Nobody Knows Anything

Welcome to Diane Patterson's eclectic blog about what strikes her fancy

Now they do it

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I opened the LA Times today (figuratively) and what do I see? WHAT DO I SEE? An article about the joys of bakeries in LA:

COULD L.A. be turning into a real bakery town? It seems to be shaping up that way, judging from all the dough on the rise.

On West 3rd Street, Parisian master baker Eric Kayser recently opened the understatedly appealing Breadbar, with a second branch in the works in Century City. At the Brentwood Country Mart, New York restaurateur Maury Rubin is getting ready to introduce the city to a bakery café that’s unlike anything it’s seen before. In West Hollywood, pastry chef Michelle Myers has expanded her offerings, making bread for sandwiches to supplement her line of sweets at Boule.

Elsewhere, Belgian company Le Pain Quotidien, which has multiplied six times over since 2001 in Southern California, is expanding into Manhattan Beach and Pasadena in the coming months. The Japan-based cream puff specialist Beard Papa’s has opened in Hollywood. Santa Monica chef Hans Röckenwagner plans to turn his thriving bread and pastry business into a bakery café in Venice. And on an unlikely stretch of Pico Boulevard, two sisters with no formal training have plunged right in, opening La Maison du Pain and importing a trained Frenchman along the way as they slowly get off the ground.

For a city of such great size and culinary enthusiasm, Los Angeles doesn’t have many world-class bakeries. To be sure, those we do have are hot spots: Clementine in Century City, EuroPane in Pasadena, Jin Patisserie in Venice and Sweet Lady Jane in West Hollywood among them. But such places are few and far between.

The new arrivals — particularly Kayser’s Breadbar and Rubin’s City Bakery — could signal that L.A.’s bakery culture is finally starting to grow up.

Not just pastry bakeries! Bread bakeries! I weep. Now that I’m finally developing a taste for the finer wheat products in life, they pull this on me, when I can’t enjoy any of it.

One thing that’s driven me nuts around Silicon Valley is that there’s no good bread bakery. (There is an outlet of Le Boulanger within walking distance of my house. My opinion stands.) We go to Campbell’s Farmer’s Market on Sundays to visit the Boulangerie Bay Bread stand — but that’s a bakery from San Francisco (one that used to be two blocks from my mother’s house, in fact). Excellent, excellent bread. But it’s fifty or so miles away. And my Sunday baguette doesn’t really hold out until Thursday, know what I’m saying?

Today, in fact, we went to the Farmer’s Market, followed by breakfast at Stacks’ in Campbell. Sophia practically dragged us to the Farmer’s Market, because she wanted her panini bread from the Bay Bread stand. Five years old and an appreciation for fine bread. (When I was her age undoubtedly all I’d eat was Wonder, a fact that makes me shudder to this day.) When I bought the panini, both Sophia and Simon went nuts, grabbing the bag and reaching in. I grabbed a panini to give them as the lady behind the table said, “Would you like me to cut that in half?” “There’s no time!” I said, ripping the roll in half to give each kid a piece.

(I asked Darin if he’d seen what happened. He nodded solemnly and said, “I’ve seen piranhas at work.”)

One day I had an excellent sandwich at Fleur de Cocoa and asked them where they got their bread. Sogo bakery in Cupertino, they said. Which turned out to be a little Japanese bakery in a strip mall. I had trouble believing they actually made pain de mie. It’s also too far to drive to pick up some bread. I suppose I could ask Darin to stop by on his way to work, but once he gets into his car he’s Mr. Safari Manager and pretty much forgets everything else.

The baguettes from the market are underwhelming. Grace is okay, as is the-other-brand-that-escapes-me-right-now. I used to get La Brea bread at Whole Foods, but the whole parboiled/slightly underdone aspect palled on me after a while.

Maybe everyone in this area is low-carbing it or something, or you need so much money to rent a store around here it wouldn’t be worth a baker’s time to make fresh bread. But I totally think there’s an underserved community around here!

Real life and the fantasy experience

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A friend of Darin’s is a big fan of the show Alias. Darin and I watched Alias when it first premiered and gave up on it during the teaser of show 2, I believe. But Darin’s friend really wanted us to watch it, so he loaned us three seasons worth of DVDs. And we sat down to start watching, see what we’ve missed.

Well, we both agree Not much. Still seems pretty silly and fake to us. But I discovered something even odder: real life really can ruin the fantasy experience. I’d find myself thinking, That’s Jennifer Garner. She was married to Scott Foley, but then they broke up and she took up with Michael Vartan, but I guess they’ve broken up because she’s having a baby with Ben Affleck now.

Then we came home last night after Date Night and the babysitter had the Alias season finale on. Sydney’s father was telling the CIA agent—the aforementioned Michael Vartan—that he could marry Sydney. And I thought, How weird is that? On the show they’re going to get married, despite the fact that they’ve broken up and she’s having someone else’s baby? Hope that was a good breakup, ’cause otherwise that’s an acting job that would totally suck.

And mind you: I don’t particularly pay attention to Jennifer Garner gossip and we haven’t watched much of Alias. But what I do know has completely affected how I look at her and look at her show.

In related news, while I am amused by the coverage on the Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes relationship—there’s some doubt on its veracity, let’s say, in mainstream gossip publications—I can’t actually imagine what else Tom could do. A man’s got to date somebody.

Things about LA

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  • Darin had forgotten the phrase “on the bubble.” We heard it again during the first few hours we were here.
  • Boy, there sure are a lot of billboards here, aren’t there? And most of them are the size of the sides of buildings.
  • Most of the billboards are for the movie Spanglish and the TV show Alias. Judging by the number of billboards, Spanglish is obviously the big holiday winner, right?
  • Jeez louise, there really is a lot of traffic in LA, isn’t there? Getting anywhere requires hitting at least 20 stoplighted intersections.
  • Michel Richard does make excellent pastries. But I am happy to report that the French patisserie near our house makes better pains au chocolate. Now if only they’d make baguettes. (Yes, I know that’s the job of the boulangerie.)
  • We’d forgotten you need to keep an eye out for celebrities at all time. The Michel Richard site reminds us though: “Don’t be surprise to see Hollywood celebrities lingering at the sidewalk tables, munching on croissants and espresso!” Okay, I won’t be surprise!
  • One of the billboards we saw was from the LAPD reminding us not to shoot off our guns to celebrate the holidays. Well, okay, if you insist. Darin reminded me we’ll be safe indoors, away from windows during the celebrations.
  • At one party we were at someone reported seeing that sign and saying, “Finally! Someone has taken out a billboard asking the LAPD not to shoot people this holiday season!”
  • Boy, those LAPD helicopters sure are something, aren’t they? Particularly at 1am. Yes. That is oh-so-fine.

I learned on this trip that while there are certain things I miss about LA (primarily the people, but a few things as well), I don’t miss the whole living-in-LA thing at all. At. All.