by Mick Rhodes | editor@claremont-courier.com

My best friend Christine Moore died suddenly Sunday, January 4. She was just 62 and left behind her three children, her mother, stepfather, two brothers, a sister, nieces, nephews, her extended family, and an ocean of friends, fans, and admirers.

The night before she died we were at a 60^th birthday dinner for our friend Joe. She was shimmering, vibrant, and gave a beautiful toast. A group of us stayed around the table talking after most everyone else had left. When she got up to leave I hugged her and we told each other, “I love you,” like always. Her hugs were tender, rare things, never awkward or rushed. I always left her embrace feeling fully loved, understood, and OK, no matter what was happening in either or our lives. The last thing I said to her was, “You look beautiful, by the way.” She smiled, thanked me, squeezed my hand, and left.

Christine Moore and Mick Rhodes in Pasadena in the early 1990s.

She spent her last morning walking the Altadena Forever Run 5K in support of her beloved community, then back at home with her kids. At 11:10 a.m. her son called with the horrific news that she had collapsed and was taken by ambulance to Huntington Memorial Hospital, where she died. It was a heart attack.

There was no forewarning. She had no previous cardiac issues. She was healthy, active, and vividly alive.

Christy, as I always called her, was my unshakable anchor for nearly 40 years. And as I write this 10 days later it’s still incomprehensible to me that her extraordinary, widely impactful life force could be extinguished.

Christy raised her children almost exclusively on her own. She had high expectations, and was determined to equip them with the tools not just to navigate the world, but to thrive in it and live purposeful lives. Her girls, 26 and 25, are accomplished college grads, one living in New York City, the other recently with her. Her son is an 18-year-old college freshman in Oregon. They were all home for the holidays when she died.

Sometimes I thought she was a little hard on them, but I see now I was wrong. Those occasional tough lessons were in preparation for this unbelievable tragedy.

We were born eight days apart — her in Maplewood, New Jersey, me in Duarte, California — and were 24 when we met in 1988 working at Green Street Restaurant in Pasadena. We became close friends immediately.

The first time I stepped into her Vinedo Street apartment, where we’d hang out on her second floor balcony drinking Diet Cokes, coffee, and wine, and listening to Crowded House, it was clear she was unlike anyone I’d known. She had an eye for beauty, with a mix of modern and antique furnishings she found at estate sales, framed art, plants, tapestries, and thoughtful lighting. She knew about food, wine and art. I came to realize she had this thing I’d only heard about in movies and magazines called “taste.” I didn’t offer much in the way of reciprocal cultural education, but I was a loyal friend, and so was she.

Christine Moore and Mick Rhodes at the Hollywood Bowl in June 2019.

Aside from a wild weekend in San Francisco in 1993, our relationship was entirely platonic. Even so, it was more intimate than any other in my life. Our wives and husbands weren’t always into it, and we were mistaken for a couple many times. We always got a kick out of telling people we’d already tried that and were better as best friends.

Our friendship was constant, through marriages, raising families, divorces, distance, far-flung travel, tragedy, and trauma. Our birthdays were a week apart in November, and we always celebrated with a dinner. Our last one was on November 11 last year for our 62nd birthdays at Kisetsu in Claremont.

We began talking about growing old together when we were in our 40s. Over the years the venue shifted from Pasadena to Oxnard, to Carpinteria, then to Ireland, Scotland, and most recently Santa Barbara. The plan was we would retire somewhere beautiful and be there for each other in our dotage. And I believe we would have, because when she set her mind on something, she did it. I called her an “ass-kicker,” and meant it as a high complement.

Christy loved intensely. If you were in her circle, she had your back. She always had mine, and I hers. She gave the most frank, clear-eyed advice. She was there for me through every trauma and triumph, and I for hers. She was my first call for 38 years and knew everything about me. I like to think I knew her as completely.

She worked hard, even when we were 20-something Pasadena party people.

“Then, when I was twenty-eight, a tragedy woke me up to the power of NOW,” she wrote in her second cookbook, “Little Flower Baking,” published in 2016. “My dearest friend, Vonnie, died in a car accident. She was like a sister, and her stunning, unfathomable death both crushed me and made me realize how precious life is. How easy it was to die. It could happen. It did happen.”

