Lynda on the San Francisco Bay, 2020

Lynda serving at the Specialty Food Show,
New York City, 2013

Lynda in fabulous Egypt. 
Click here or scroll down for pictures.

Lynda Najarian, aka Lady Lovesticks, comes from a line of entrepreneurs and artists. Both traits are clearly evident in her along with the influence of food. Her Swedish mother was an exchange student at University of California at Berkeley when she met Lynda’s Armenian father, a football star. “When they would go on dates, he would fill the back seat of his car with fruit, and they would drive around snacking on the fruit. He was different from anyone she’d ever met!”

“My mother was an excellent cook, international in her flavors. Many in her family had been painters and food became an additional outlet for her creativity.”

Lynda’s father’s career as a football and boxing coach took the family to Japan where Lynda was born and raised. “We all loved Japan,” she recalls. “I was immersed in Japanese culture and ate a lot of sushi and brown rice. I am mostly vegetarian and have always lived my life by natural holistic Eastern principles.”

As a commercial designer of a diverse nature, Lynda’s personal artistic indulgences have taken many forms including neon, optical wear, color therapy, sea shell jewels, mixed media paintings and the list continues… but she knew that someday she wanted to go into the natural food business. Her brother owns a chain of cafe’ style restaurants in Los Angeles, but Lynda was looking for something even simplier to distribute that was vegan.

In 1993 she discovered a loaf of extraordinary bread on a joy trip to Mendocino and went looking for the baker. Her instincts went into overdrive as she imagined the possibilites of creating a product from that loaf. “I was looking for a food that was rustic and had a lot of country in it. This loaf fit that perfectly and naming it ‘Judy’s Breadsticks’ just felt American to me,” she laughs. “To express how I feel about the product, I dubbed them Lovesticks.”

Lynda expanded the business by designing the Country Crackers in ’98, the wholegrain flavored Twigs in ’99 and the Somewhat Seedy Garlicky Toasted Bites in 2010.” My attraction to the business is the opportunity to express originality and bring elements of my personality into the mix.”

The business grew methodically throughout the San Francisco Bay Area where her company distributes their products locally and online.

— Jane St. Claire
written for
www.SavorCalifornia.com

Flying High, August 2006

Lynda living in Japan as a child with her family.
(Lynda is the older child on the left)

Nikki Najarian Hirt and sister Ali,
waiting to make kookies with Auntie Lynda,
to be featured in the future.

Ali and Auntie Lynda, 2005.

I Love U India, a spiritual graceland.