It's a Shanda stickers for everyone!

You get a sticker! And you get a sticker! And everyone gets a sticker!

Welcome to It’s A Shanda, one Northeastern Jew’s quest to find a decent bagel in Seattle (and beyond). Along with free bagel reviews every Sunday, we also offer bonus posts (like this one) each week. If you’re already subscribed, I hope you’ll consider upgrading to a paid subscription! Thank you for reading.

A while back I made a special offer to my paid subscribers to get their hands on some free It’s a Shanda stickers. At this point, it appears that everyone who wanted some got some and now I’m sitting on a trove of these things.

So I’m officially opening the door to all readers to get some FREE stickers!

Everyone gets an It’s a Shanda sticker of their choosing. You can pick between an orange and a yellow.

Also, you get to pick one bonus sticker based on one of the things I tend to say a lot (too much?) about bagels. There are three to pick from.

When I was growing up, the “Cornmeal Ring of Doom^TM” was the signal I used to determine if a bagel was going to be any good. If the bottom of the bagel was caked in cornmeal, more often than not, it portended a disappointing experience. In reality, that’s not always the case, but I still can’t help but notice when the CRoD is present and how it affects my first impression of any bagel.

Longtime readers probably also know how important I think salt is to the everything bagel seasoning mix. Without it, you have a collection of seeds and bits that may or may not have flavor. But when the right amount of salt is involved, everything pops. It is, as I am wont to say, AS GOD INTENDED.

Speaking of everything bagels, you probably know how much we appreciate a heavy seed hand around here. Getting an everything or seeded bagel and being able to count the individual seeds is a big bummer and usually means there isn’t going to be much flavor. You might as well have just gotten a plain. To paraphrase a commonly overused phrase, “Go big on seeds or go home.”

You don’t have to be a subscriber to get stickers, all are welcome. You can do whatever you want with them, too. Put them on the back of your laptop. Put them on the cover of your Trapper Keeper. Share them with friends and family who need help discerning good bagels from bad. And hey, if one or two of them end up on walls or poles near bagel shops, who am I to argue?

To order your free stickers, fill out the Google Form here with your name, address, and selections. Please allow two weeks for sticker delivery.

Thanks for being a subscriber and reader. As always, I appreciate your support!

Thanks for actually reading this far. If you enjoyed my bagel review and want to read more of them, make sure you’re subscribed to It’s A Shanda. Know someone in the Greater Seattle Area (or beyond) who would appreciate way-too-detailed reviews of local bagels? Please forward the link their way.