Little Flower Cafe’s Christine Moore has died: The influential mascot was 62

When Christine Moore followed her Yalie boyfriend to California, she got off the plane, felt the sunshine, so unlike the bad East Coast weather she left behind, and decided not to go back.

He spent his entire life in Southern California, ending up in Altadena, where he lived, and Pasadena, where his popular cafe and bakery, Little Flower, served breakfast and lunch seven days a week. He would also write cookbooks, make iconic caramels and marshmallows, and, with his now-shuttered Lincoln restaurant, jump start revitalizing a block on the border of Pasadena and Altadena with what is today a thriving food scene.

Moore died at age 62 on Jan. 4 after a heart attack. She is survived by her three children, Maddie, 26, Avery, 24, and Colin, 18.

He was born on Nov. 6, 1963, grew up in Maplewood, NJ He began his working life as a waiter, then a restaurant manager and chef until, to fulfill a childhood dream, he took a few advanced baking classes. A tragedy in his 20s sparked his ambition: After his best friend died in a car accident, he realized how difficult life was, and with little savings, he flew to Paris. Living on bread, butter and fruit, he became a stagier or unpaid apprentice in the bakery of Gerard Mulot, master pâtissier, boulanger and chocolatier.

Returning to California, Moore quickly found his way into the kitchen at Campanile, the LA restaurant opened in 1989 by chefs Nancy Silverton and the late Mark Peel. While there, she joined a women’s dinner club that read cookbooks and made recipes. Many of those women became lifelong friends, including chef and photographer Staci Valentine, and Campanile’s restaurant manager, food writer Teri Gelber.

“Christine was sweet, always laughing,” said Gelber. “He wore his heart on his sleeve. He went from Campanile to Les Deux Cafés with chef David Wynns. I was there a lot. That’s where he once made asparagus ice cream, [restaurant critic] Jonathan Gold teased him for years!”

Moore worked at Les Deux Cafés until she was about to give birth to her first child. Wynns threw her a baby shower that was a cookie exchange. Many of the city’s top bakers — including Sherry Yard, Nancy Silverton, Sumi Chang — brought cookies to share. It was a symbol of the love Moore inspired among his colleagues.

At home with her newborn baby, Moore became restless and began making candy; especially, sea salt caramels like the ones she loved in Paris, and vanilla marshmallows. He borrowed the kitchen of chef and broadcaster Evan Kleiman and worked there at night. He sold candy, neatly bagged, at farmers’ markets.

“I remember her hand wrapping those bad caramels, and her baby crawling on the floor,” said Gelber.

“The first time we interviewed Christine on KCRW’s ‘Good Food,’ her daughter Maddie was on her lap, using her teeth with a spatula,” said Jennifer Ferro, president of KCRW. Moore and Ferro had children a year apart and became co-parents.

In 2001, Christine Moore, left, and Jennifer Ferro were photographed with their children Kobe and Maddie as the children shaped pizza dough balls that were then baked and presented at Evan Kleiman’s former LA restaurant Angeli Caffe on Melrose.

(Luis Cinco / Los Angeles Times)

“Christine became a business gossip,” Ferro said. “He was a risk-taker, always planning things, getting into money. I loved having him in my ear, pushing me.

“I was getting married in Hawaii in 2007 and Christine, who had a baby and a new cafe, insisted on coming. And she made the cake … She came with frozen cupcakes in her suitcase. Holding three-month-old Colin under one arm, she frosted and decorated the cake.”

Author Victoria Patterson worked at Julienne in San Marino where Moore was pastry chef before opening Little Flower. “He was laughing so hard,” Patterson said. Everyone loved him. He had a good, almost surprising personality. It is very rare.

“He followed his heart,” Gelber said. “Nothing scared him.”

Indeed. In 2007, with three young children and a failing marriage, she opened her dream bakery/cafe, Little Flower in Pasadena.

“A small cafe on the edge of town, is where we gather to prepare and eat fresh, delicious food, drinking strong coffee,” she wrote in her first cookbook, “Little Flower: Recipes from the Cafe.”

