wrap (or wax paper with grease on it and a small towel).
Allow the dough to rise for 1 to 1½ hours until the dough has doubled and you can poke your finger into it and leave a mark.
Preheat your oven to 400 F.
After rising, punch the dough down and knead it several times.
Divide the dough into 10 pieces (the recipe originally called for 12 pieces, but my bagels were getting even too small for me. I may tweak the recipe to result in an even dozen). Keep the unformed dough and formed bagels covered when you’re not directly shaping them.
There are two methods for shaping a bagel. One is to make a ball (don’t compress it too much) and poke your thumb through the center. You work your thumb (on the inside of the bagel) and your index finger (on the outside) all the way around the bagel until it’s formed. The other method which I prefer is to roll the dough into a long pipe and then wrap it horizontally around your hand using your fist as well as your other hand to seal it into a ring. The pipe of dough just barely wraps around my hand and I have to stretch it a bit. I like this method because the shapes end up more bagel-like, whereas for me, the first method results in more roll-like creations with small depressions in the middle.
Place your bagels apart on a floured and covered baking sheet. Let them rise for 15 minutes.
In the meantime, in a large pot, bring the water to a boil. Add the honey and stir. This is the poaching liquid.
Gently slide your bagels into the water a few at a time into the water over a medium heat for 1 minute on each side. This is to proof them, they should be noticeably bigger than when they went into the water.
Carefully remove the bagels onto parchment paper or a foil-lined greased baking sheet using a slotted spoon.
Stir together the egg yolk and water and quickly brush over the bagels as they come out of the poaching liquid.
Sprinkle with poppy or sesame seeds.
Bake in the 400 degree oven for 20 to 25 minutes until the tops are golden brown and the bottoms sound hollow when tapped. Cool on a wire rack.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Entry: April 24, 2003
Thursday, April 24, 2003, 10:44PM
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Passover is officially over. What better way to celebrate than with a whole write-up about bread - bagels specifically. This is also finally the wrap-up of our trip to New York City. It took ten times as long to write it up than it did to actually go. Anyway... the bagel has been firmly assimilated into American culture. Thought of as a contribution of Jewish cuisine its origins in fact go back to Polish royalty.
Genealogy aside, a construct as simple as the bagel has many incarnations and can be found across North America everywhere from small family run bagel bakeries going back decades to faux Jewish bagel chains (and another, and another) and even McDonald’s. As with pizza, the Garden of Eden for this item is thought to be New York City. Establishments across the world claim to want to sell you a New York bagel. It seemed fitting as we hopped in a cab to head to the airport to fly home from New York to stop at a bagel place and get an authentic New York bagel.
H&H is commonly thought of as a premier venue for bagels in New York but multiple sources (publications and friends) told me the new king was Ess-a-bagel (“ess” being Yiddish for “eat”). We stopped there for a dozen. We ate a couple on the spot and stuffed the rest into our luggage for transport home to our freezer.
First of all, it is difficult to imagine almost any kind of baked item that is not delicious when fresh out of the oven. That said, our bar here has to be higher than that for we’re really seeking out the world’s best bagels. So out-of-the-oven freshness aside, the verdict on Ess-a-Bagel’s bagels (and New York bagels in general) was “eh”. It was really big, dense, chewy, and frankly not that interesting. It was like a more extreme version of what chains like Noah’s and Bruegger’s sell you. I could see what they were copying, but frankly, I found their commercialized versions even better.
My suspicions about my lack of ardor for New York bagels had been forming over years of trying them and while Ess-a-Bagel is not my only basis for judgment, it was my confirming evidence. I know lots of people swear by New York bagels but to me they're like something Texas would be proud of – “hey, it’s big!”.
So the question remains, what constitutes a good bagel? And where can you get one? My home Seattle is definitely not an answer as the bagels here are sad affairs making the New York bagels look interesting. The answer comes from an unlikely source. Despite its national massive insecurity complex and its unremarkable contributions (Labatt's, Canadian Bacon, Poutine Galvaude, and Salt and Vinegar Potato Chips) to the world food corpus, the best bagels in the world come from Canada – that’s right Canada.
Who would have ever thought it possible. Someday I’ll spend several months investigating the genetic history of the bagel and the reasons why these different strains of bagel have survived in Canada. That day is not today, but I can still speculate. Much of Canada’s surprisingly large Jewish community is centered in Toronto and Montreal – with some significant population in the national capital Ottawa as well. While I was born and raised in the U.S., I do have significant extended family located in Toronto and Ottawa. This has led to my exposure to Canadian bagels.
Battles between Toronto and Montreal Jews over bagel identity are common. Each city claiming to have the right bagel angle. After tasting a variety of bagels I’ve come to know of two specific bagel archetypes that I have found to be the best bagels in the world. Let’s start with Gryfe’s bagels in Toronto.
They are truly the best I’ve ever had. Deceptively light, I’ve found it possible to scarf down two or three as I walk from the store with my fresh “catch” to the car 50 feet away. How is this possible? They’re incredibly light and airy bagels. They still have substance and flavor but they are consumable in great quantities. There are certain bagels known as “bread bagels. I think the Gryfe’s bagels are different as they really aren’t bread per se but are sort of a cousin.
