ENTERTAINING : California Parties--Past and Future : THE SIXTIES

ON SUNDAY NIGHTS IN LOS ANGELES IN THE EARLY ‘60s, THE BEST FOOD AND THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS COMPANY IN TOWN COULD BE FOUND AT THE HOME OF GENE AND ROZ WYMAN. That was especially true if you happened to be a Democrat. Gene Wyman was the Democratic state chairman, a National Committee member and, according to many, the best fund-raiser in America. Roz Wyman was L.A.’s first City Councilwoman, vice president of Screen Gems/Columbia Studios and the woman who brought the Dodgers to town. Between them they knew everybody.

And for more than five years, everybody showed up at the Wymans for Sunday night dinner. They included Teddy Kennedy, Tip O’Neill, Jill St. John, Walter O’Malley, Hubert Humphrey, Cyd Charisse, Jacques Cousteau, Sally Field, Dinah Shore, Rona Barrett, Walter Mondale, Janet Leigh, Pierre Salinger and hundreds of others.

But these gatherings were not about power, politics or show business. They were about friendship. Roz Wyman is a frank, warm, utterly unpretentious woman who does not look as if she belongs in her Bel-Air mansion with its rolling lawns and enormous pool. And Gene Wyman, a self-made man who started and built one of L.A.’s most powerful law firms, was known for his kindness and generosity. It was no accident that children and world leaders alike relaxed and enjoyed themselves chez Wyman.

Dress was casual. Humor ran high. The food was extraordinary. Bob Wyman, who was 5 years old when the dinners began, says: “It was a place where everyone could come for dinner and a movie and just be very comfortable as themselves. It didn’t matter that you were sitting next to the governor. Nobody was pumping hands. Nobody was worried about getting a deal. Everybody was just happy to be eating great food.”

Great food, indeed, was what got the Sunday nights started. In fact, the very first dinner had its inception as a cook-off between two very passionate cooks.

Roz, who was running for reelection to the Los Angeles City Council, was at a meeting with constituents when she learned that her cook had been called away on an emergency. She suddenly remembered that the governor and a few senators were coming to dinner. She tried to get a caterer. No luck. Finally one of her volunteers, Dorothy Colton, offered to take care of the meal. Roz demurred for a few minutes, then capitulated. “It was a weak moment,” she says. “I was tired. I thought, what the heck!”

Less than two hours later Roz came home to find dinner waiting: scallops in an exquisite sauce, noodle souffle, a melange of fresh vegetables, filet mignon and chocolate mousse. “It seemed impossible; there was no way that kind of food could have been prepared in that amount of time.”

The next day, Dorothy Colton received eight baskets of flowers--one from each one of the diners, including Frank Sinatra. Or at least, one of the cards was signed “Frank Sinatra.” Says Colton: “I never knew if it really was Frank Sinatra, or if it was Gene playing a little joke . . . and I never wanted to find out for sure.”

The next time Colton offered to cook for the Wymans, Roz was curious. “The first meal was so incredible, but I thought everybody’s got one good meal in them. I wanted to see what would happen.”

She came home to find another feast.

Shortly afterwards, Roz lost the election and Jackie Cooper hired her as vice president of Screen Gems/Columbia Studios. Producer Hugh Benson was assigned to show her the studio ropes. Recalls Roz: “One day, Hugh was in my office, and he happened to remark that he was the best cook in the world. I said, ‘Oh, Hugh, you may think you are, but the truth is, I have a friend who really is the best cook in the entire world.’ ” Soon Roz had the two talking on the phone. They agreed to meet at Roz’s house the following Sunday and cook. All Roz and Gene had to do was provide 20 people.

Colton planned the menu. Benson showed up with a suitcase full of custom-made Swiss knives. They cooked all afternoon. The meal was a great success. It took a number of such evenings before Hugh Benson finally admitted that Dorothy Colton was one of the greatest cooks he’d ever seen. Meanwhile, Sunday dinner at the Wymans had become an institution.

