Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
its partisans. As a pastry innovator who's
very much on the foodie radar, Meyers
constantly pushes the limits; not every
one of her controversial taste combina-
tions works. No matter. You've got to try
Boule when you're in Los Angeles, if only
so you can drop its name at the next cock-
tail party you go to.
420 N. La Cienega Blvd. (
&
310/289
-
9977;
www.boulela.com). Also at 413
Bedford Rd., in Beverly Hills (
&
310/273-
4488
).
(
Los Angeles International (12 miles/
19km).
L
$$$
Peninsula Beverly Hills,
9882
S. Santa Monica Blvd. (
&
800/462-7899
or
310/551-2888; www.peninsula.com). $
Best Western Marina Pacific Hotel,
1697 Pacific Ave., Venice (
&
800/786-7789
or 310/452-1111; www.mphotel.com).
Chocolates from Boule Patisserie in Los Angeles.
The Baker's Best
483
Macrina Bakery
How the Cookie Crumbles
Seattle, Washington
All too often, retail bakeries overlook the
humble cookie, that mainstay of American
home baking. Not so the Macrina Bakery in
Seattle's Belltown neighborhood.
Owner Leslie Mackie isn't just an
acclaimed artisanal bread baker—though
she is that. She's a passionate believer in
the importance of food in creating com-
munity. Macrina's breads and baked
goods whenever possible incorporate
ingredients from the local region (organic
and natural, it goes without saying), but
they also hark back to old-world rustic
traditions—the original comfort foods.
Since she opened the cafe in 1993,
homey items like muffins, scones, butter-
milk biscuits, and coffee cakes have been
prominent on the menu. Longtime cus-
tomers, though, find themselves coming
back for the cookies—hearty, quintessen-
tially American cookies like ginger molas-
ses, snickerdoodles, peanut butter,
chocolate chip, and brown sugar short-
bread cookies. If you want to get fancy,
there's a chocolate oat peanut butter chip
cookie, and a chocolate apricot espresso
cookie. Brownies, fruit and oat bars, maca-
roons (the chewy coconut kind), and aus-
tere Scottish oatcakes—those are the sort
of unfussy sweets that Macrina serves. In
this age of mass-produced cookies loaded
with transfats and preservatives, the sim-
ple pleasure of an old-fashioned, homey
cookie made with the purest ingredients
cannot be underestimated.
As more and more Seattlites became
Macrina regulars, the Belltown location
eventually expanded into more than a
