Connoisseurs Await ‘Bash of the Year’

The American Institute of Wine and Food, founded in 1981 and open to enthusiastic consumers and food and wine professionals, is calling its upcoming fund-raiser “The Bash of the Year.” And from the evidence at hand it looks as if it may very well be just that.

Some top-rated local chefs and restaurateurs will be creating the different courses for a dinner to be accompanied by wines from 12 Southern California wineries. It’s designed to be “The Cutting Edge of L.A. Cuisine ‘85” and we can’t wait for Nov. 11 to roll around. The place for this gustatory extravaganza is the Beverly Hilton Hotel. It’s black-tie, of course.

In order of their appearance that night, here’s who’ll be whipping and whirling and whisking on the range (every move of their creative activities in the kitchen will be seen on a large-screen live video in the Hilton’s dining room): Susan Feniger of the Border Grill; Mary Sue Milliken of the City Restaurant; Piero Selvaggio of Primi; Michael Roberts of Trumps; Roy Yamaguchi of 385 North; Joachim Splichal of Max au Triangle; Wolfgang Puck and Kazuto of Chinois on Main; John Sedlar of Saint-Estephe; Michael McCarty and Martin of Michael’s; Wolfgang Puck, making a second appearance, this time with Spago’s Lisa Stalvey; Jake Ptasznik of Orleans and Roger E. Pigozzi and John Raab of the Beverly Hilton.

George Trescher is president of AIWF and on the honorary board are such food and wine experts as Julia Child, Robert Mondavi and Richard H. Graff. On the local chapter’s board are quite a few who attack their food and wine with gusto--Danny Kaye, Vincent Price and his wife Coral Browne, Mrs. Freeman Gates, Burks Hamner, Mrs. Charles Speroni, Mrs. Gerald Labiner, Steve Wallace and John Hotchkis.

The surface streets leading from Hancock Park, Beverly Hills and Brentwood were swarming last week with the overachievers trying valiantly to make three important parties all on one night.

The major attractions were Rupert and Anna Murdoch at Barry Diller’s home (we told you about that shindig Thursday); Dr. and Mrs. Armand Hammer and photographer John Bryson at the County Museum of Art; and Count and Countess Chandon de Briailles and their Moet & Chandon champagne at the home of Roz and Henry Rogers. Some made them all, albeit a little out of breath.

Harry Abrams, the publishing house, hosted the party for Dr. Hammer and photographer Bryson, both of whom, accompanied by their wives, Frances Hammer and Nancy Bryson, showed up precisely at 6 p.m. in the Ahmanson Gallery’s Atrium. Upstairs near the check-in desk at the gallery’s entrance were museum tote bags holding copies of “The World of Armand Hammer,” a beautiful photographic essay that took Bryson three years to complete, and was the raison d’etre for the celebration.

Downstairs the superstar tycoon and friend of heads of state held court. And around him at various times were Mrs. Morton (Dear Abby) Phillips, Veronique and Gregory Peck, John Huston, the Crystal Cathedral’s Dr. and Mrs. Robert Schuler, Rosemary Tomich, Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner, Dr. and Mrs. Franklin Murphy, former Gov. Jerry Brown, Jerry and Jane Weintraub, Carroll O’Connor, Sherry Lansing, Phyllis and Jess Marlow, the new Consul General of Italy Alberto Boniver and Dr. Hammer’s grandson Michael Hammer and his wife. The museum’s director Earl A. Powell III came along a little later. It was his birthday.

In Brentwood, in the art-filled home of Henry and Roz Rogers, Esther Williams sat in the screened-in terrace chatting up a storm (opera was the topic) with Richard Thomas and his wife Alma. Fred and Camilla Chandon, who had just been in Northern California checking out their vineyards, moved from room to room easily. He kissed the ladies’ hands with continental charm; she smiled engagingly. Jack (he is director of the Moet-Hennessy Vineyards in Napa) and Shirlee Hennessy stood near the door with son Mark to welcome guests who included Nicki and Greg Bautzer, Irving and Sylvia Wallace, artist Ed Ruscha and his wife, Walter Mirisch, Marc Goodson, Sydney and Nancy Petersen, Warren Cowan and author Linda Palmer (they went on to dinner at La Scala), Judi and Gordon Davidson, Dennis Overstreet, Barbara Carrera and husband Nicholas Mavrolean, Bobbie Cohen and Dick Taylor.

