On the lower level of a commercial kitchen in Anchorage, Amy Nicolaisen drops a round ball of dough into one end of a noisy, industrial-sized machine.
“They go through this machine and change from a blob to a snake, and we hope that the ends of the snake will connect inside here,” Nicolaisen explained. “And then the bagels come out.”
This old-fashioned bagel forming machine and shaping machine is the same one used by the owners of the popular Alaska Bagels, which closed during the pandemic. Nicolaisen is currently using it for his own bagel business, Wooden Spoons Alaska.
Bagel is having a moment in Anchorage.
Some described the state's largest city as a “bagel desert” after Alaska Bagel restaurants closed during the pandemic. But last year, small-batch oases began to emerge. Inspired by the movement, Nicolaisen started selling her own bagels from her shared kitchen space in the old Yummy Bakery building off Spenard Road.
Once the cinnamon raisin dough balls come out of the machine, they must ferment in the refrigerator for two days. So Nicolaisen went back upstairs to sell dozens of fresh bagels that he had boiled and baked earlier that morning.
Thomas Dosik walked through the door on a cold Saturday in December knowing exactly what he wanted.
“Six in Scandinavia, six in everything.”
Doshik had been there before. In fact, his wife was Nikolaisen's first customer when it opened in late October, and she's been a regular visitor ever since.
“I'm Jewish. I grew up in New York,” Dosik said. “She missed bagels for years until she opened.”
Mr. Dosik called Nikolaisen's bagels “top-notch” even compared to New York bagels.
“It's better than any bagel I've ever had anywhere,” Dosik said.
Nicolaisen said Dosik is not the first bagel lover to become a repeat customer. She now has a steady stream of regular customers, some of whom buy bagels on her way to work.
“People are adding us to their commute,” Nicolaisen said. “We have regulars! And they're bagel people, unlike the people I know.”
As it turns out, Anchorage has its fair share of bagel lovers. Multiple Wooden customers of his Spoons said he enjoys his Bagels shop in Homer, which is more than four hours away by car, but had a hard time finding good bagels in the city.
But now, several bagel shops have popped up around the city to meet the frenzy of demand. Julia O'Malley, a longtime food writer in Anchorage, wrote about the bagel's resurgence in August, but she doesn't think the market is saturated yet.
“I think bread has become a holistic thing during the pandemic, just as people have gotten into baking,” O’Malley said. “It's comforting and relaxing, the apocalypse.”
O'Malley said that in Anchorage, a town always hungry for new and different foods, some hobbyists have become bakery entrepreneurs.
“This is a very good environment to start a small, targeted business that offers something that's not readily available,” O'Malley said.
But why bagels? O'Malley said that for many Alaskans who aren't from here, bagels are a taste of home.
“People who come from the East Coast, especially Jewish communities across the country, have a real connection. There's a certain soul food aspect to bagels,” O'Malley said. “And they just good”
A particularly delicious bagel, she said, is Nikolaisen's Scandinavian bagel, which is sprinkled with dill seasoning, a spice that O'Malley says has special meaning in Alaska.
However, Nikolaisen's bagels weren't all that delicious to begin with. She has a background in food, she had a school lunch business and she still sells specialty chocolates. But when she first started experimenting with an old bagel machine, her product was inedible.
“It was a pandemic project like everyone else, but the bagels were really bad,” Nicolaisen said. “I practiced and practiced, but it was just a bad bagel, a bad bagel.”
Nicolaisen says he sometimes throws his failed experiments into a neighboring field, but even the crows don't eat them. Understanding the science of yeast, the right temperature and time to ferment the dough was a difficult process.
She stayed away from bagels last summer, but after seeing O'Malley's feature on all the other bagel pop-ups, she decided to give it a serious try.
After more trial and error and tastings by chefs using the shared kitchen, Nicolaisen finally perfected the recipe and was ready to open just before Halloween.
She didn't say anything to her friends that day and only made a few posts on social media.
“And then strangers showed up! And in two and a half hours it was sold out,” Nicolaisen said. “So I thought, okay, I can now run a bagel business.”
Wood Spoons offers several cream cheese flavors, but you'll have to spread the schmear yourself. Nicolaisen said he's well aware of the demand for toasted bagels and bagel sandwiches, and opening his own full-service bagel store is “on the list.”
In the meantime, you can try her bagel with all the bells and whistles from 907 Bagel, a new food truck serving elaborate sandwiches on bagels from Wooden Spoons. However, it might be better to go early as some are sold out.
Michael Fanelli reports on the economy and hosts the statewide morning news for Alaska Public Media.please contact him mfanelli@alaskapublic.org or 907-550-8445.Read more about Michael here.
