The Brief

Flash back to the pandemic, when everyone you knew made sourdough bread because all they had was time on their hands. That new obsession birthed a million loaves of bread.

There was a whole rabbit hole to fall into, including how to source a sourdough starter, the length of fermentation, consistency, taste and crumb. People began showing pictures of their home-grown loaves, and naming their sourdough starters as if they were their children.

Post-pandemic, it led to a new appreciation of something that had been under our noses for some time — the handful of L.A. bakeries making artisanal sourdough bread.

While you can get sourdough rolls in your local supermarket, commercially made bread often doesn't follow traditional sourdough baking methods, likely supplementing with yeast to get a quicker fermentation.

But other bakeries, like Lodge Bread, Clark Street Bakery, and Bub & Grandma's, have committed to the full-on, time-consuming process, taking at least two days to allow different tastes and textures to bubble up (literally). And now, it's spreading to other dough-centered foods, like pizza, as pizza makers experiment with techniques allowing the rise to take four to five days.

What is it about slow fermentation that has captured the attention of bakers and pizza makers? I spoke to some people leading this trend.

Something in the air

At Colossus, located in Long Beach and San Pedro (and soon to be Anaheim), Kristin Colazas Rodriguez has been slowly perfecting her recipe for naturally leavened sourdough loaves for over five years.

Colazas Rodriguez cultivated her bread-making style when working in the Bay Area in the early 2010s. There, she worked alongside ex-employees of Tartine Bakery, the famed bakery that started in San Francisco and built its reputation on slow-fermented sourdough bread. The technique fascinated Colazas Rodriguez, who brought it down to Long Beach and began making her own version of the bread, and selling it at local farmer markets before expanding to open Colossus.

The sourdough starter at Colossus, affectionately named Jesus, is the basis for their naturally leavened sourdough loaves.

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Courtesy Colossus

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Kristin Colazas Rodriguez, owner of Colossus, taking time to prepare the naturally fermented dough.

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Her team starts each morning by making the dough, adding a portion of their starter, and allowing it to ferment at room temperature for five to six hours.

Kristen Colazas Rodriguez, owner and operator of Colossus Bread

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Then, it's time for cold fermentation, where the dough is put in the refrigerator overnight, slowing the fermentation process. This also forms lactic acid bacteria, which gives the dough its sour flavor.

After roughly 36 hours, the dough is finally ready to be baked into a stretchy, crunchy loaf of bread.

Her work is best exemplified by their country levain, a tangy, sliced sourdough loaf. Its large open crumb makes it perfect for a sandwich, or toast with butter and jam. For me, no other type of bread comes close.

Colazas Rodriguez's passion for sourdough isn't simply artisanal; she also feels it contributes to a healthy way of life.

"We can manipulate it, improve the nutritional quality of the starches and enzymes, and unlock its minerals," she said. "I don't think we would have a product that was as healthy if we were throwing in instant yeast, if we weren't correctly fermenting, and if we weren't long fermenting those grains."

A customer looks over the bakery case fulled with naturally leavened bread displayed at Colossus in Long Beach.

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The pizza dough whisperer

Chef Daniel Holzman, owner of DannyBoy's Famous Original Pizza inside the Wells Fargo building in downtown L.A., with another location in Westwood, makes acclaimed New York-style pizza.

But it comes with a twist. Instead of proofing the dough for a day, as is customary for New York style, Holzman, who has formal training as a chef, extends the fermentation for four or even five days. It's been somewhat controversial.

"I was told I was doing it wrong, and I've been consistently told we're doing it wrong," Holzman said.

Daniel Holzman of Danny Boy's Famous Original Pizza with his prized take on New York-style pizza

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Daniel Holzman of Danny Boy's Famous Original Pizza shows the gluten structure that's formed after the long fermentation process.

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Wrongness be damned, as plenty of customers (and I) discovered, the pizza he creates is buttery, flaky, soft and chewy. Holzman's pizza dough, however, doesn't use a sourdough starter. Instead, he uses commercial yeast for the long fermentation, even though it's typically used to speed up the fermentation process.

The yeast produces carbon dioxide, which allows the dough to rise and creates micro blisters, or bubbles, in the crust, similar to the bubbles in beer. This results in a crispy crust on the outside yet an airy, light texture on the inside. While that is happening, the formation of the gluten structure occurs, which gives the dough its elasticity and chewy quality.

As an illustration, Holzman recently made a viral social media video where he walks shows a series of proofing boxes containing furled pizza dough balls.

Each box holds dough at a different stage of the fermentation process. You can see the texture developing as he pokes his finger in each one. By the time he reaches day three, the dough is producing complex structures resembling spiderwebs. It's impressive to see, and not something you expect in traditional pizza.

