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Give us this day, our daily bread
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Jim Hill appears baffled by the loaf of pumpkin bread he has just been
handed by Councilman Tom LaBonge during his Hollywood Walk of Fame star
ceremonies. Gary McCarthy Staff Photo |
TONY CASTRO, Columnist 17.MAY.06
Politics & Culture: That’s not a football Tom LaBonge has just handed off to Jim Hill...
In
his wildest dreams, it may be that Los Angeles City Councilman Tom
LaBonge imagines himself giving a moving sermon atop a hill, possibly
with the Hollywood sign just behind him. And after finishing with his
beatitudes:
Blessed are the Marshall High Barristers: for theirs is the dream of a city championship every year.
Blessed are they at USC: for they shall rebound in the fall.
Blessed are the Dodgers; for they shall inherit the West.
Blessed are they which do...
And all the while, LaBonge’s aides are circulating around the multitudes, feeding all thousands of them from the four loaves of pumpkin bread he has brought along.
It
is, after all, special pumpkin bread. Or why would LaBonge be so
insistent that wherever he goes, especially if there is someone to laud
or commend, he is sure to also present them with a loaf of his favorite
pumpkin bread.
USC Coach Pete Carroll, when honored at City Hall
for each of the Trojans’ two national champions, found himself handing
LaBonge a signed football in exchange for a loaf of pumpkin bread.
Some
trade. The USC football had names like Leinart and Bush. The name on
the loaf of pumpkin bread read Monastery of the Angels.
The
cloistered Dominican nuns at the monastery just north of Fountain
Avenue at the foot of the Hollywood Hills make the pumpkin bread daily.
These
nuns have taken vows of silence, so their story — and that of the
fabled pumpkin bread they bake — isn’t something they talk about.
And
poor, devoted Tom LaBonge, for all his dedication to these constituents
of his council district, rarely gets the chance to tell their story
because usually the person he gives the pumpkin bread to doesn’t have
time to listen to it.
Or is too baffled trying to figure out what they’ve just been handed.
When
LaBonge was visiting Rep. Lucille Roybal Allard, the Eastside
Congresswoman, in her office in Washington, she first thought the gift
was a gag.
“But the more she thought about it, the more she understood the thought behind it,” recalled an aide.
Mary
Anne Farley, mother of late comedian Chris Farley, got a loaf of
pumpkin bread from LaBonge along with the city proclamation — and was
visibly moved to tears.
But then LaBonge has also presented a loaf of pumpkin bread to Godzilla on Hollywood Boulevard.
For good karma, no doubt, because the devotees of the pumpkin bread are legion.
The gift shop at the monastery where the pumpkin bread is sold Mondays through Saturdays is often swamped for requests.
“The
pumpkin bread is special,” says restaurateur Lucy Casado, whose family
has been buying loaves for years. “It is made by the hands of nuns who
are close to God.”
“Holy Pumpkin Bread” is what someone called
it on the Internet where the monastery ranks as a Hollywood attraction,
and someone at TripAdvis-er.com went so far as to claim that:
“The
cloistered nuns that live here bake a pumpkin bread that tastes like
Jesus himself baked it. It is so moist, with huge walnuts baked into
the top.”
A KPCC 89.3 FM radio listener called it “Holy Pumpkin
Bread” and went on poetically about “the smell of baking bread [that]
hangs over Beachwood Canyon some mornings.”
Imagine all that
from pumpkin bread, and imagine finding Matt Leinart — or someone who
sure looked like him — ringing the bell at the gift shop door, which
was closed that day.
A little keyhole opened first, and then one of the few nuns permitted to talk asked what he needed.
“I’m here to buy pumpkin bread.”
A moment later he was inside. Five minutes later, he left with four loaves and a sweet blessing from the nuns.
Come to think of it, that’s exactly what Tom LaBonge does every time he hands out the pumpkin bread himself.
Tony Castro can be reached at tcastro@laindependent.com.
Tony Castro Archives
 
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