To simplify matters, Gryfe’s doesn’t sell 50 varieties or have any asiago/jalapeno flavors in their bagels (nothing against a little cheese and pepper of course). At Gryfe’s there’s plain, poppy, and sesame. My parents grew up friends with one of the Gryfe boys and got to eat these bagels growing up. In trying to recreate these bagels at home I’ve grilled my father for any secrets gleaned from his time at the bakery. He apparently was too busy eating the bagels to see how they were made. I’m sure that method is a closely guarded family secret anyway. But that hasn’t stopped me from trying to recreate them.
On a side note I’ve recently gotten some Gryfe’s bagels delivered to me by family. They were really delicious. That said, they weren’t quite as perfect as getting them fresh from the bakery, which seems reasonable given that they were a couple of days old and had been frozen in the interim. But even after their cryogenic travails these were still better than any bagel I’d had anywhere else on the east or west coast.
Before I get into my latest efforts at recreating these bagels at home, let’s first acknowledge a type of bagel I’ve only recently been introduced to that I think is also pretty fantastic. In discussions with a friend at work (Joey) who’s from Ottawa, he’s been good enough to supply me every so often with a few bagels his parents bring to Seattle from the “old country”. (Last time he came to my office as if holding an organ ready for transplant with the clock counting down. Bagels are important!) They came from the Ottawa Bagel Shop and Deli.
Joey claims that the Ottawa bagel is a "total rip-off of the Montreal Bagel" and that these bagels are the closest he's seen to Montreal bagels" - an assertion backed up on their website where they talk about being from Montreal. According to Joey, St. Viateur's are apparently the best Montreal has to offer.
For the purposes of this assessment I'm assuming that Ottawa and Montreal bagels are essentially the same. They're diminutive like the Toronto bagels, but they have bigger centers whereas the Gryfe’s bagels close in more. (Both are dwarfed by the Manhattan monstrosities we got at Ess-a-Bagel.) But the difference in appearance is not the main factor.
Most recently I got six of these Ottawa bagels – all sesame. In Jerusalem, you can buy these things that the Israeli’s call “baygeleh” from Arab peddlers standing on the street in various parts of the city. (I always got mine at Jaffa gate outside the old city). They are like someone rolled out the dough for a four bagels and made one huge hoop instead of four small rings. They are no thicker than a typical bagel (maybe even a little smaller, but they are much much longer and end up hanging on pegs and settling in a lopsided oval shape. Most importantly, almost every square millimeter of them are covered with sesame seeds. The dough itself is strangely devoid of flavor. But the incredible roasted sesame flavor is the star. The texture is also a touch crispy on the outside and chewy yummy on the inside. I haven’t eaten one of these in at least four or five years and I can still smell and taste exactly what they’re like. That’s the kind of impression they make on someone.
Now, imagine these same “baygeleh” in the size of a bagel with all the great sesame goodness, but a flavorful bagel dough. That’s the Ottawa bagels I’ve been getting every so often. Frankly? They’re delicious. They may stand up even better to freezing and transport than the Gryfe’s. To be fair, I haven’t eaten these fresh, but they were very very good. Again, better than anything I’ve had in the United States, ever.
So, here’s the question: how do you get these bagels unless you live there (or have friends and family who are willing to deliver)? My approach has been to try making them myself. Since I’ve only (relatively) recently been introduced to the Ottawa bagels, I decided to tackle recreating Gryfe’s Toronto bagels, and still my choice for the best bagels on the planet.
A la America’s Test Kitchen, across several sessions (often with my brother-in-law Gil) I tried experimenting with different bagel recipes. We started by scouring every cookbook I have as well as the web for bagel recipes. On the web I tried to focus on recipes that purported to result in authentic Canadian bagels. (This is where I first saw the heated battle between residents of Toronto and Montreal about their bagel supremacy.)
We ended up with about a dozen different recipes which were then analyzed for ingredients, quantities, and methodologies. Those recipes that were almost identical were treated as one. We were really hunting for core schisms in techniques that could lead to such a wide array of bagel possibilities. Recipes that claimed to make “real New York bagels” were set aside as we weren’t interested in making New York bagels.
As mentioned earlier I grilled my father for secrets from his youth hanging out at Gryfe’s. He thought he remembered that they used to make the dough, let it sit in the fridge all night, and then boil and bake first thing in the morning. In some of our early experiments I tried this to less than successful results. Either my father’s memory was faulty or I misapplied the technique. I think it was the latter. I’ve heard of other people doing this since, so it bears further investigation.