At her airy Lincoln restaurant in Pasadena, near Altadena, Christine Moore, center, visits with customers Sarah Soifer, left, and Melissa Wu in March 2015.

(Anne Cusack/Los Angeles Times)

“Working with Christine was one of the most personal experiences I’ve had as an editor,” says Colleen Dunn Bates, who published a cookbook in 2012. “He had a strong idea of ​​how things should look. Yet he had trouble being a writer. He read his introduction to me in tears, convinced that he was the best storyteller, and in fact he was the best writer.”

Bates and Moore remained good friends. “He was an emotional person in so many beautiful ways. He told me he cried every day. He cared so much. Everyone was his friend.”

Christine’s second book, “Baking Little Flowers” (2016), had a big budget and an entire team, including her pastry chef Cecilia Leung and Valentine, the photographer. Ten years later, this book is still being sold.

In 2015, Christine opened her second cafe, Lincoln, near the border of Altadena and Pasadena. In the large floor space of the former metal builder, he built an open kitchen, a large living area and, outside, a patio.

Despite its popularity – often with long lines out the door – Lincoln, like many other restaurants, did not survive the epidemic. But it displaced a cluster of health food spots that today, including Ferrazzani’s Pasta & Market and branches of Kismet Rotisserie, Stumptown Coffee and Home State, occupy the space that was once Lincoln.

“When things didn’t go well, Christine kept her head up and kept going,” said Valentine. “He was always planning his next trip.”

“Christine was always learning and expanding and trying things,” added Valentine. “He inspired everyone.”

Moore was talking about society. He’s hosted book launches for novelists and cookbook writers – and once offered to do it for this author.

In September 2015, at the LA Times’ “The Taste” event, held at Paramount Pictures Studios, Christine Moore, second from right, participated in a panel called “Things on the Plate,” moderated by The Times’ late restaurant critic Jonathan Gold, and, from left, chefs Alvin Cailan and Minh Phan.

(Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

“He was close to a lot of little girls in my neighborhood,” Avery said. “They call her their Godmother.”

“And he noticed all the kids going to college,” Maddie said. “And she sent them care packages for Little Flower—a T-shirt, a backpack, cookies, caramels, marshmallows. She knew what it was like to be alone for the first time, so they could get this beautiful box from their Lady.”

Last year, when wildfires ravaged Altadena, Moore and her son, Colin, slipped past police lines and returned to their home with garden hoses. They battled flames and coal to save it and several other buildings.

“It was very traumatic,” said Colin. “A front seat to all the fear. It affected my mother’s mental health. She struggled.”

The house was saved, but Moore wasn’t home yet.

As a businesswoman, a single mother and a deeply empathetic person, Moore thrived in life through the grace of love.

“My mother was a very visible person in public,” Avery said, “but we saw her behind closed doors: the gentle, loving, generous, and brilliant woman she was and always will be.”

“We knew her as our Mom, our best friend, our home, our person,” Maddie said.

Avery added: “Being a single parent can go either way. “But he doubled down, never looked back, sent us to amazing schools and never complained. It’s not an easy way, but he just did it, he did it freely and graciously and he loved us so much. He was a fruitful tree, a fruitful tree. He instilled that in everyone he met.”

Two nights after Moore’s death, his best friends and children sat around the table and talked. They said their mom and friend was someone you always called, gave you the best advice, you wanted in your corner – and she was always in your corner. Everyone there said that Christine was their best friend.

“He just had this spark every time he walked into the room,” Colin said.

His hugs were also famous. “He’s embraced and succinct,” Bates said, “he’s talking about a really deep topic.”

Upon hearing that line, Moore’s daughter Avery laughed and said, “He wasn’t on the visual level: there was no small talk, he was always straight to the point!

“Mom was unapologetic,” Avery continued. “No matter what the situation was, he trusted his gut and his instincts… I feel that being raised by the power of nature will be the greatest gift of all in our lives.”