A New York-style pepperoni pizza being sliced at Danny Boy's Famous Original Pizza in Westwood.

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He said part of the reason long-fermented New York-style pizza isn't more common is not a cooking issue; instead, it involves real estate. In New York, space is much more scarce, and access to large refrigeration areas is a challenge.

In less-cramped Los Angeles, Holzman was able to experiment before honing in on his now trademark style.

" We use the same ingredients and method that we would use in New York," he said. "Ultimately, we concluded that fermentation would be one thing we would extend."

Easier on the body

A little further down the road in Historic Filipinotown is Grá ('love' in Gaelic), founded by owner Michael McSharry. He's originally from Ireland, but was living in London, working in advertising, when he discovered he had a gluten intolerance.

" At that point, I had to stop eating pizza, bread, stop drinking beer, and all those kinds of carbs," he said.

But when he tried sourdough pizza, he discovered he could eat it and still feel OK.

Michael McSharry, the founder of Grá, during the fermentation process for his sourdough pizza.

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Michael McSharry of Grá turns his sough dough starter.

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While it's a bit of a grey area, scientifically speaking, it seems that some people with a gluten intolerance can eat sourdough bread. The long fermentation is theorized to help break down the gluten, making it easier to consume.

Fast-forward almost a decade to Los Angeles, where McSharry decided to open a restaurant focusing on sourdough pizza, natural wine and fermented foods.

McSharry described it as "food that not only tastes good, but nourishes the soul." He wanted his pizza to be as healthy as possible, which is where fermentation comes in.

As he prepared to finalize his menu for Grá, McSharry planned a last-minute trip to the famed Irish cooking school Ballymaloe Cookery School in County Cork. There, he studied under celebrity chef Darina Allen for a weekend course about fermentation.

Upon completing the course, he was given a sourdough starter as a parting gift, which he brought back to Los Angeles.

McSharry explains that his fermentation program at Grá takes approximately 40 hours, with the dough assembled in the morning and used for the following evening during their dinner service.

The dough is made from whole grain and 00 flour (a very finely milled Italian flour used in pizza and pasta).

" It took me a while to dial in the recipe, or should I say the principles behind the processes that exist within the pizza we have today", McSharry said.

In great detail, McSharry described all the elements of the process to get his sourdough just right, from the proofing stage to the temperature of the water and the oven. He recounted working 8-10 hours daily for over six months in his apartment before the restaurant opened, tweaking each element to achieve his desired result.

The Banger pizza at Grá made with tomato sauce, mozzarella, salami, ‘nduja, fermented mustard seeds, honey & basil

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Diners sit for dinner service inside of Grá

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After locking in his dough recipe, McSharry and his team decided to fire the pizza at 750 degrees inside a wood-burning oven.

" It's another element to this very natural process. So you're working with Mother Nature in the fermentation and then with Mother Nature with real fire, and it's exciting," McSharry added.

The sourdough pizza at Gra isn't particularly sour in flavor. Instead, it takes on a soft and chewy texture, similar to a Neapolitan-style pizza. This format works well with various topping combinations on the menu, as is the case with a couple of house favorites, such as The Banger ($27), made with salami, nduja, fermented mustard seeds, and honey, and their Kimchi Pizza ($27), which contains tomato kimchi sauce, gouda, buffalo mozzarella, green onions, and sesame seeds.

The punch of flavor and freshness brings home precisely what McSharry aims to achieve.

By including other fermented foods — kimchi and fermented mustard seeds — McSharry hopes to extend the notion that the natural process can be applied to different foods, not just sourdough.

While he runs a business, he believes fermented foods are an extension of a more global way of thinking.

" One of our main focuses is having good working relationships with the farmers and doing our little bit to save the planet, like with upcycling," McSharry said. "This is an important characteristic of maximizing the return."

A fire has broken out on an oil and gas platform about 6.6 miles offshore from Santa Barbara.

The fire was reported just after 7 a.m. on Monday. Onboard crew members were unable to contain it. The 26 workers were evacuated, and two minor injuries were reported.

Santa Barbara County, Santa Barbara City and Ventura County firefighters, as well as the Santa Barbara Harbor Patrol and the U.S. Coast Guard, are involved in efforts to contain the blaze.

There's no word on what started the fire.

This is a developing story.

The story first appeared on The LA Local.

After more than a decade of planning and community outreach, L.A. County is moving closer to finalizing its vision for redeveloping the historic General Hospital site into a mix of housing, commercial hubs and community spaces. 

Centennial Partners, the group leading the work, alongside developers Primestor and Bayspring, recently unveiled the project’s draft Master Plan at Alma Family Services in East L.A., offering residents a closer look at the billion-dollar redevelopment expected to unfold in the next 15 years. 

