As an expatriate New Yorker now living in the New England hinterlands, I have found myself drawn over the years to finding identical versions of the foods of my own New Yorker heart: the perfect pizza slice to match the ones that came from the “pizza place” that stood across the street from my childhood apartment (unfortunately not found at Pepe’s, no matter how wonderful Pepe’s may be); the perfect hot dog, to duplicate the “specials” my father used to take me for at Ben’s Deli, on Queens Boulevard, back before my parents divorced, back before the Summer of Sam, when all was still more or less right with my small Forest Hills world. And over the years, I’ve managed to unearth some pretty close facsimiles, often in the oddest places.

But the one thing I’ve never been able to find–anywhere–is the one food that is my own personal Madeleine, that takes me back to certain afternoons when I was so young that I was still not walking everywhere on my own steam. The memory goes like this: It’s 3:30 on a snowy Friday. My grandmother has deposited me in my fire engine red stroller and pushed me along 67th Avenue towards Queens Boulevard, where we make a left, past Ballet Academy, past Ben’s Deli, and into Jay-Dee Bakery–an old fashioned sort of place selling cookies and cakes and loaves of freshly baked bread of only two varieties: challah (seeded or plain), and rye bread. My grandmother asks what just came out of the oven, and the owner, a wiry man in square black plastic glasses, a white tee shirt, white pants, and flour-dusted shoes, says It’s the rye, Mrs. Elice, and pops it into the slicing machine. Seconds later, he steps out from behind the counter, bends down, and hands me the heel, still warm.

It’s wildly tangy, redolent of earth and caraway and rye, and it leaves every other bread I eat in these, the 1960s, flat. I eat it toasted, with salted butter; untoasted and dunked into my grandmother’s paprika-laden Hungarian goulash; toasted and topped with cold, leftover Friday night chicken; untoasted and blanketed under slices of warm brisket and onions. Whatever I eat, there it is, strong enough in flavor to hold up against the mightiest of forces.

This Friday afternoon activity is repeated every week, until I am old enough to go to kindergarten. But on the odd occasion after school, even into my teens, my grandmother and I go back to Jay-Dee together on Friday afternoons, and the baker comes out from behind the counter and hands me the heel off his still-warm, incomparably delicious rye bread, that my grandmother brings home for us to have with dinner. The last time I had it was one of the last times I saw my grandmother: in 1981, right before I left for college. Nothing has come close to the flavor of that bread, and I must admit that when Saveur Magazine ran a picture of shuttered New York institutions in a recent issue and there was Jay-Dee, I cried like a baby.

I never expected–not in a million years–that I would ever have a rye bread-induced Proustian rush that would land me back at the bakery, the warm smell of rye and flour engulfing me, at the hands of arguably the finest vegetable cookbook author and local food advocate cooking and writing today. Who knew?

It’s surprises like this one that make me giddy; we go to Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone for what you’d think–simple, delectable recipes for everything from radishes to kohlrabi, from lentils to butternut squash to shirred eggs, and for information on how to use, store, and serve virtually any edible that comes out of the ground in one way or another. But it was only recently that Susan picked up Deborah’s book and turned to the bread section. Sure, we have bread cookbooks–tons of them–in our library; Jim Lahey, Peter Reinhart, Bernard Clayton, Tassajara, Beard on Bread…you name it, we have it. But when Susan said “I think I’m going to make Deborah’s rye bread,” it seemed natural to me. Everything else in the book works perfectly, and is explained simply and intuitively and without a single drop of fever-pitch hysteria, so why not her rye bread (even though rye is one of those mildly mystical breads that one is totally sure one is not going to get right, unless one is Sam Fromartz, or otherwise has the “bread baking touch”)? Does it matter that Deborah is not known necessarily as a bread baker? No, probably not. But guess what? She is the home bread baker’s best kept secret, until now.

So Susan made Deborah’s rye bread yesterday while I worked, and while it snowed. Every once in a while, I’d hear a squeal of glee coming from the kitchen. And then we discovered that our Viking is now baking 60 degrees warmer than it should be. I wasn’t hopeful.

The bread emerged, magnificently lacquered a dark golden brown. We let it cool, sliced it, took a bite, and tears came to my eyes: finally, thirty years after I last had it, here was Jay-Dee’s rye bread–tangy, strong, earthy, and utterly delicious.

Today is Friday, and we’re in the midst of a snowstorm not unlike the one we were in that afternoon of my first Jay-Dee memory; I had two slices of fresh rye bread, toasted, for breakfast, and closed my eyes. I could see my grandmother, and my fire engine red stroller, and the baker and his flour-dusted shoes.

And then I ate the heel.

(from Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone)

Makes 1 loaf

1-1/2 cups water

2-1/4 teaspoons (1 envelope) active dry yeast

1-1/2 tablespoons unsulfured molasses

1-1/4 cups whole-wheat or bread flour

1/4 cup nonfat dry milk or dried buttermilk (Susan used the latter)

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 teaspoons salt

1-1/2 cups rye flour

3/4 to 1 cup bread flour or all-purpose flour

Cornmeal for the pan

Egg white glaze (see below)

Mix together everything for the sponge in a bowl, then cover and let rise for 2 hours. It should be foamy.

Stir down the sponge, then add the oil, salt, and rye flour. Beat in the bread flour until the dough is shaggy and pulls away from the side, then turn it out onto a lightly floured counter and knead in the remainder. You can expect it to be a little stickier to handle than all-wheat flour doughs.

Transfer to an oiled bowl, cover, and set in a warm place until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour. Push the dough down, then shape into an oval loaf about 10 inches long. Scatter cornmeal over a baking pan or peel if you’re using a baking stone. Place the bread on it, cover, then let rise until doubled in bulk, about 40 minutes. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F during the last 15 minutes. Make three diagonal slashes across the top and brush with the glaze. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes or until browned.

Seeded Rye Knead 1 tablespoon caraway or fennel seeds into the dough. Shape into a 5 x 9 inch loaf or free-form oblong loaf, brush with an egg glaze, sprinkle with additional seeds, and make several diagonal slashes in the top.

1 egg white

1 tablespoon water or milk

Pinch salt

Whisk the ingredients until well blended. Use this on seed breads or country breads.