Ultimately we ended up trying variations and combinations on a few different recipes. For example, we liked the texture in one recipe, the flavor in another, and so forth. One recipe was for “Montreal Bagels” adapted from A Treasury of Jewish Holiday Baking by Marcy Goldman, and another from the Canadian Living Test Kitchen. I’ve been experimenting mainly with different quantities of sugar as well as ratios of flour to yeast to water. I might say at this point that the recipe is a work in progress, but in this endeavor, the reward may be the journey. Will I ever think I've hit perfection? Will there always be a slight enhancement and adjustment to try? Whether we're on the journey or have reached the destination this recipe makes some delicious bagels right at home that in my mind are better than any you can buy in the United States. I’ll continue to update and tweak the recipe as I experiment over time, but this is a good snapshot of where I’m at right now. I promise, you won’t be disappointed.
Ingredients
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 cup lukewarm potato water (This is essentially the water left over from boiling potatoes. Covered, this will refrigerate for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 4 months. You can also dissolve 1½ tablespoons of potato flour in 1 cup of lukewarm water, but I haven’t tried this.)
1 envelope of yeast
1 tablespoon beaten egg
3 tablespoons canola oil
1 tablespoon malt syrup
~3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tbsp granulated sugar
1½ teaspoon Kosher salt
Poaching Liquid
16 cups water
1/3 cup honey
Glaze
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon water
poppy or sesame seeds
Instructions
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In a large bowl, dissolve 1 tablespoon of granulated sugar into the lukewarm potato water.
Sprinkle the yeast on top and let it stand for 10 minutes or until it gets frothy.
Stir the tablespoon of beaten egg, canola oil and malt syrup into the yeast/water mixture.
Stir together 1 cup of the flour, 2 tablespoons of the sugar, and the kosher salt.
Slowly beat these dry ingredients into the yeast mixture using an electric mixer until smooth. This should take about 2 minutes.
Use a wooden spoon to gradually mix the remaining flour in to the mixture resulting in a soft sticky dough.
On a lightly floured surface knead until the dough is smooth and stretchy. Make sure to get all the dry isolated flour spots worked out of the dough. This should take 5-10 minutes.
Place the dough in a greased bowl, rotating the dough around the bowl so its outside is covered in the grease. Cover with plastic wrap (or wax paper with grease on it and a small towel).
Allow the dough to rise for 1 to 1½ hours until the dough has doubled and you can poke your finger into it and leave a mark.
Preheat your oven to 400 F.
After rising, punch the dough down and knead it several times.
Divide the dough into 10 pieces (the recipe originally called for 12 pieces, but my bagels were getting even too small for me. I may tweak the recipe to result in an even dozen). Keep the unformed dough and formed bagels covered when you’re not directly shaping them.
There are two methods for shaping a bagel. One is to make a ball (don’t compress it too much) and poke your thumb through the center. You work your thumb (on the inside of the bagel) and your index finger (on the outside) all the way around the bagel until it’s formed. The other method which I prefer is to roll the dough into a long pipe and then wrap it horizontally around your hand using your fist as well as your other hand to seal it into a ring. The pipe of dough just barely wraps around my hand and I have to stretch it a bit. I like this method because the shapes end up more bagel-like, whereas for me, the first method results in more roll-like creations with small depressions in the middle.
Place your bagels apart on a floured and covered baking sheet. Let them rise for 15 minutes.
In the meantime, in a large pot, bring the water to a boil. Add the honey and stir. This is the poaching liquid.
Gently slide your bagels into the water a few at a time into the water over a medium heat for 1 minute on each side. This is to proof them, they should be noticeably bigger than when they went into the water.
Carefully remove the bagels onto parchment paper or a foil-lined greased baking sheet using a slotted spoon.
Stir together the egg yolk and water and quickly brush over the bagels as they come out of the poaching liquid.
Sprinkle with poppy or sesame seeds.
Bake in the 400 degree oven for 20 to 25 minutes until the tops are golden brown and the bottoms sound hollow when tapped. Cool on a wire rack.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OUR SPONSORS
Tastingmenu is focused on superlative restaurant experiences from two perspectives: behind the plate and behind the stove. Tastingmenu is written by Hillel (professional eater) and Dana (up-and-coming professional chef) in Seattle, Washington.
Search tastingmenu
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Watch Video Recipes executed by a master chef. Check out Soup Recipes or Chili Recipes with video enhancement.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Browse tastingmenu
Home | Restaurants by City X | Food Photography | Archive | Philosophy |
Free eBooks: All About Apples | Autumn Omakase
More: Discussion | Cool Food T-Shirts | Ingredients | Markets | Recipes
Search | Blog FAQ | Other Blogs
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City View
June 9, 2006
San Francisco, California
Entry: July 6, 2006
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Blue Plate
June 8, 2006
San Francisco, California
Entry: June 19, 2006
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon
March 31, 2006
Las Vegas, Nevada
Entry: July 18, 2006
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Comments, questions, or feedback: info / at / tastingmenu / dot / com
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Last modified 02/20/07.
http://www.tastingmenu.com/recipes/favorites/bagels.htm
How to Say No
The Basics
How to say NO! to anything -- or anyone
Pushy salesmen, relentless kids, mooching friends . . . it's time we learned how to say no. If you can't, you may find your money drained along with your time and emotional energy.
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E-mail to a friendTools IndexPrint-friendly versionSite MapDiscuss in a Message BoardArticle IndexBy Liz Pulliam Weston
Among the financial skills we should learn early in life -- but usually don't -- is the ability to say no.
