Ina Garten Sure Knows How To Confuse People When It Comes To Cutting Bagels

All hail Queen Ina Garten, the incredibly talented cook, author, and television host. She's known for a wide variety of popular recipes, from chocolate cake to tomato soup. It's safe to say her kitchen knowledge is unmatched and most people would trust her with their life (including me). But here's where the conflict arises. I'm from a family of born and bred New Yorkers. Everyone in my family has a very specific bagel order and fierce loyalty to one particular New York City bagel shop (yes, I know, there's a whole group of people who think California bagels are superior, but I'll never be one of them). So when I saw the video of Garten slicing up her bagel in quite a peculiar way, I honestly had to process it for a few minutes:

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can you believe how Ina cuts her bagel?! #inagarten

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What do you mean she slices it into thirds? How does that even make sense, when you simply want to bite into a big, fluffy everything bagel? However, after I continued watching the video, I better understood the concept. She technically took two full bagels and magically turned it into three bagel sandwiches (by making each individual bagel have a top piece, a middle piece, and a bottom piece, kind of like bagel thins!). And perhaps there's a perk to having less bagel and more flavor for the cream cheese and smoked salmon in every bite (and fewer carbs, too). This isn't the first time a bagel cutting controversy has taken the internet by storm. Does anyone remember when the bread-sliced bagel photo made everyone lose their minds?

At first glance, it would appear other people were also confused about Garten's bagel slicing hack. Particularly about what to do with the piece in the middle. Some believed you just cut out the middle piece to make a bagel easier to bite into. Others believed it just allowed for more real estate for cream cheese, turning it into some sort of triple-decker sandwich. Long story short, I guess, if you do decide to slice your bagel into three pieces, the world is your oyster. I personally don't think you should toss the middle piece. That would be a waste of so much delicious, doughy bread.

The good thing is, there are many ways to get creative with that third slice. Think of it this way — you have so much more "bagel real estate." You could make three separate open-faced bagel sandwiches for yourself or to share with someone else. Perhaps a sweet one, a savory one, and some sort of in-between option. No matter how you prepare your bagel slices, just remember, there will forever be a debate about how much cream cheese you really need on a bagel.