Investment Baking

Making a sales pitch to a room full of East Coast investment executives, California Treasurer Kathleen Brown almost could have been mistaken Tuesday for a partisan backer of Gov. Pete Wilson's new state budget. "This is a budget which reflects a very conservative series of assumptions on the economy," Brown told executives who will be deciding this week whether to purchase a $2-billion issue of short-term California debt for resale to their clients.

Making a sales pitch to a room full of East Coast investment executives, California Treasurer Kathleen Brown almost could have been mistaken Tuesday for a partisan backer of Gov. Pete Wilson's new state budget. "This is a budget which reflects a very conservative series of assumptions on the economy," Brown told executives who will be deciding this week whether to purchase a $2-billion issue of short-term California debt for resale to their clients.

Europane is a neighborhood bakery in Pasadena whose fresh fruit tarts and focaccia have created a fiercely loyal clientele. So when customers urged owner Sumi Chang to add chewy, European-style bread to her shelves, she sensed a business opportunity. "I know I could sell it. I get a lot of requests," says the nurse-turned-pastry chef, who has worked for the Four Seasons Hotel and with Nancy Silverton, whose La Brea Bakery introduced Angelenos to crusty, Old World bread a mere eight years ago.