New York is a city of almost as many bakeries as ethnicities—the sheer scope and number are enough to send carb-haters into kicking meltdowns. From Mexican conchas to Moroccan m’semen, Italian taralli to the steamed buns of Asia, one can take a worldwide cross-borough walking tour stepping from polysaccharide chain to complex carbohydrate the entire way. And that is exactly what I tried to do. Each trip up, down, or across the island could be interrupted to bread-gawk at Balthazar, to grab a stirato and a slice at Sullivan Street, or to stop at Union Square and just walk around the market stalls for the sole purpose of proximity to bread. This was self-medication; bread taken via eyes, mouth, and nose could transport, improve, comfort, and soothe one and even support the walls of a dream in which these gorgeous things were the products of my own hands. Complementing the breads at the market were stalls selling vegetables from regional farms, endless wood crates of local apples, fresh cheese and meat from the Hudson Valley, and shining fish right off the boat from Long Island. As I walked by in pressed shirt and pants and looked across a stall at someone wearing muck boots and farm clothes I knew I was the one wearing a costume. These were my people.

Over time I developed favorites: a crispy baguette singing and cracking as pieces are twisted off with glassy crust and yellow crumb; a large pain de seigle dusted with rye flour, deep mahogany from the oven, sour but also carrying the flavor of chocolate and tobacco. Or brioche, light as air, leaving a trace of butter on fingers as it is pulled off a loaf in pieces and dissolves on your tongue like cotton candy. And in my case, loving led to making and making and making.

A couple of blocks south of where I worked in New York there was a Pain Quotidien, which, for the first few years I visited it, had a visible in-store bakery. I could lurk at the glass window and inhale the scene—a bakery still life with oven decks and doors as centerpiece. It was the first place I could stand and stare, studying the equipment used to make these loaves that I loved. I could devour details until the bakers looked uncomfortable, getting as close as I could to the professional face of my obsession. In front of the oven, the loader, a loaf-depositor, waiting, its canvas stretching open for the passage of large loaves to superheated masonry.

There were loaves rising in giant wicker baskets, sacks of flour stacked to the ceiling, and a man working in baker’s whites, scoring loaves, almost dancing through the movements of his day at the mixer, bench, and oven.

One of my favorites was a rye. Poor rye, forever suffering from mistreatment at the hands of supermarkets, delis, marblers, and caraway. While the towering meat stack at Second Avenue Deli was as good as it was indulgent, the “rye bookends” to the pastrami sandwich differed significantly from the rye breads of Europe. Pain de seigle, literally “bread of rye” in French, describes a loaf that has a majority portion of whole rye flour. Rye berries have the most beautiful color, at once light gray, sea green, and silver. When milled, rye flour ferments extremely well, releasing a sweet grassy aroma with the freshness of a bitter green. During baking, flavors intensify and the crust happily progresses toward deep darkness and intensity.

This bread is not a ballerina, it is a hausfrau; it is peasant stock, sturdy, honest, and delicious, and will keep for days and days.

If you enjoy breads in this genre, you might also fall in love with them, yet again, through the addition of toasted nuts or dried fruit, or, what the heck, equal parts of each.