Little Flower Candy Co. [By Karen Rizzo]

We both had on oversized food-stained men’s shirt as we watched our toddlers navigate the slide, which, along with being in a playground at 3pm on a weekday, screams either “Stay-At-Home Mom,” or, in my case, “Mom-Who-Works-At-Home-In-Underwear-While-Kids-Sleep.” We started to talk—that new mom how-old’s-the-kid-what-did-you-used-to-be chit-chat. Turns out she was originally from Jersey.  Used to be a pastry chef.

Swell, I said. And now?

“Well, you know,” she said, blushing.  “I’ve got this kid and another on the way, and I don’t do it anymore, but I do make candy sometimes.  Out of my kitchen.”

Swell.  I love candy.  Then I ran to pick up my howling son from a run-in with a flying Tonka truck.

We continued to run into each other, at the Farmer’s Market, the bank, other parks.  I was always struck by how present and optimistic she seemed, even with juggling a third kid and an SUV as junky as mine.

A few years later, candy-making Jersey gal and I wound up at the same neighborhood co-op nursery school.  I was glad to see her.

How ya doing?

She was doing fine; making homemade marshmallows and sea-salt caramels while her kids tumbled in flour and sugar at her feet.  She was packaging and delivering the finished product to bakeries and gourmet stores.  She told me the name of her new enterprise, and that I could find her online.  Swell.  I bought a dozen small bags of cashew caramels for Christmas gifts and ended up eating half of them myself.

Fast forward a couple more years.  A friend shames me for not knowing about the best new bake shop nearby—great goodies, the sandwiches rock, and the candy is homemade as well!  Yup.  It’s her, Christine (Jersey) Moore and her best little bake shop, The Little Flower Candy Co. in Pasadena.

These days, I’m there with my daughter most Mondays after school for what we call “Sugar Monday.” When I tell Christine that she’s one of my favorite success stories, she good-naturedly dismisses me with a wave of her hand. “I just love doing this,” she says. “I love seeing these kids come in when they’re little, and watching their faces when they eat some of my cookies.  And they come back.  And I know them by name, and I get to watch them grow up.  And it’s the same with my own kids.  I have time to be with them and do what I love.  What else is there?  I mean, I’m a happy woman.”

Indeed. And on Sugar Mondays I’m reminded to be one, too.

•     •     •

Christine. Pt. II:

And now there is the book of Christine, a collection of recipes from her cafe, called, simply enough: LITTLE FLOWER, RECIPES FROM THE CAFE; publisher: Prospect Park Books, 2012.

If ever there was a cookbook that was a celebration, it would be this one.  A contagious celebration, not only of delicious food, but of simplicity and love. Christine Moore will be the first to tell you that everything that she and her staff do at Little Flower is simple.  And basic.  And that “carrot soup is just carrot soup.”

“I am you,” Christine told me in her cafe office, which is adjacent to her bustling kitchen.  It was a balmy 100 degree-plus day outside, and the air conditioner was being repaired.  She apologized for the heat as I sat mopping my neck and forehead.  Looking as fresh and cool as one of her famous salads, she laughed, “I’m not some special person who knows how to wave a magic wand. I have to shlepp my groceries and take care of my kids…and I have carpool, and I get tired, so the stuff in this book has to be doable for me and for you or else it’s fraudulent, you know?”

Unlike chefs who send out their cookbooks to publishers, without any idea as to what the layout will ultimately be, Christine insisted upon total control of the look and feel of her book.

“I wanted a stay open binding.  I wanted a book that people would use and appreciate, not just shove on their shelf.  The book is thin, it’s only a hundred forty pages, but it has this fantastic stitched binding so that it’ll stay open and the pages won’t fall out. And a wipeable cover, so if you spill something on it you just wipe it off!  It’s not precious.  And every recipe has a picture. Who wants to read a bunch of words?  You just want to make the picture.  I’m a simple person. I want a simple book.  You want to be able to say ‘I can make that!’  There are one page recipes.  You don’t have to read a novel and you don’t have to turn a page on the same recipe!”

Then there are the anecdotes—short reminiscences about childhood, a tribute to a recipe’s inspiration, an acute observation, a valentine to a loved one.  Not only does Christine give you permission to deviate from a recipe, she includes a list of basic ingredients you can easily keep in your house to create everything in the book.

Another marked deviation from the usual foodie book, was Christine’s edict: No food stylist!  Instead of the usual food photo shoot crew, Christine employed her friend, Ryan Miller, who had taken remarkable pictures of the cafe when it first opened.  She felt that he had captured the spirit of Little Flower, and would do the same with each individual recipe.

“I called Ryan and asked him to come over,” Christine told me.  “We spent two days here at the bakery.  I cooked and baked then he photographed everything right out of the oven.  It was a two day marathon, the most exhausting, fun, thrilling two days.  Then we’d eat whatever I cooked. And whatever we didn’t eat, we took home!”

I tell her that the book feels like a celebration, like the way she decorates her shop to reflect the real magic of each season and holiday.

“Celebrate,” she says.  “We don’t do that enough in life.  I try to do it whenever I can. The book is a kind of coming out party.  And we’re having a real party, with great gypsy jazz music.  We’re going to dance and eat and celebrate.  And you must come.”

Well, I’m going to try to make it, but I take heart in knowing that if I can’t, I can whip up one of the recipes in my kitchen and celebrate…sans gypsy music.

All photos courtesy Little Flower Candy Co.