Bagels. Those simple breads that look like donuts, minus the icing sugar or chocolate. Nothing special, right?Except, there is something special to them, especially when they aren't available.Like many things, once something you like but take for granted is no longer available, you find yourself wanting it once again.When I found myself in Japan many, many years ago, one of the things I found myself missing was good, simple bread. Oh, sure, there was bread in the city I came to (Tokushima) and it could be purchased almost everywhere I went. The problem was that most of the bread I came across was soft, fluffy white bread. This bread is good for some things, but for me, it's not something I wish to eat everyday.Finding good bread, baked with a dark, crunchy exterior, and inside having...what shall I say...taste. The texture of the bread's interior, slightly chewy (gluten), yet not tough. Something that makes your mouth water when you taste it, and when you taste it, oh! Good bread!Places that sold good bread existed here when I came, but they were few and far between.And bagels didn't exist in this area of Japan. Literally, did not exist. I can remember when foreign English teachers at the school I worked at would go to a larger city (Fukuoka) for higher skill training. Often, the present they would bring back to all teachers, Japanese and foreign alike, was bagels. They were heavenly to eat at the time.Fast forward many years, and things are much different today. There are a lot of bakeries now where many kinds of breads are baked. Bagels as well are available, in supermarkets as well as bakeries, even as I posted a while back.Back to today and our bagels. Yes, they are a simple thing. Surprisingly, they are also not difficult to bake. The results always surprise me, and they disappear pretty quickly.We're going to enjoy these for breakfast tomorrow with some homemade yogurt cheese, flavored with salmon and some smoke flavoring. I'm guessing there will not be much left in terms of leftovers.The only problem is waiting for morning to come.