A world of food-making whirls around me by the time I wake, here at Camont. Yesterday, photographer Tim Clinch and I started a week of shooting for a new book project under a flour-dusted cloud called la Boulangerie de Pierre in a modest strip mall in le Passage d’Agen.

This was always a good bakery. When the previous owners retired, I sniffed over losing their very fine malted barley flutes. Soon enough, Pierre and Valerie unpacked their bags and began the process of transforming someone elses bakery into notre boulangerie.
Bread perfume fills the parking lot. Fragrant yeast and toasted flour escape the constantly opening doors. Two baguettes, six croissants, a pain aux raisins walk out the door. A bucheron, 200 grams of chocolate, a tartine gourmande and a handful of little beignets leave next. Flutes and pains, paves and baguettes stack warm and crusty in handwoven baskets behind the smiling counter. This is a bakery that is all about bread. Pierre wields his large wooden paddle of crackling loaves into the cooling basket. “Listen,” he says nodding to the quiet, ” The bread is singing.”