This is just a sampling of what you will find in neighborhoods and we have not even touched the Arab, African or Asian communities yet. The diversity of breads, baguettes, grains, shapes and sizes reflect the colorful influx of immigrants to New York City with Guadalupana among the latest arrivals from Mexico. From Bialystock, Poland where Kossar's Bagels and Bialys originated to Sicily where Madonia finds its roots, to the medieval town of Nusco that Michele Della Polla of Gian Piero calls home and roots for its soccer team, to the Parisian roots of Maison Kayser and the playful Dominique Ansel Bakery that invented the Cronut to Artopolis whose owner was once mayor of Ithaca, Greece. Judith Norell of Silver Moon is no transplant but a passionate breadmaker who left music to make bread. So it is no surprise that some of the best bakeies can be found not in trendy downtown hipster corners but in the neighborhoods they emigrated to: from Madonia on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, to Gian Piero in Astoria, Fortunato Brothers Cafe in Williamsburg and Cannelle's in Jackson Heights, Queens, all of which will whip up elegant and decadent pastries daily that melt on the tongue and stay in the heart and the bread that is the true staff of life.

A good bagel with a schmear on a Sunday morning is as quintessentially New York as the Times, a dollar slice, or nostalgia for the seedy days of Times Square. New Yorkers are proud of their bagels, and with good reason: no other city in the country - or the planet - seems to be able to replicate them. Maybe it's the water. Maybe it's the mood. Whatever it is, a New York bagel is like none other.

We're going on 50-plus years of lamentations that the glory days of bagels are behind us, but tell that to the bakers who still hand-roll, custom-proof, kettle-boil, and board-bake every day. Here, the absolute best bagels in New York.

Rosh Hashannah, Yom Kippur, and Hanukkah are more than just a few days off from school. They're an excuse to hang out with your extended fam and eat all the lox, bagels, and pastrami. So while you prepare the fancy silverware for the upcoming yov tov, I'll rank the best Jewish delis to nosh at in NYC.

New York City is one of the most culturally diverse cities found anywhere in the world, bringing in a unique food culture that brings in the best that the world has to offer. All these different cultures bring in their own styles of food, to where some might claim that New York could be the food mecca of the modern world. New York claims to have the best of everything -- the best sushi, to pasta, to tacos. New York City believes that everything we do is the best. With all of these amazing food choices, there really is only one food item that the city can claim as its own, and that is the bagel. Every true New Yorker has a favorite place to go and will recommend it without ever really being asked. There is really nowhere else in the U.S. that you can find a breakfast bread product quite like the ones in NYC. For this article, I want to share my five favorite places to get the circular wheel of carbohydrate wonder that is the bagel.

New York City is one of the most culturally diverse cities found anywhere in the world, bringing in a unique food culture that brings in the best that the world has to offer. All these different cultures bring in their own styles of food, to where some might claim that New York could be the food mecca of the modern world. New York claims to have the best of everything -- the best sushi, to pasta, to tacos. New York City believes that everything we do is the best. With all of these amazing food choices, there really is only one food item that the city can claim as its own, and that is the bagel. Every true New Yorker has a favorite place to go and will recommend it without ever really being asked. There is really nowhere else in the U.S. that you can find a breakfast bread product quite like the ones in NYC. For this article, I want to share my five favorite places to get the circular wheel of carbohydrate wonder that is the bagel.