And then there\u2019s Colossus Bread<\/a>, Delfs\u2019 operation which she moved back to her native Long Beach and launched in early April. Her loaves of Walnut Levain and Olive Levain with Cumin Seed regularly sell out at five locales throughout the city.<\/p>\n “I love it because it\u2019s something that’s alive,” Delfs said. “The parallel between everything fermented is really interesting to me, like how I can talk to winemakers and we\u2019re kind of speaking the same language.”<\/p>\n Delfs also makes country, sesame and sunflower flax seed loaves. Her whole wheat loaves are a mix of fresh-milled wheat, walnuts and cranberries, another favorite. Alongside her pastries\u2014which include an apple brioche bun with thyme pastry cream and a berry almond brioche bostock\u2014she\u2019s currently working on a collaboration with Primal Alchemy, a local catering company, for a new take on a ham and cheese croissant.<\/p>\n The practice of making bread, said Delfs, is \u201cconstantly evolving and I\u2019m still learning even though I\u2019ve been doing it for years now.\u201d She mills her own grains, sourced from the Tehachapi Green Project, gets her tomatoes from her dad\u2019s garden, grows most of her own herbs and picks up produce and ingredients from the three farmers markets in Long Beach where she sells her loaves.<\/p>\n \u201cI was always really interested in grains and gardening and farming and just that whole agricultural connection,\u201d said Delfs, describing her early beginnings. \u201cI remember someone saying, \u2018Oh, I\u2019m really into bread,\u2019 and just thinking, \u2018That\u2019s crazy\u2014how does that even happen? I can\u2019t imagine.\u2019 I think at some point it just seemed like a challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n After graduating from Cal State Long Beach with a history degree, starting out in the realm of carbs was not Delfs\u2019 original plan for life after college. A short-lived attempt at community organizing, including stints spent working at a women\u2019s services center on Skid Row and with Code Pink, a women-led, anti-war grassroots organization, left her craving a career outside of an office.<\/p>\n It was time for a change in direction, a different way to foster community.<\/p>\n She scrambled for what felt familiar and what wouldn\u2019t require paying for another education, and that was working in pastries. After a minimum-wage pastry gig in Los Angeles, Delfs moved back to Long Beach to continue as a barista at a few coffee shops, including Rose Park Roasters, jobs she\u2019d had through college.<\/p>\n Knowing she wanted to gain more experience outside of the city and eventually move, she was driving back and forth to the Bay Area to stage (a term used to describe working in kitchens for free, essentially the begrudged unpaid internship of the culinary world).<\/p>\n Delfs\u2019 hustle was real, and it still is.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s one of those things that you just have to do all the time, and I truly think anyone can do it, anyone can make bread,\u201d said Delfs. \u201cIf you\u2019re working in a commercial bakery or professional setting you\u2019re doing multiple loaves all the time which just makes it easier to see where you\u2019ve gone wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n After moving to and working in multiple pastry jobs in Northern California, Delfs landed a job at Petit Crenn<\/a> in San Francisco, award-winning chef Dominique Crenn\u2019s more casual version of her two-Michelin-starred Atelier Crenn.<\/p>\n There she started out as a pastry assistant, made pastry sous, then became pastry chef, all within 10 months. During some of her time at Petit, she was also doing bread at Outerlands<\/a>, one of San Francisco’s most popular spots to brunch with its focus on using seasonal, sustainable ingredients.<\/p>\n Over the years, Delfs has learned and honed her craft on the job, her kitchen as the classroom. The journey has never been easy, and like any pursued passion, sometimes you hit a few bumps in the road.<\/p>\n \u201cI remember when I first started at Petit Crenn I remember getting in there and it just being awful,\u201d Delfs said. \u201cAll the bread was flat and I was like, \u2018What am I doing wrong?\u2019 and you just start second guessing yourself and [thinking] maybe I can\u2019t do this, and it was kind of like that when I started back down here again. It\u2019s humbling.\u201d<\/p>\n But bringing those ups and downs, that wealth of experience, back to Long Beach has kept her incredibly busy since launching Colossus this year, with Black Ring Coffee and Rose Park Roasters the first to sell her pastries, while she recently moved operations to renting a kitchen, is considering teaching classes and is already looking to hire an assistant.<\/p>\n She\u2019s also created the Colossus Bread Club, offering regular bread deliveries to subscribing customers.<\/p>\n \u201cI just always dreamed about coming back and being able to create a space and a product to give something back to Long Beach,\u201d Delfs said. \u201cI feel like bread gives me that human connection, I\u2019m able to make something really special and give it to people and have a relationship with them, but it\u2019s also helping me give back something that\u2019s healthy and nutritious to my community.\u201d<\/p>\n You can pick up Delfs\u2019 pastries at Lord Windsor Coffee on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays; at Rose Park Roasters on Mondays; and daily at Viento y Agua, Olives Gourmet Grocer and Black Ring Coffee.<\/p>\n The bread is on the menu at Taste wine-beer-kitchen and can be picked up Mondays at the Houghton Park Farmers Market, Fridays at the one in Downtown Long Beach and Sundays at the Long Beach Marina farmers market.<\/p>\n Learn more about Colossus Bread via the website here<\/a>\u00a0and Instagram @colossusbread<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kristin Colazas Delfs officially launched her own business in early April and in a few short months has already begun making quite a name for herself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":66174,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[257],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-food","tag-small-business","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/136"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=653"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/P1020242-970x648.jpg\")
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