Cynthia Nixon’s Bagel Order Is Part of an Absurd, Inescapable Political Tradition
On Sunday, September 9, 2018, in New York City, the state’s Democratic gubernatorial candidate and the erstwhile Sex in the City star Cynthia Nixon went to Zabar’s. She ordered a cinnamon-raisin bagel with lox, red onions, capers, tomato, and cream cheese. For most people, the story ends right there. For some New Yorkers, it is the beginning of a major issue. In fact, it seems fair to say that this bagel has gotten more attention than any other in human history.
Weighing in on Nixon’s order are serious critics of American culture as well as creeps on Twitter. Representatives of the latter call the bagel everything from “a crime against the bagel gods” to “a crime against humanity.” The magazine reporter Chris Crowley and argues that all politicians not only could, but never eat food in public again (although he cannot resist expressing his view that lox and cream cheese only belong on an everything bagel). CNN’s Z. Byron Wolf decries not so much Nixon’s bagel——but the hoopla surrounding it, given that the leadership of New York is at stake; although he devotes a whole column to the bagel, he asserts that it “should not be important at all.” ’s Adam Gopnik describes Nixon’s bagel as a kind of double faux pas“
