Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Kristine Jingozian. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Kristine , appreciate you joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

My sister, Rose (our namesake), and I started this company in May of 2020, after the pandemic had all but decimated our previous family venture with our mom, Karine, producing decorated cakes and pastries for events. We had been in the space of custom baking for nearly five years then suddenly had to pivot due to all the closures and subsequent cancellations. It was a scary time, to be honest. We went through the same desperate banana bread and sourdough phases as everyone else trying to navigate the pandemic, eventually landing on the idea to bake things from our childhood we love that people will want to eat everyday—good old comfort food. I can safely speak for every Armenian in saying that gata or nazook is never missing from the coffee table. Gata and nazook are very much our chocolate chip cookie. Tatiks (grandmas) make it for their families, especially for the grandbabies looking for some comfort and a reminder that they are loved…and for when all the neighborhood ladies gather for mid-afternoon gossip. There’s an experience that goes with it. A nazook flavored memory. It was clear that we wanted and needed to show the LA food community how good Diasporic Armenian baking can be. We don’t claim to “introduce” or have “discovered” some new exotic cuisine. This is just who we are. We aim to share our history through the delicious lense of food.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My journey into food began when I was young. Growing up in a big Armenian family, weekly gatherings to grandparents and aunties and uncles houses were a given. Any glutton would cry tears of joy at the bounty we took as given—a massive spread of different mezzes and dishes followed by an even more impressive dessert table, complete with fresh and dried fruits, nuts, pastries, cookies, and various syrupy sweets. My love for food began somewhere there and grew into what is now a fully formed obsession but my professional experience began at age 19 when mom got me a job as the weekend bacon girl for a local diner. To this day, the smell of bacon transports me to that kitchen. My younger sister, Rose, now a badass in her own right, started out baking custom decorated cakes and desserts with our mom in 2016 back when the business was Farine Bakery. We are all mostly self-taught in terms of baking and especially with respect to the baking we do now. After the hit Farine took in 2020, Rose and I decided to start something new. Rose & Rye is an expression of our heritage as first generation Armenian American women. Every recipe is a memory.

We launched with nazook, a traditional Armenian pastry often filled with streusel or nuts, shaped and cut using a similar method to cinnamon rolls or rugelach. It all started with a recipe passed down from a family member. We altered from there to achieve the result we are very proud to serve today. Our first nazook flavor, classic vanilla, which became and still is the fan favorite is a flaky yeasted shortcrust pastry made with Sonora wheat filled with a sweetly vanilla scented streusel. But we thought why not have a little fun and try new things? We also offer chocolate hazelnut nazook, brandied date and walnut nazook, matcha nazook with strawberry or black sesame streusel—all of which are available plant-based as well. After all, what is tradition worth if it cannot evolve with its stewards? And this is at the heart of what we do: respect the past and embrace the future by staying curious.

Although our project garnered enthusiasm early on, it was our first cake offering—Medovik (Russian honey cake) that opened many doors for us. There is a more famous version of Russian honey cake that the American mainstream is familiar with, but we wanted to shed light on a traditional recipe that honors and expands on the efforts of the thousands of Eastern European and Armenian immigrants in LA. Our Medovik is made with Rouge de Bordeaux, an heirloom grain which lends the most beautiful nutty, graham cracker-y flavor. The ten honeyed cake layers are filled with a caramelized honey and sour cream whip, then the cake goes to sleep for about 12 hours. The process of aging the cake overnight is critical, allowing the stiff layers to soak in moisture from the cream and soften to a delicious texture. Our recipe is distinct from American versions in that it is less sweet, less spongy, more texturally substantial and a very sexy balance of sweet and tangy.

Our menu has grown to include more cakes and pastries from our childhood, exploring the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Northern Africa—a way for us to trace roots and commemorate our Armenian heritage. Sometimes we stay super traditional with the flavors and other times we travel by way of the palette to other cultures, with the hope of showing people in our cultural community what lives outside of it too—a cultural osmosis by way of food as it were. We bake with this incredible organic matcha from Mizuba Tea Company as well as chocolates and cocoa from Tcho, and we freshly mill local grains from Tehachapi Grain Heritage Project such as Sonora, Rouge de Bordeaux, and Rye, utilizing organic ingredients wherever possible. It was a conscious decision to give our humble traditions the same dignity as every croissant is seemingly owed. I firmly believe our adherence to strict quality standards and curiosity have served as a strong headwind and we hope to show our community more of what we can do for years to come. Our micro bakery is currently based out of home in Granada Hills, CA (a suburb of LA) with weekly preorders available through Tock. It is a mad dash each week managing everything that goes into running a business—from PR and marketing to customer service, sourcing, and production but we love it so much. We are hard at work building our dream and hope to open a storefront with more offerings soon.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Learning to say “no” has been a really tough lesson. Sometimes there is so much pressure to say “yes” to everything be it because of the horrible adage “the customer is always right” or to avoid the guilt that follows “missed opportunities”. I can safely say the regret of having said “yes” to things that do not align with our standards or ethics as business owners and boundaries as humans has always far outweighed any guilt or fear of missing out from saying “no”. It is so important to value oneself, especially in a line of work that exploits the body. Baking and cooking are contact sports, I always half joke. We food makers are prone to injury or burnout like athletes except with nowhere near the same compensatory motivation. Anyone in this industry who has ever suffered a bad cut, burn, break will attest you never go back to being the same. Some injuries even cost people their careers. When there is already so much at stake, we cannot undervalue ourselves or undermine our integrity. One of the most common questions we are asked is “do you ship?” We (usually) don’t and for good reason. Every time I have made an exception to this rule, I’ve regretted it and recently promised myself: never again. The product is not arriving to the customer in the condition we sent it, for one, and the product no longer upholds the standards that we work so hard to maintain, most importantly. Freshly baked nazook is pure magic. Our nazook is meant to be enjoyed the same day it is baked. When shipping product, you have to make sure to pack airtight—which stales the nazook, AND it always takes at least one or two days until the customer receives their product. Two unacceptable dings against the freshness standard already. Then there is concern about how the package was handled during transit. You hope that your box of what started out as magic hasn’t somehow been mangled on the way but there is no guarantee. If there’s a word of advice I can give anyone out there it’s this: if something doesn’t feel right to you, if it goes against your standards, it is ok to say “no”.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Simply put, our product is good and we know it and our customers know it. But many factors have contributed to our reputation in this world of food makers, namely quality, novelty, and industry friends. When you provide a consistently high quality experience for customers, they tend to come back and tell their circle about you too. High quality standards are so important for this reason. Freshly made cakes and pastries that are baked with organic flour and local grown freshly milled grains sell themselves, really. Then we add in the fact that Diasporic Armenian baking is criminally underrepresented in the mainstream—we’re just grateful that the response has been one of enthusiasm and curiosity. Along with word of mouth, make friends with your local suppliers and farmers. I cannot stress enough the role our local food community has played in pushing us forward. We did not and could not have grown without them spreading the word and supporting our work.

Contact Info:

• Website: bio.site/roseandrye
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/roseandrye/?hl=en

Image Credits
All photos are taken by me except one: the pic with two boxes of cake slices (one slice of medovik and one slice of matcha medovik side by side) was taken by Augusto Piccio (@augustop on ig). If you need clarification, please don’t hesitate to reach out!