The plan outlines a phased transformation of the shuttered hospital and surrounding property into a mixed-use campus with housing, retail, green space and community hubs. The Master Plan is intended to serve as a flexible roadmap as different portions of the project move forward over the next decade. Developers estimate the full redevelopment will cost between $700 million and $1 billion over the next 10 years.

“This is such a special milestone. There’s more work ahead of us but we’re now advancing into a phase of the work to turn a vision into a reality,” Giovanna Araujo, the project’s director, said.

How community input shaped the plan

Community members gathered at Alma Family Services on April 25, 2026, to learn more about the transformation coming to historic General Hospital.

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Developers said years of community engagement and meetings with residents and groups such as Eastside LEADS, InnerCity Struggle, and The Wellness Center helped shape the proposal. The goal is to integrate community feedback to repurpose the old hospital and West Campus into a “vibrant health and community-centered district.”

According to outreach findings shared during the presentation, most residents requested affordable housing, community safety, accessibility and cleanliness. 

The draft Master Plan includes:

• Between 600 and 800 housing units inside the historic General Hospital building
• At least 25% of those units designated as affordable housing
• Housing priorities for veterans, seniors and youth transitioning out of foster care
• Community hubs
• Interconnected walkways
• Mass transit options
• Gardens to support native plants and animals 

As more buildings are developed around the campus, the number of housing units is expected to grow to more than 1,000, organizers said.

Centennial Partners representatives also said that local jobs would be created in each construction phase but did not specify projected totals. 

A “generational investment” for the Eastside

A design map shows a potential mock-up of buildings for the historic General Hospital.

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President and CEO of Alma Family Services Lourdes Caracoza suggested that housing and increased public safety may be the most crucial parts of the redevelopment plan. She also emphasized the historical role the General Hospital has played in her life and the lives of countless other Eastsiders.

“Historically, this is where you went to be healed or where you died,” Caracoza said. “Now, how do we make it a space where it’s focused on wellness? A lot of the families that come and speak, they know it’s not for them. They know it’s gonna be for their children. They know it’s gonna be for their grandchildren. It’s a generational investment.” 

Boyle Heights resident Gabriela Garcia said she worries the needs of her special needs children and her neighbors could be overlooked as the development moves forward. 

“Psychiatric care, rest beds and those kinds of things are necessary for a child with special needs,” Garcia said. “Are they going to take Centro Estrella and the programs they’re inviting into account, or are they going to prioritize what they think we need?”

Centennial Partners representatives said that services currently offered by East LA’s Centro Estrella and other groups like the Wellness Center and InnerCity Struggle would be incorporated into the long-term vision for the campus.

What’s next?

In the coming months, developers plan to present final building designs, a development plan and construction documents to the public. The project must also complete and  approval for an Environmental Impact Review (EIR), which evaluates potential impacts a project would generate, such as, noise, water quality or greenhouse gas emissions. 

If construction moves forward without setbacks, developers said the redevelopment should be completed within 15 years.

Groundbreaking for the seismic retrofitting of the old General Hospital building is expected to begin this summer.

Participants view renderings of a proposed community corridor during a meeting about the historic General Hospital redevelopment at Alma Family Services on April 25, 2026.

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President Donald Trump says he wants the gas tax to be temporarily suspended as the war in Iran extends into its 11th week and keeps oil prices elevated.

He told CBS News Monday morning he wants the tax suspended "for a period of time" and would want it reintroduced "when gas goes down."

Asked by reporters in the Oval Office later in the day how long the gas tax would be suspended, the president responded, "'Til it's appropriate."

Suspending the gas tax would require an act of Congress. Currently, the tax is 18.4 cents per gallon of gas and 24.4 cents per gallon of diesel.

Regular gasoline cost just under $3 per gallon on average before the U.S. bombed Iran. Now, the average cost per gallon has soared by more than 50 percent to $4.52, according to AAA.

A cost reduction of 18.4 cents would lower that average gasoline cost by around 4 percent. It would bring the cost of a 12-gallon fill-up down by $2.21.

Blockades imposed during the Iran war have stalled the passage of oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, causing gas prices to spike. Around one-fifth of the world's crude oil usually travels through that strait.

The potential suspension of the gas tax is a tacit acknowledgment from the White House of the toll that high gas prices have taken on American consumers. Eight in ten Americans say gas prices are straining their budgets, including overwhelming majorities of Democrats, independents, and Republicans alike, according to the latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll.

In addition, 63 percent of Americans say they blame Trump "a great deal" or "a good amount" for those higher gas prices. That includes more than 6 in 10 independents and nearly one-third of Republicans.

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