Saying no is essential if we want to stick to a budget, make progress toward our financial goals and protect our credit. Yet we also want to preserve relationships with many of the people, including loved ones, who are trying to get us to say yes.
For help in navigating the minefield, I turned to several experts to create scripts for handling three common situations that call for saying no: When your kids throw a tantrum, when you're dealing for a car and when a friend asks you for money.
One of these experts, Joseph Grenny, provided a general framework for dealing with any situation where you must turn someone down. Grenny, a co-author of "Crucial Conversations: Tools for Resolving Broken Promises, Violated Expectations, and Bad Behavior," recommends the following steps:
Take a minute to think. The person who's making the request (or demand) probably spent a lot of time mulling over all the reasons why you should acquiesce. You, on the other hand, may have been hit out of the blue. You can put up your hand, say "I need a moment" or even walk into another room to collect your thoughts.
Don't make a sucker's choice. In our panic, we may think we have to choose between two bad alternatives: "I have to give her a loan, or she'll never speak to me again!" or "I have to buy this car with add-ons I don't want, or I'll lose a great deal!" (Professional salespeople and practiced mooches are, by the way, experts in backing people into this either/or mind-set.) The reality is that we usually have far more alternatives than we initially think. Taking a moment to consider those, and what we really want out of the situation, can keep us from grabbing a bad choice.
Go public. As soon as you can, tell the other person where you stand. This is also known as "articulating your boundaries," and tells the listener that "you're now driving the conversation," Grenny said. Instead of responding to their arguments, you're setting out what you will and won't do. Most petitioners "will see the answer coming" once you've gone public, and if you stick to your guns will shorten or end their attempts to persuade you. "Don't just say no," Grenny said. "Soften the blow by telling them why." Make it clear that your reasons aren't a personal reflection on the petitioner, but are instead solidly held beliefs.
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New parents' top 10 money mistakes
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Turn the situation around. Here you're encouraging your petitioner to solve his or her own problem, while offering to help in any way that doesn't violate the bottom line you've set out.
Want to see how this works in practice? Here are some examples:
You're asked for a loan or to co-sign for one
You want to say no. You know that if the person were actually creditworthy, he or she would have no trouble getting loans from banks or other lenders.
But how do you refuse without imploding the relationship? By making it "not personal," Grenny said. After you've paused to gather your thoughts, and remembered that you have more options besides giving in or getting taken, you can use any or all of the following to communicate, "it's not you -- it's me":
"Co-signing a loan means putting my credit at risk, and I can't afford to do that."
"My spouse and I have agreed not to lend any more money to family and friends. We've had relationships go sour over money, and we wouldn't want that to happen with you."
"I've got clear financial and relationship boundaries I don't want to cross."
"I'm really not in a financial position to do that right now."
"I don't want to be put in the position of being a collection agent. I know that probably wouldn't happen with you, but I can't take the chance."
Any of these, if said in a calm, neutral voice, communicate that your decision has been made. Then, if appropriate, follow up quickly by asking the petitioner for help in solving his or her own problem. For example:
"How can I help you without putting money at risk I can't afford to lose or putting myself in the role of a collection agent?'
"Is there a way we can help you without lending money or endangering our credit?"
Someone with chronic spending or debt problems may need an appointment with a legitimate credit counselor, for example, and you could recommend an agency affiliated with the National Foundation for Credit Counseling. Someone who wants money for other goals -- a car or an education, perhaps -- could be referred to articles about achieving those goals on MSN Money.
An auto salesperson is pressuring you
Being able to say no -- and mean it -- isn't just helpful when negotiating a car purchase. It's essential, says Philip Reed, consumer advice editor for auto research site Edmunds.com.
"The most effective way of saying no is saying it with your feet" by leaving the dealership when you don't get what you want, said Reed, author of "Strategies for Smart Car Buyers." "Some people say you should leave at least twice" before agreeing to buy a car.
You don't necessarily have to resort to that level of gamesmanship, Reed said, but you should find a salesperson who can take no for an answer.
Video on MSN Money
Avoid the high pressure approach to car buying. Take your auto shopping on the Web. Click here to play the video.
"Car buying is a very expensive purchase with a lot of moving parts. . . . You need to be comfortable with your salesperson," Reed said. "You don't want someone who, when you say no, says, 'Well, why not?' or 'Didn't I tell you about this or that?' "
Using statements that can't really be argued, like "That's not my taste" or "I just don't want that," can help you fend off an aggressive salesperson, but a better solution is "if you're feeling uncomfortable, find someone else who understands no means no."
1 | 2 | next >
Extensively researching the car you want and arranging financing before you walk onto the lot can help you thwart attempts to sell you more car than you can afford. Being clear and consistent about what you're looking for will help, too, Grenny said, as can enlisting the salesperson to help you solve your problem rather than creating new ones.
