Bagel, bagel on the wall ...

The first thing I'm going to do a few months from now when my plane touches down at JFK Airport is hit a cash machine. I will take out $20 and then use that $20 bill to buy a 50-cent newspaper. A smile will spread from one ear to the other as the person behind the counter hands back $19.50 in change without muttering a complaint. Joy. The second thing I will do is go to Higbie Bagel, located on Higbie Lane in West Islip, N.Y. This Long Island shop is king of the bagel hill. It is so good that my father-in-law, a generous man but someone not known for patience, will wait in inevitably long lines for fresh-from-the-oven bits of carbohydrate heaven. Plain bagels, sesame, poppy seed, onion, garlic, everything, etc. And cream cheese - plain cream cheese, cream cheese with chives, with salmon, with love and kindness.

Well, I shouldn't get carried away. It's downstate New York, so the kindness factor is sometimes hidden under mannerisms that others might think rude. But it's not rude, it's local custom - so hurry the hell up and order already. A bagel is a morning pleasure. I truly like living in Poland. But I dearly miss a cup of coffee, a bagel with cream cheese and a fat newspaper on a Sunday morning. I miss living in a neighborhood where I can walk to get all three. My last hometown, Washington, D.C., didn't have New York-quality bagels. But a couple of places did a pretty good job. In Poland, it took some time to find anything but a weak substitute. An obwarzanek? Not even close.

A real bagel is not just baked. It's boiled. The boiling gives the outside a shiny and firm crust, while the inside should be chewy but not teeth-wrenching. Who in this country can measure up? No one. It's a huge shame, given the legend that has the first bagel popping out of an oven in the late 1600s in honor of Jan III Sobieski (the king, not the hotel). An Austrian Jewish baker allegedly made it to thank the Pole for saving his city from Turkish invaders. The Old World recipe made it to New York in the late 19th century like so many other brilliant ideas and products - in the minds or on the backs of immigrants. Apparently, it left Poland completely sometime later - and it hasn't returned. But compromise is bred out of desperation.

Possibly Warsaw's - but not Poland's - best option for a bagel, Café 6/12 offers a good dough round. It's not quite as tough on the outside and chewy on the inside as it ought to be. But the flavor is nice and the cream cheese is creamy. The cafe is a wee bit too swank for a true bagel place but the atmosphere can induce a pleasant easiness to most mornings. The kitchen offers some interesting variations on the theme - including bagels topped with a poached egg, or capers and onion in addition to the bagel standard salmon. This isn't the truest of true bagels but I like it. For anyone not interested in a bagel but dragged along by someone desperate for one, 6/12 offers lots of other choices, including swell soups, sandwiches, some entrees and great fresh juices. A sesame bagel with cream cheese costs zł. 10.

I don't like mall-dining experiences and I wasn't crazy about the bagels at N.Y. Bagel. I had heard terrible, terrible things about this place but went anyway - given the name I couldn't leave it out. They weren't as bad as I had been led to believe. But it sat heavily in my stomach. Also available are grilled bagel sandwiches with standard fare like ham and cheese or unthinkable bits like hotdog. A plain bagel with cream cheese costs zł. 5.40. This place is almost like a tiny little bit of the United States in Kraków's Kazimierz neighborhood. Set next to the Reformed Synagogue on ulica Miodowa, Navara specializes in bagels and burritos. These are real but not perfect bagels. The American owner recently told me that he is working hard with a Polish baker to perfect his product and add variety - including onion and garlic versions. The ongoing experiments are good.

The cream cheese - plain, with chives or with sundried tomato - is outstanding. And a variety of bagel sandwiches follow the American trend of dressing up the densely baked goods with all sorts of toppings, in this case anything from hummus to tuna to mozzarella, basil and tomato to salami. Non-bagel options include burritos on fresh-made flour tortillas, heartburn-class chili and salads. A sesame bagel with cream cheese costs zł. 5.90.

Café 6/12 ul. Żurawia 6/12 Tel. 622-5333 Mon.-Fri. 8 a.m.-11 p.m. Sat. 10 a.m.-Midnight Sun. Noon-10 p.m.

N.Y. Bagels Galeria Mokotów Ulica Wołowska Mon.-Sat. 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Sun. 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Tel. 541-3142

Navara Kuchnia Otwarta ul. Podbrzezie 2, Kraków tel: (12) 431-1942, Tues.-Thurs. 11 a.m. 7 p.m. Fri.-Sat. 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Sun. 11 a.m.-7 p.m