MAKERS SERIES
By Aimee Heckel
“TO BE AN AUTHENTIC BAGEL, IT MUST BE BOILED. YOU MAKE THE DOUGH, LET IT SLOWRISE FOR A FEW DAYS IN REFRIGERATION TO ACTIVATE THE YEAST AND THEN BOIL IT. THE LAST STEP IS BAKING. THAT’S WHAT LEADS TO THE TEXTURE, WITH A SHELL ON THE OUTSIDE AND CHEWY INSIDE.” – JOHN SHERMAN
MOE’S BAGELS: A Boulder Classic Since 1992 POP INTO MOE’S BROADWAY BAGEL ON A THURSDAY, AND IT ’LL FEEL LIKE YOU WALKED INTO A MINI FAMILY REUNION.
Sherman’s great-grandfather. Moe the namesake wasn’t a baker though. Peter Sherman’s parents, Patty and John, learned how to make bagels back East from a “master bagel maker,” a third-generation The Sherman family — Peter Sherman, his parents, baker in Vermont. uncle and two sisters — get together every Thursday morning to bake and braid traditional Jewish challah Patty and John Sherman met decades ago in bread. Later that afternoon when it’s cooling, you Boulder. She was from Colorado, and he had moved can buy a challah hot out of the oven. The sweet here from New York, where he grew up. As a young honey scent fills the shop; the Shermans use honey couple with two daughters, they were looking for instead of cane sugar. It’s more expensive, but it’s the a career direction. Patty Sherman had always loved baking, and they both wanted to run their own right way to do it, they say. Plus, mmm, the taste. business. This tradition has been going strong for at least 12 So they moved to Vermont, studied under the years now, since Peter Sherman started working at bagel master and then moved back to Boulder to Moe’s after college. This is far from the only family tradition at this open their own store. At the time, homemade, authentic bagels were rare; there was only one other Boulder bakery. bagel shop on Pearl Street, The Bagel Bakery. In fact, Moe’s Bagel is built on family tradition, and The first Moe’s Broadway Bagel opened when it has been since they opened their first location in Peter Sherman was just 4 years old. He can barely 1992. remember a life without the scent of bagels in the Today, there are six total shops (four in Boulder, air. The kids took naps on sacks of flour in the back, one in Louisville and one in Denver), with plans to and they were the official cream cheese taste-tesopen the seventh location in Longmont this summer. ters. (It’s also made in-house.) Peter Sherman says he enjoyed the bakery life from day one. Family is how Moe’s Bagel rolls. “I grew up loving it,” he says. Even the name. It’s named after Moe, Peter
The Family Kitchen 32
SUMMER-FALL 2021
