Humayun Kabir has been making his small patch of Carroll Gardens a better place for more than 20 years. Each night his bakery sends clouds of cinnamon into the air, delighting the neighborhood's late-night dog walkers and early rising joggers.
A Bangladeshi immigrant in his early 60s, Kabir is an unlikely contributor to the city's locavore movement. But he actually owns the perfect 100 Mile Diet business. His crew cranks out breads and pastries that a few hours later land in restaurants, supermarkets and food carts across the city on a daily basis. They're made fresh largely by hand and using high-quality ingredients. Between his original, eponymous bakery and its two sister companies, Brooklyn Patisserie and Smith Street Bread Co., it's not hard to imagine that you have already enjoyed one of Kabir's products. In bodegas his danishes and croissants bear the Kabir's Bakery label; at restaurants across Brooklyn, his handiwork may have been delivered during your bread course.
Yet when journalists and bloggers applaud the city's artisanal-food renaissance, bakeries like Kabir's are overlooked. Instead, foodies fawn over mayonnaise stores, rooftop honey makers and cheese purveyors. Carbohydrates, gluten and cinnamon-sugar swirls are seen as fundamentally not healthful and not hip.
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