Earlier in the day the count had been guest of honor at a luncheon hosted by Jack Hennessy and the officers of the Wine and Food Societies of Southern California. And the next day Mr. and Mrs. Hernando Courtright gave a dinner for both the count and countess at the Beverly Wilshire’s Bella Fontana where among the guests were New Yorker Andrew Farkas, the Hennessys, the California Club’s director Larry Tollenaere and his wife, Dorothy and Bill Durney and former ambassador to Japan and Mrs. James Hodgson.

Everywhere the Chandons went the champagne flowed.

The Bekstrand Cancer Foundation tonight presents Gene (Back in the Saddle Again) Autry with its Distinguished Service Award at a black-tie dinner under the Spruce Goose Dome. The $125-per-ticket fund-raiser will include tours of Howard Hughes’ Spruce Goose plus a rousing Western musical starring Pat Buttram.

The window at Le St. Germain To Go looked pretty as a picture the afternoon Eileen Kreiss took over the alcove for a “girls’ lunch.” The pine table was set with freesias in terra cotta bowls that were actually match strikers (alongside them were smaller bowls holding the matches). Each of the guests had a set to call her own. Plus a Kron bag filled with her initial in solid chocolate.

For starters there were pates, various kinds of bread, pizzas, and crudites. And then Geri Brawerman (looking very French in a dress she’d bought in Paris), Cyd Charisse in a patterned suit, Grace Robbins wearing her gold Van Cleef nails and the hostess (wearing a Saint Laurent beige suit), were free to choose the rest of their lunch from the refrigerated cases. After the desserts everyone piled into Eileen’s old Rolls (a new white one was part of her birthday loot the next day) to drive over to inspect the new Kreiss Collection showroom on Melrose Blvd., a wonderfully spacious place that’s all white and from the outside looks very New Mexico.

The next day Eileen began a round of birthday celebrations, lunch a deux with husband Norman at the Bistro Garden, a weekend at the Century Plaza Towers, and finally back at the Bistro Garden for a birthday dinner hosted by Geri and Dick Brawerman. There Joe Marino played “Happy Birthday” on his piano to announce Eileen’s arrival and her departure. In between there were a lot of birthday toasts with champagne.

Some of us were out trick-or-treating Thursday evening. But over at the Regency Club UCLA’s provost of the College of Letters and Science, Raymond L. Orbach and his wife Eva, who’d just returned from a business-holiday trip to Paris and London, were hosting a dinner honoring a few super-achievers. Among them were Frank Carey, former IBM president who spoke on “U.S. Trade: And the New Requirements for a Competitive World Market Place;” author Irving Stone and his editor wife Jean; and Professor Ralph Turner of UCLA’s Department of Sociology who wrote the reports on earthquake warnings for L.A. Also honored were three “remarkable students,” two who are sharing the undergraduate award, Karen B. Loomis, a hard-rock geologist, and Richard Dennis Gonzalez, who is studying psychology. Receiving the graduate award was Yehuda Schavit, also a student in the psychology department.

The Social Scramble: Dining in the Beverly Wilshire’s Hideaway, that timeless charmer Marcello Mastroianni; and at lunchtime Bill Graff was there with his wife Betty, and Gene Mandel was with the hotel’s vice president Helen Chaplin. Over in El Padrino Santa Barbarans Beverley Jackson and artist Jack Baker caught a quick dinner before going on to the Wilshire Theatre to see Claudette Colbert and Rex Harrison in “Aren’t We All.”

At the Childhelp benefit a couple of weeks back Mr. and Mrs. Robert Kretschmar of Anaheim and Earl McNeil bought a dinner for 10 at Madame Wu’s Garden for $6,500 in the auction. Lest you think that’s a pretty high price for Peking duck, may we tell you that Cary and Barbara Grant and June (Haver) and Fred MacMurray, in person, were included in the package. The other night the Kretschmars and McNeil cashed in their winning ticket and dined in glorious splender in Madame Wu’s V.I.P. room with the Grants and the MacMurrays plus Denise Parish, Mary Kretschmar and Jane Webb.

It must be deja vu for Max Eckert, who first photographed the late Merle Oberon’s beautiful Moorish-style home in Acapulco shortly after it was finished in 1963. He’s back there again taking more photos, this time for Sotheby’s which has the house on the water’s edge up for sale for $3.2 million.

It’s best-selling author Judith Krantz who will be moving into Mrs. John I. Moore’s chic Bel-Air home next year. Ceil Moore is re-establishing her home base in Dallas (in a spacious condo), but will be doing a lot of to and fro commuting to L.A.

Spotted at the Plunket-Keys boutique on Sunset--Susan George and Simon MacCorkindale, who spent four hours choosing some new duds for her; Veronique Peck and daughter Cecilia; Alana Hamilton.