"You can say something like, 'I want a year-old car with these features and I want to pay close to low Blue Book,' " Grenny said. " 'I'd also like you to make a reasonable profit. So how do we do that?' "
Negotiating the deal with the salesperson is usually only the first step. Many dealerships will also trot you to a "closer" as well as the "F&I" (financing and insurance) person. These folks may view your agreement with the salesperson as just the starting point for selling you more stuff you don't want.
Be upfront, Reed urged. "Tell them, 'I want to wrap this up as soon as possible. I don't want any after-sell,' " he said. That may short-circuit the sales pitch, or they may trot out a "deal" on the extended warranty or paint protection.
Repeating "I don't want to be rude, but I want to wrap this up," Reed said, should deflate any further attempts. If not -- once again -- say no with your feet. You can say something like, "Wow, this deal is going to be a lot more expensive than I thought. I guess we can't go through with it today." Chances are the pitches will stop.
Your kids are nagging you in a store to buy something
You're trying to get through your list and avoid public tantrums. Your kids spot something they want and start to whine, hoping you'll give in.
A firm no is the only answer, right? Maybe not.
More from MSN Money
Get a better deal – with a threat
How to quit the gym (or anything)
Keep your old clunker or buy a new car?
New parents' top 10 money mistakes
Kids' parties at spare-no-expense prices
Like Grenny, money expert Janet Bodnar believes that just saying no is often an ineffective tactic, especially with kids. Far better, she says, to either give them reasons why that can't be debated or to give them a choice to make on their own.
Ideally you'll have time to do little advance planning, said Bodnar, author of "Raising Money Smart Kids" and the more recent "Money Smart Women."
Before heading into a store, tell the kids upfront what kind of shopping trip you're taking. If you're buying a present for a friend's birthday party, for example, tell them that's the goal and that you're not buying for the family on this trip.
If the kids are older -- elementary school or above -- you can suggest that they bring their own money if they think they might want to buy something. (This assumes, of course, your kids have their own money, which most do through gifts and allowances. Bodnar believes in giving kids allowances by the time they're 6 or 7 so they get experience in handling their own money and making choices about it.)
If you're caught flat-footed -- you're in a store you hadn't planned on, or the petitions for stuff take you by surprise -- you can still revert to the family rules.
"You might say, 'We're not buying anything for ourselves today,' or 'If you want to buy that, we can come back later on another trip and you can bring your money,' " Bodnar said. "Don't say 'We'll see.' They'll think, 'If I beg long enough, she'll give in.' "
If the trip is to buy something for your kids, like shoes, set the boundaries upfront about what you'll buy and how much you'll pay. Bodnar's family had a "$50 sneaker rule" -- if the kids wanted sneakers that cost more than $50, they had to pay for the excess out of their own pocket.
If your kids are too young to have their own money, or you don't mind buying them something (just not everything!) during an outing, set the limit in advance.
With preschoolers, for example, Bodnar recommends telling them in advance that they can have one treat and then defining their choices. If you're in a grocery store and don't want them to have a candy bar, for instance, you might say that they can choose among cookies, a new cereal or a frozen treat.
Whatever the age of the child, stick to the rules you laid out in advance. If you give in and buy your kid two treats, or the $100 sneakers, you're sunk. If you hold firm, Bodnar promises, you'll head off a lot of whining down the road.
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HTMLPlain TextLearn more about newslettersLike any other skill, the ability to say no effectively takes practice. Thinking in advance about the situations you might face and rehearsing your possible responses can help you stick to your guns when the time comes.
"It's a little like martial arts," said Edmunds.com's Reed. "The reason you practice . . . is so that when you're under pressure, it's reflex."
Liz Pulliam Weston's column appears every Monday and Thursday, exclusively on MSN Money. She also answers reader questions in the Your Money message board.
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How to say NO! to anything -- or anyone
Pushy salesmen, relentless kids, mooching friends . . . it's time we learned how to say no. If you can't, you may find your money drained along with your time and emotional energy.
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E-mail to a friendTools IndexPrint-friendly versionSite MapDiscuss in a Message BoardArticle IndexBy Liz Pulliam Weston
Among the financial skills we should learn early in life -- but usually don't -- is the ability to say no.
Saying no is essential if we want to stick to a budget, make progress toward our financial goals and protect our credit. Yet we also want to preserve relationships with many of the people, including loved ones, who are trying to get us to say yes.
For help in navigating the minefield, I turned to several experts to create scripts for handling three common situations that call for saying no: When your kids throw a tantrum, when you're dealing for a car and when a friend asks you for money.
One of these experts, Joseph Grenny, provided a general framework for dealing with any situation where you must turn someone down. Grenny, a co-author of "Crucial Conversations: Tools for Resolving Broken Promises, Violated Expectations, and Bad Behavior," recommends the following steps:
Take a minute to think. The person who's making the request (or demand) probably spent a lot of time mulling over all the reasons why you should acquiesce. You, on the other hand, may have been hit out of the blue. You can put up your hand, say "I need a moment" or even walk into another room to collect your thoughts.
