Not your average coffee bar pastry case, Chef Naomi Shim of Doubting Thomas in Historic Filipinotown is shopping for pears at the Santa Monica Farmer’s Market. With a background in fine dining, her pear pastries signal fall, including a pear danish with orange blossom custard, coffee cake with cardamom streusel and topped with burnt wildflower honey, and a turnover with pear-apple butter. She is looking for a bit of softness when shopping at the See Canyon table. Mike Cirone says farming pears is similar to apple harvesting. Pears are susceptible to fire blight, which can infect the flowers, resulting in the loss of the tree. The Warren pear is fairly resistant to the fire blight and one of the varieties currently available at the farmer’s market.
Chef Naomi Shim is using Warren pears to use in her pastry case at Doubting Thomas. Photo courtesy of Doubting Thomas.
