Bread is strong enough to fortify flimsy food pyramids, yet gentle enough to hug lonely condiments in a warm embrace. Cultivate a culinary cornerstone with today's Groupon: for $8, you get a baker's dozen of bagels (a $9.49 value) and 1 pound of freshly whipped cream cheese (up to a $6.99 value) at Upper Crust Bagels, with locations in Deerfield and Northbrook (up to a $16.48 total value).

The artful bakers at Upper Crust Bagels craft more than 15 varieties of kettle-boiled New York–style bagels fresh daily. The dough wizards work through the night to forge the circular comestibles, deftly mixing, shaping, and punching out their centers to ensure that they rise from their nocturnal slumber. Esurient shoppers can construct a baker’s dozen of flavor halos, populating their assembly with savory and sweet denizens such as sundried tomato, pumpernickel, and chocolate chip, along with a plain bagel for frills-free palates. Once a phalanx of 13 disks has been bagged up, nibblers appoint one of Upper Crust’s freshly whipped cream cheeses to the role of bagel haberdasher, cloaking floury plains with rich layers of spreads such as light lox spread or cheddar cheese.