Don't make a sucker's choice. In our panic, we may think we have to choose between two bad alternatives: "I have to give her a loan, or she'll never speak to me again!" or "I have to buy this car with add-ons I don't want, or I'll lose a great deal!" (Professional salespeople and practiced mooches are, by the way, experts in backing people into this either/or mind-set.) The reality is that we usually have far more alternatives than we initially think. Taking a moment to consider those, and what we really want out of the situation, can keep us from grabbing a bad choice.
Go public. As soon as you can, tell the other person where you stand. This is also known as "articulating your boundaries," and tells the listener that "you're now driving the conversation," Grenny said. Instead of responding to their arguments, you're setting out what you will and won't do. Most petitioners "will see the answer coming" once you've gone public, and if you stick to your guns will shorten or end their attempts to persuade you. "Don't just say no," Grenny said. "Soften the blow by telling them why." Make it clear that your reasons aren't a personal reflection on the petitioner, but are instead solidly held beliefs.
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Turn the situation around. Here you're encouraging your petitioner to solve his or her own problem, while offering to help in any way that doesn't violate the bottom line you've set out.
Want to see how this works in practice? Here are some examples:
You're asked for a loan or to co-sign for one
You want to say no. You know that if the person were actually creditworthy, he or she would have no trouble getting loans from banks or other lenders.
But how do you refuse without imploding the relationship? By making it "not personal," Grenny said. After you've paused to gather your thoughts, and remembered that you have more options besides giving in or getting taken, you can use any or all of the following to communicate, "it's not you -- it's me":
"Co-signing a loan means putting my credit at risk, and I can't afford to do that."
"My spouse and I have agreed not to lend any more money to family and friends. We've had relationships go sour over money, and we wouldn't want that to happen with you."
"I've got clear financial and relationship boundaries I don't want to cross."
"I'm really not in a financial position to do that right now."
"I don't want to be put in the position of being a collection agent. I know that probably wouldn't happen with you, but I can't take the chance."
Any of these, if said in a calm, neutral voice, communicate that your decision has been made. Then, if appropriate, follow up quickly by asking the petitioner for help in solving his or her own problem. For example:
"How can I help you without putting money at risk I can't afford to lose or putting myself in the role of a collection agent?'
"Is there a way we can help you without lending money or endangering our credit?"
Someone with chronic spending or debt problems may need an appointment with a legitimate credit counselor, for example, and you could recommend an agency affiliated with the National Foundation for Credit Counseling. Someone who wants money for other goals -- a car or an education, perhaps -- could be referred to articles about achieving those goals on MSN Money.
An auto salesperson is pressuring you
Being able to say no -- and mean it -- isn't just helpful when negotiating a car purchase. It's essential, says Philip Reed, consumer advice editor for auto research site Edmunds.com.
"The most effective way of saying no is saying it with your feet" by leaving the dealership when you don't get what you want, said Reed, author of "Strategies for Smart Car Buyers." "Some people say you should leave at least twice" before agreeing to buy a car.
You don't necessarily have to resort to that level of gamesmanship, Reed said, but you should find a salesperson who can take no for an answer.
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Avoid the high pressure approach to car buying. Take your auto shopping on the Web. Click here to play the video.
"Car buying is a very expensive purchase with a lot of moving parts. . . . You need to be comfortable with your salesperson," Reed said. "You don't want someone who, when you say no, says, 'Well, why not?' or 'Didn't I tell you about this or that?' "
Using statements that can't really be argued, like "That's not my taste" or "I just don't want that," can help you fend off an aggressive salesperson, but a better solution is "if you're feeling uncomfortable, find someone else who understands no means no."
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Extensively researching the car you want and arranging financing before you walk onto the lot can help you thwart attempts to sell you more car than you can afford. Being clear and consistent about what you're looking for will help, too, Grenny said, as can enlisting the salesperson to help you solve your problem rather than creating new ones.
"You can say something like, 'I want a year-old car with these features and I want to pay close to low Blue Book,' " Grenny said. " 'I'd also like you to make a reasonable profit. So how do we do that?' "
Negotiating the deal with the salesperson is usually only the first step. Many dealerships will also trot you to a "closer" as well as the "F&I" (financing and insurance) person. These folks may view your agreement with the salesperson as just the starting point for selling you more stuff you don't want.
Be upfront, Reed urged. "Tell them, 'I want to wrap this up as soon as possible. I don't want any after-sell,' " he said. That may short-circuit the sales pitch, or they may trot out a "deal" on the extended warranty or paint protection.
Repeating "I don't want to be rude, but I want to wrap this up," Reed said, should deflate any further attempts. If not -- once again -- say no with your feet. You can say something like, "Wow, this deal is going to be a lot more expensive than I thought. I guess we can't go through with it today." Chances are the pitches will stop.
Your kids are nagging you in a store to buy something
You're trying to get through your list and avoid public tantrums. Your kids spot something they want and start to whine, hoping you'll give in.
A firm no is the only answer, right? Maybe not.
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Like Grenny, money expert Janet Bodnar believes that just saying no is often an ineffective tactic, especially with kids. Far better, she says, to either give them reasons why that can't be debated or to give them a choice to make on their own.
