A FEW WORDS--GASP!--IN DEFENSE OF SMOKING

I must be feeling suicidal this week, or something, but in honor (or in spite) of the new Beverly Hills restaurant smoking ban, I’d like to say a few words in defense of tobacco--and, even worse, in defense of its use at or near the dining table.

To begin with, I’m very fond of tobacco. I don’t consider myself a smoker, exactly, but I do sometimes smoke--cigarettes mostly, and usually strong ones at that, plus an occasional cigar. I smoke because good tobacco can smell and taste quite wonderful. It has flavors and aromas just like wine does, or food itself--and like wine and food, it can provide intense sensory experience. It can also admit of great subtlety and delicacy of character--and, frankly, I’m always a bit surprised when people who appreciate other gustatory pleasures dismiss tobacco as some noxious, foul-smelling weed. Only bad tobacco smells bad, if you ask me--just like spoiled wine or rotten food does.

Now, I know that habitual tobacco use can lessen a person’s sensitivity to the gastronomic niceties--but based on my own experience, I simply don’t believe that an occasional good cigarette before or during a meal, or a good cigar after one, “deadens” the palate any more than, say, a jalapeno corn muffin or a low-cal black cherry soda does. I know too, of course, that habitual tobacco use can kill--but so can the over-enthusiastic consumption of alcohol, salt, dairy products and, for all I know, fancy French mineral water. I’m not talking excess here; I’m talking sensible appreciation, the sip of smoke.

But what about allergies to tobacco, and the by-now-well-documented dangers of “second-hand smoke”? These indeed are problems, and of course I accept the notion that a person who wants to smoke, whether in moderation or not, should not impose the inevitable airborne residue of his or her tobacco use on the unwilling passers-by or neighbor. As far as the Beverly Hills smoking ban goes, though, I do think that good design and good ventilation ought to be enough to keep smoker and smoke-hater in a restaurant atmospherically discrete. And I am always rather amused when I hear some tobacco-hating restaurant patron or other carrying on about how nobody has the right to pollute another person’s lungs--and then drive off from the place in an internal-combustion-powered automobile, belching hydrocarbons into the common, already murky air.

APRIL FOOLY POUISSE: 72 Market St. in Venice, which last year listed “Santa Monica Bay croaker with hemlock sauce” on its April Fool’s Day menu, this year handed out a doctored wine list for the occasion. Among the choices: Mercurey 1951, Low Mileage; Chateau Fussy, Silly Fuisse (Pooyee!); Ridge Geezer Ville Zinfandel 1894, and Chateau Palmer, Arnold.

OPENINGS, ANNIVERSARIES AND ADDITIONS: The Clay Pit, serving tandoori specialties and other Indian dishes, is new in the South Bay Galleria in Redondo Beach. . . . The Garden Pavilion at the Century Plaza Hotel, formerly open only for breakfast and lunch, now serves dinner nightly from 6:30 to 10:30. . . . Little Joe’s, downtown, celebrates its 60th anniversary this month with special events including an offering of mostaccioli and a glass of house wine or beer for $5.75 this Monday through Saturday, an Italian wine and hors d’oeuvre tasting on April 23rd, and a ‘20s-style “Prohibition Party” on the 30th. All month, too, guests may register for a chance to win a trip for two to Rome, with one million lira in spending money (which isn’t as much as it sounds like, but on the other hand isn’t bad). . . . And Lawry’s the Prime Rib has introduced its first new menu item in 12 years--a six-ounce “California cut” prime rib, to sell at $15.95.

EVENTS: The Los Angeles chapter of the American Institute of Wine & Food has announced a program of spring events, including a series of lectures under the rubric “Food and the University,” to be held this Monday as well as April 27 and May 11 at the UCLA Faculty Center; a program of informal early-evening wine tastings at 385 North; a coffee tasting (also at 385 North); and talks on “Tastebuds of the Chefs,” “Food Customs and Oddities,” and “French Provincial Cooking”--the latter including lunch. Call (213) 453-2855 for information about these events and about the institute itself. . . .

On a less exalted note, the Moosehead Beer people will hold their L.A. Championship Ice Carving Contest on Thursday, poolside at the Sheraton Universal Hotel, with local chefs “taking chain saws and chisels to crystal-clear ice.” Winners will participate in an international ice-carving competition in Japan. . . . And chefs Wolfgang Puck, Jonathan Waxman, Jimmy Schmidt and Joachim Splichal, among others, will join several of their top-rated counterparts from Germany in a series of special culinary events at the Highlands Inn in Carmel, April 22-27. Information: (408) 624-3801.

EASTER UPDATE: More holiday meals planned for next Sunday, Easter, include prix-fixe dinners from $12.95 to $16.95 at the Calabasas Inn in Calabasas, starting at noon (with childrens’ dinners at $6.95). . . . An elaborate Easter buffet, adults for $30 and children under 12 for $15, at the Bel Age hotel dining room in West Hollywood. . . . A buffet brunch ($19.50 and $10.50 respectively) at the Mondrian Hotel, also in West Hollywood--plus a “petting zoo” for children. . . . Also, Monday night, the eve of Passover, Colette in Beverly Hills will serve a special dinner menu of “traditional and symbolic foods” at $35 per person, in addition to the regular menu.