Leslie tasted her first artisan bread in the late 80s at Campanile, an L.A. Restaurant opened by friends. “I just was taken,” Leslie remembers. “I loved the simplicity of the four ingredients, the subtle differences using different grains and the range of color to create the perfect crust. The whole artisan bread movement grabbed me.”
After she opened Macrina in 1993, Leslie got serious about finding fresh flours from local grains for her recipes and was one of our first customers. “The variety and the spectrum of flavors with varietal wheats—it was mind blowing to me,” she says. “This taste discovery was really exciting and wonderful. With the T-85 flour, it really brings such a wonderful flavor to the crust as well as to the interior and texture of the crumb. Cairnspring is finding different grains, and they're inspiring us to try new directions.
“It's very exciting to be working with unique varietal grains. What a different perspective you have after touring the wheat fields, when you're looking at a bag of flour versus the care and skill it takes to grow and mill it. I was taken by the flavor initially. Then meeting the people behind the grains was like kindred souls. It's amazing how when you're drawn to something, often you find that there's a lot more depth behind it”.