Ideally you'll have time to do little advance planning, said Bodnar, author of "Raising Money Smart Kids" and the more recent "Money Smart Women."
Before heading into a store, tell the kids upfront what kind of shopping trip you're taking. If you're buying a present for a friend's birthday party, for example, tell them that's the goal and that you're not buying for the family on this trip.
If the kids are older -- elementary school or above -- you can suggest that they bring their own money if they think they might want to buy something. (This assumes, of course, your kids have their own money, which most do through gifts and allowances. Bodnar believes in giving kids allowances by the time they're 6 or 7 so they get experience in handling their own money and making choices about it.)
If you're caught flat-footed -- you're in a store you hadn't planned on, or the petitions for stuff take you by surprise -- you can still revert to the family rules.
"You might say, 'We're not buying anything for ourselves today,' or 'If you want to buy that, we can come back later on another trip and you can bring your money,' " Bodnar said. "Don't say 'We'll see.' They'll think, 'If I beg long enough, she'll give in.' "
If the trip is to buy something for your kids, like shoes, set the boundaries upfront about what you'll buy and how much you'll pay. Bodnar's family had a "$50 sneaker rule" -- if the kids wanted sneakers that cost more than $50, they had to pay for the excess out of their own pocket.
If your kids are too young to have their own money, or you don't mind buying them something (just not everything!) during an outing, set the limit in advance.
With preschoolers, for example, Bodnar recommends telling them in advance that they can have one treat and then defining their choices. If you're in a grocery store and don't want them to have a candy bar, for instance, you might say that they can choose among cookies, a new cereal or a frozen treat.
Whatever the age of the child, stick to the rules you laid out in advance. If you give in and buy your kid two treats, or the $100 sneakers, you're sunk. If you hold firm, Bodnar promises, you'll head off a lot of whining down the road.
Get the latest from Liz Pulliam Weston. Sign up to receive her free weekly newsletter.
Preferred format:
HTMLPlain TextLearn more about newslettersLike any other skill, the ability to say no effectively takes practice. Thinking in advance about the situations you might face and rehearsing your possible responses can help you stick to your guns when the time comes.
"It's a little like martial arts," said Edmunds.com's Reed. "The reason you practice . . . is so that when you're under pressure, it's reflex."
Liz Pulliam Weston's column appears every Monday and Thursday, exclusively on MSN Money. She also answers reader questions in the Your Money message board.
< previous | 1 | 2 |
Rate this Article
Click on the stars below to rate this article from 1 to 5
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Thank you for rating.
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Average rating: 3.3 from 7754 users
E-mail us your comments on this article
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Insurance rip-offs
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Resources
Track Investments
Fast Answers
Community
Message Boards
Your Letters
Decision Centers
Save Money
Save on a Car
Learn to Budget
Manage Debt
Find Deals Online
Travel For Less
Recent Articles by Liz Pulliam Weston
Could you stop spending for a month? 03/12/2007
To cut costs, move to small-town USA 03/08/2007
Are credit cards evil, or just dangerous? 03/05/2007
more...Reader's Choice
Ratings table Rating Top 5 Articles
8.83 Is Home Depot shafting shoppers?
8.63 Is free stuff on the Net really free?
8.18 How to handle this risky new market
7.68 10 things your hospital won't tell you
7.63 Dow plunges 416 points
View all Top-Rated articlesEditor's Choice
Tax Corner: Get your questions answered
'Hot' stocks: Strip clubs go mainstream
Estimate your credit score
MSN Money's 2007 Investing Guide
Forbes: 10 surprising 6-figure jobs
How to pull off an early retirement
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SavingandDebt/ConsumerActionGuide/HowToSayNoToAnythingOrAnyone.aspx?page=2
Friday, March 2, 2007
Who's Blogging, Why
Bloggers: A Portrait of the Internet's New Storytellers
July 2006
A telephone survey of a nationally-representative sample of bloggers, conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, has found that blogging is inspiring a new group of writers and creators to share their voices with the world. Some 54 percent of bloggers say that they have never published their writing or media creations anywhere else; 44 percent say they have published elsewhere. While generally youthful, these writers otherwise represent a broad demographic spectrum of people who cite a variety of topics and motives for their blogging.
Eight percent of internet users, or about 12 million American adults, keep a blog. Thirty-nine percent of internet users, or about 57 million American adults, read blogs – a significant increase since the fall of 2005.
Capturing a current snapshot of an ever-changing blog universe
The Pew Internet & American Life Project deployed two strategies to interview bloggers.
First, as part of our standard random-digit dial tracking surveys about internet use among a nationally-representative sample of American adults, we asked respondents if they maintain a blog. Then, we called back these self-identified bloggers between July 2005 and February 2006. Seventy-one percent of those called back completed this second telephone survey, which focused exclusively on blogging. The remaining 29 percent said they were no longer keeping a blog or were not willing to take another survey, and we eliminated them from the callback interviews. This strategy yielded a relatively small number of respondents (n=233) but allowed us to ask in-depth questions of a nationally-representative sample of bloggers. Numbers cited in this report are based on the callback survey unless specifically noted.
