People and Events

Garcon --a quiet hospital tray for two.

In the new kitchen at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, three area chefs each whipped up a complete multi-course dinner of low-sodium, low-sugar and low-cholesterol delicacies Wednesday, as the hospital videotaped them at work for training films for regular hospital cooks.

Among Wednesday’s specialities de l’hospital:

Vito Gnazzo of Rex whipped up an unusual artichoke soup; Joachim Splichal, consultant for the Regency Club, contributed a poached plum in ginger with cottage cheese ice cream, and Michel Richard of Citrus created a citrusy orange soup and, as another course, his signature crunchy Maui onions, oven baked to keep the calories down.

A spokeswoman says the hospital will begin next week offering the “get-well gourmet” lunches and dinners at $19 to $25 each, extra. (No word on whether Blue Cross will cover them . . . )

And Richard quipped that soon the Michelin restaurant-guide “will rate a three-star hospital.”

Four helicopters were supposed to show up at Northrop University on Wednesday, a demonstration for high school engineering students attending Military Day, part of National Engineers’ Week.

Three of them never got there--including a Navy search and rescue helicopter from Pt. Mugu.

“Glad I wasn’t lost in the desert,” murmured spokeswoman Debora Callaghan.

The university had marked a fluorescent-orange landing square in a parking lot, but the Navy chopper couldn’t find the campus, which is near Los Angeles International Airport, after it flew out over the ocean; the Coast Guard copter was out on a real mission, and the star of the show, a large Apache Marine Corps copter from Twentynine Palms, “ended up over Hollywood somehow” before landing at the Hawthorne airport, says Callaghan.

The one chopper that made it was an Army National Guard copter from Los Alamitos. Its co-pilot and navigator was a woman.

We have met the enemy rocket . . . and it was ours.

Since the early 1960s, Travel Town in Griffith Park has had on display what was billed as a V-1, the German World War II guided-missile buzzbomb chased down out of the British skies by all those plucky chaps in Spitfires.

But what was standing there all along is a rare American wartime production copy of the V-1, called the JB-2, says a report to be put before Recreation and Parks commissioners on Friday. The long-weathered and much-vandalized rocket--its original engines by Ford and body by Willys-Overland, the Jeep people--may be sold as part of the move to restore the railroad theme of Travel Town. A private investor proposes to buy the rocket and swap with the Air Force, which wants it for the Missile Heritage Center at Vandenberg Air Force Base. If the deal goes through, the bomb’s away.

Think of it as a dis-covery motion.

Something called Rule 56 requires that petitions filed with the state Court of Appeal be bound in manuscript-like covers of heavy red paper. But alas for one attorney: Valentine’s Day created a run on heavy red paper, and he had to submit his documents bare, according to a worker in the Los Angeles appeals court.

So with the uncovered documents, the attorney sent along a declaration asking “the indulgence of the court” because of the holiday shortage. No one saw red, and the document was apparently accepted.

We’re all ears:

The Disney Channel is looking for a few good clones. At auditions in four cities--Los Angeles’ is March 26--kids from 9 to 14 who look like Annette/Bobby/Doreen/Cubby are invited to try out for a spot in a movie about the good ol’ days of Mickey Mouse Clubbery. Besides a physical resemblance, hopefuls for a role in “Why? Because We Like You!” must also sing and dance for judges, who will include original Mouseketeers. Cute and vervy kids wanted--none who look M-O-U-S-EEEE.