The grief and shock awakened something in her. Within a month she cashed in her savings and moved to Paris. She had no connections and no plan other than finding a great French kitchen in which to study. And she did it. Over the next year she learned how to run a high-end kitchen and be a professional chef, and made lifelong friends in the process. I was in awe.

She returned from Paris in 1992 and worked as a pastry chef at several renowned LA restaurants. Her career was ascendant. She got married. After her daughter Madeline was born in 1999, she began making candy at home. Her second daughter Avery arrived in 2001, her son Colin in 2007. Over that eight-year period she perfected her sea salt caramels, selling them at the Santa Monica Farmer’s Market and to an ever increasing group of LA restaurants, wine shops, and boutiques. The caramels she perfected in her little kitchen in Highland Park with her babies and toddlers bounding about put her on the LA culinary map for good and became her flagship product.

Christine Moore and Mick Rhodes at Moore’s Vinedo Street apartment in Pasadena in the late 1980s.

After her marriage ended, and emboldened by her growing success as a candy maker, she opened Little Flower cafe and bakery in Pasadena in 2007. The beautiful little gem of a restaurant was the culmination of her professional and personal journey to that point. There, her talents as a baker, candy maker, chef, manager, menu designer, and all-around creative powerhouse flourished.

Over time a community formed around Little Flower, both behind and in front of the counter. Her children grew up there, and later worked in the kitchen. Her friend and Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic Jonathan Gold described Little Flower as food that makes you “feel happy and well served by life.” And the restaurant she created, nourished, and poured her heart into for 19 years continues to thrive today.

Christy embodied gratitude. It wasn’t a slogan for her; it was a way of life. She taught me about purpose, about showing up. She was a radically compassionate and fearless mother, daughter, sister, friend, businesswoman, restaurateur, author, community mover and shaker, and mentor. She saw the good in people and possibility in everyone. She also had a strong sense of justice, a highly developed bullshit detector, and above all did not suffer cruelty or inauthenticity.

Those lucky enough to be in her orbit were rewarded with unwavering loyalty and generous, loving kindness. She was strikingly present, and did not do small talk, preferring meaningful exchanges with everyone from strangers to long-time friends. An empath of the highest degree, she was never too busy for a deep conversation. She was a world-class listener, and when she thought you needed it, advisor.

Mick Rhodes and Christine Moore at Little Flower cafe and bakery for the March 2016 launch event for Moore’s second cookbook, “Little Flower Baking.”

She was also never averse to a good cry. Many things brought her to tears: sadness and grief of course, but also beauty, which she saw all around her, always. She knew tragedy and trauma, but never surrendered to cynicism. Her heart was open to the world and the people in it. And she was funny. We laughed a lot, for a lot of years.

Though she was an in demand professional and social whirlwind — a hands-on restaurant owner, a public figure, and devoted, caring friend to so many — her children were always the center of her life. We talked about parenting constantly after Madeline was born 26 years ago. She was a tenacious and unrelenting force of empathy, encouragement, and love for her kids. She was successful, but made sure they understood the clarifying dignity of hard work, the responsibility to give back, to save, and to lift up those who needed help. She gave them the tools to create the lives they wanted and stand on their own, as she had. She was their greatest advocate, quietly behind the scenes, and when needed, loudly, out front.

I’ve spent the past 10 days enveloped in grief. Now I hear her voice saying, “Alright. You’ve done your mourning, now it’s time to get to work.” And I have, though of course nothing is or ever will be the same.

That’s the thing about grief: we don’t “get past it.” It becomes part of us. The shocking, all-encompassing, catastrophic event fades, but the grief lives in our cells. We never “move on.” We adapt to this new way of living.

Christine Moore and Mick Rhodes in Los Angeles in 2023.

Christine Moore and Mick Rhodes at Moore’s Pasadena restaurant Lincoln in November 2014.

Christine Moore and Mick Rhodes at the Hollywood Bowl in June 2019.

Christine Moore and Mick Rhodes in Pasadena in the early 1990s.

I’m grateful for the grief, because it’s proof Christy is still with me, as she has been for 38 years, never far. I miss her. But I will not say goodbye.