Our second strategy for preparing this report involved fielding additional random-digit surveys between November 2005 and April 2006 to capture an up-to-date estimate of the percentage of internet users who are currently blogging. These large-scale telephone surveys yielded a sample of 7,012 adults, which included 4,753 internet users, 8 percent of whom are bloggers.
Bloggers cover a variety of topics
While many well-publicized blogs focus on politics, the most popular topic among bloggers is their life and experiences. The Pew Internet Project blogger survey finds that the American blogosphere is dominated by those who use their blogs as personal journals. Most bloggers do not think of what they do as journalism.
Most bloggers say they cover a lot of different topics, but when asked to choose one main topic, 37 percent of bloggers cite “my life and experiences” as a primary topic of their blog. Politics and government ran a very distant second with 11 percent of bloggers citing those issues of public life as the main subject of their blog. Entertainment-related topics were the next most popular blog-type, with 7 percent of bloggers, followed by sports (6 percent), general news and current events (5 percent), business (5 percent), technology (4 percent), religion, spirituality or faith (2 percent), a specific hobby or a health problem or illness (each comprising 1 percent of bloggers). Other topics mentioned include opinions, volunteering, education, photography, causes and passions, and organizations.
View the full report -- Bloggers: A Portrait of the Internet's New Storytellers.
< go back | Home > Informing the Public > The Internet > Grantee Reports > Bloggers: A Portrait of the Internet's New Storytellers
Pew Internet & American Life Project
(2005)
Pew Internet & American Life Project (funded through a grant to Pew Research Center, The)
http://www.pewtrusts.org/ideas/ideas_item.cfm?content_item_id=3491&content_type_id=8&page=8&issue=10&issue_name=Society%20and%20the%20Internet&name=Grantee%20Reports&WT.srch=1&source=yahoo&OVRAW=blogger&OVKEY=blogger&OVMTC=standard
July 2006
A telephone survey of a nationally-representative sample of bloggers, conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, has found that blogging is inspiring a new group of writers and creators to share their voices with the world. Some 54 percent of bloggers say that they have never published their writing or media creations anywhere else; 44 percent say they have published elsewhere. While generally youthful, these writers otherwise represent a broad demographic spectrum of people who cite a variety of topics and motives for their blogging.
Eight percent of internet users, or about 12 million American adults, keep a blog. Thirty-nine percent of internet users, or about 57 million American adults, read blogs – a significant increase since the fall of 2005.
Capturing a current snapshot of an ever-changing blog universe
The Pew Internet & American Life Project deployed two strategies to interview bloggers.
First, as part of our standard random-digit dial tracking surveys about internet use among a nationally-representative sample of American adults, we asked respondents if they maintain a blog. Then, we called back these self-identified bloggers between July 2005 and February 2006. Seventy-one percent of those called back completed this second telephone survey, which focused exclusively on blogging. The remaining 29 percent said they were no longer keeping a blog or were not willing to take another survey, and we eliminated them from the callback interviews. This strategy yielded a relatively small number of respondents (n=233) but allowed us to ask in-depth questions of a nationally-representative sample of bloggers. Numbers cited in this report are based on the callback survey unless specifically noted.
Our second strategy for preparing this report involved fielding additional random-digit surveys between November 2005 and April 2006 to capture an up-to-date estimate of the percentage of internet users who are currently blogging. These large-scale telephone surveys yielded a sample of 7,012 adults, which included 4,753 internet users, 8 percent of whom are bloggers.
Bloggers cover a variety of topics
While many well-publicized blogs focus on politics, the most popular topic among bloggers is their life and experiences. The Pew Internet Project blogger survey finds that the American blogosphere is dominated by those who use their blogs as personal journals. Most bloggers do not think of what they do as journalism.
Most bloggers say they cover a lot of different topics, but when asked to choose one main topic, 37 percent of bloggers cite “my life and experiences” as a primary topic of their blog. Politics and government ran a very distant second with 11 percent of bloggers citing those issues of public life as the main subject of their blog. Entertainment-related topics were the next most popular blog-type, with 7 percent of bloggers, followed by sports (6 percent), general news and current events (5 percent), business (5 percent), technology (4 percent), religion, spirituality or faith (2 percent), a specific hobby or a health problem or illness (each comprising 1 percent of bloggers). Other topics mentioned include opinions, volunteering, education, photography, causes and passions, and organizations.
View the full report -- Bloggers: A Portrait of the Internet's New Storytellers.
< go back | Home > Informing the Public > The Internet > Grantee Reports > Bloggers: A Portrait of the Internet's New Storytellers
Pew Internet & American Life Project
(2005)
Pew Internet & American Life Project (funded through a grant to Pew Research Center, The)
http://www.pewtrusts.org/ideas/ideas_item.cfm?content_item_id=3491&content_type_id=8&page=8&issue=10&issue_name=Society%20and%20the%20Internet&name=Grantee%20Reports&WT.srch=1&source=yahoo&OVRAW=blogger&OVKEY=blogger&OVMTC=standard
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