Bagel Baker Lox Up Probable Record With a 190-Pounder, Believe It or Not

Fame came to Stephan Traktman because of a bagel. A big bagel.

“I was totally surprised and elated,” said Traktman, 43, who was in Ripley’s “Believe it or Not” for creating the world’s largest bagel. It weighed 190 pounds. “It’s exciting to get the recognition for an accomplishment,” he said.

Actually, the Garden Grove resident has to tell people he set the record since it’s in the name of Garden Grove resident Sylvia Borovay, one of his bagel store customers and a volunteer with the Jewish Federation of Orange County. “I submitted the record for him, but they put my name on it,” said Borovay, who originated the big-bagel idea in a brainstorming session last year with the Orange County Israel Fair Committee. “I also submitted it to the Guinness Book of World Records, but they thought it was too narrow a category.”

Traktman, a former food services manager who switched to bagel-making after suffering a heart attack, said the big bagel is equivalent to about 1,100 regular bagels. “We had a good time making it,” he said.

He said the bagel, baked in his 7-by-7-foot oven, was made from flour, water, salt, yeast and sugar. It was transported by truck to the fairgrounds where people tore off a handful to taste the Jewish soul food.

“I would have liked my name on the record, but I know I made the bagel,” said Traktman, owner of Bagel Traks in Anaheim.

It may not be as exciting to Traktman, but this year’s Israel Fair at the Orange County Fairgrounds on Sunday may produce another record.

It will be a 7-foot-round bowl that will contain matzo ball soup, another idea suggested by Borovay for the fund-raising fair.

Garden Grove resident Ruth Feinberg, creator of Jewish Mother’s Chicken Soup, which is sold in cans and marketed nationwide, will cook the matzo ball soup.

And while Traktman may not be well known throughout the county for the one big bagel he created, he has a reputation for making some unusual regular-size bagels.

For instance, he bakes heart-shaped strawberry bagels on Valentine’s Day and red, white and blue bagels on the 4th of July. At Christmas time, his bagels are red and green. And for Halloween, he makes pumpkin bagels.

Once he made a birthday bagel in the shape of a bear with glasses on it for an ophthalmologist.

Traktman said his bagels are catching on with Latino and Asian customers. “They’re trying it and liking it,” he said.

And if they don’t care for an egg bagel? “I have 17 different kinds,” he said.

John Fitterer, 21, who is studying business at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, figures the way to learn is by doing. So he opened a pumpkin patch in El Toro. Two years ago, he got a lot of experience, but not much profit.

“Last year wasn’t a money-making year, but I’m doing better this year,” he said. “It’s a learning experience, for sure.”

Fitterer is hoping for a big weekend since he stocked his lot with 10,000 pumpkins.

And he is already thinking about Christmas. He plans to sell Christmas trees there.

“I don’t ever plan on working for anyone else,” he said. “I want to work for myself.”

“Billy is growing up in the house just like any other pet,” said Mark Goldband, 41, of Yorba Linda. Billy is a 22-pound, 8-foot-long Colombian red tail boa constrictor.

Goldband, principal at Arovita Elementary School in Brea, said he once had a genuine fear of snakes. “I was so petrified with snakes I couldn’t even put my hand on a picture of one,” he said. A firefighter friend helped him overcome his problem.

“Billy actually is a nice pet,” said Goldband, who also has two turtles, four cats and a dog. And six children.

Now that he is over that problem, Goldband regularly brings Billy Boa to other schools where he sometimes gets mixed receptions.

When he brings Billy home, the snake gets placed in a cage.

Acknowledgments--A 21-rank, 1,200-pipe organ, formerly used at Occidental College in Los Angeles and restored by 20 church volunteers in a 10-month program, has been dedicated at the Stake Center of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Los Alamitos.