Everyone who came to dinner wanted to come back. All week long, friends would call and ask if the table was filled. Gene Wyman began to “take reservations.” Politicians kept calling from Washington asking if there was still room at the table--should they take an early flight? The Wymans’ closest friends were issued little gold cards with space for 10 punches. As their punches were used up, there was great speculation as to whether or not new cards would be received. They always were. “Gene loved having people at the house,” Roz says. “He never wanted to say no to anybody. ‘We can squeeze a few more in,’ he always said.’ ” As a result, the number of guests could alter dramatically up to the last minute.

“We’d be cooking,” Dorothy says, “and Gene would come through and announce, ‘I just got 15 more people.’ So Hugh and I always cooked twice as much as we were told beforehand.”

Every Sunday, around 2 p.m., Benson and Colton met in the Wyman kitchen and cooked. Dorothy Colton’s husband was in the produce business and kept her supplied with top-quality and exotic fruits and vegetables. Roz made sure they had sufficient back-up help, so that, except for the shopping, which they enjoyed, all Colton and Benson had to do was cook. Otherwise, Roz stresses, the cooks were guests; they and their respective spouses and children were expected to show up every week. “I mean,” Roz says, “they were not hired cooks. They were just friends who were crazy and wanted to cook every week.”

“Dorothy and I laughed a lot,” Benson says. “And fought.”

Dorothy Colton was an instinctive cook. “I never knew what I was going to cook until I got in the store and saw what looked good. And sometimes I’d start out cooking one thing and end up cooking something else.” She never measured anything. She never made anything the same way twice. Once an orange-chiffon cake became a bombe stuffed with pumpkin custard.

After the dinners had been going on for about two years, Benson and Colton formed a grievance committee, went to Roz and Gene and demanded a new kitchen. The new kitchen was Roz’s 40th-birthday present. “I wanted it to look beautiful,” Roz says. “That’s all I cared about. Hugh and Dorothy wanted it to be functional.”

Roz got hand-carved wooden cabinets, hand-hewn beams and lovely blue sunflower tiles from Portugal. Colton and Benson got two dishwashers, three sinks, three garbage disposals, a built-in hot plate, chopping blocks, endless counter space, a “salamander” (a powerful overhead broiler), stainless-steel warming drawers, a built-in barbecue that used charcoal, and a collection of the best pots and pans available. Together, Colton and Benson created dishes and named them after the Wyman family: Roz’s Chicken, Gene’s Shrimp, Bobby’s Chicken Legs. They cooked Country English, City English, Country French, City French, German, and, eventually, Chinese. “When Hugh and Dorothy took their seats,” Roz says, “there was always applause.”

Many guests ignored the front entrance and slipped in through the kitchen door to get a whiff of dinner to come. The three Wyman children were the official tasters. Gene Klein once came through the kitchen and offered Dorothy Colton stock in the Chargers if she’d defect and cook for him.

Marshall Burgess, the West Coast editor of Time, did a mock cover of Gene and Roz with an accompanying article in which Roz is credited with saying, “Some houses on Bellagio are interested I suppose only in sex. We’re concerned with sexy cooking, the true spirit of hedonism.” And Gene is quoted as saying, “We think of Chez Wyman not as a restaurant, but as an institution where the art of cooking is advanced by friendship.”

When Gene Wyman died suddenly in 1973 at the age of 52, the Sunday dinners ceased and never did start up again. “They tried to do it once, but broke down in the kitchen,” Roz says.

“Gene Wyman was one of the kindest, gentlest men I’ve ever known,” says Hugh Benson. “He had a great, astute mind. He was a giver, not a taker. He was very attentive to his family and loved his friends. His delight was to have those Sunday dinners, with all those people over to his home.”

DEVILED BEEF BONES

8-10 beef rib bones

Salt, pepper

1 cup Dijon mustard

3 cups fresh bread crumbs

1/4 cup butter or margarine

Rinse rib bones and pat dry with paper towels. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Place in single layer on two jellyroll pans. Roast at 325 degrees 1-1 1/4 hours. Set aside until cool enough to handle.

Brush ribs with mustard. Roll in bread crumbs until well-coated. Dot with butter. Return to oven and roast 15 minutes or until lightly browned. Makes 6 to 8 servings.

CHICKEN ROZ

1 medium eggplant

Salt

2 eggs

2 tablespoons milk

4 cups fresh bread crumbs

Olive oil

4 chicken breast halves

Pepper

1/4 cup flour

Fresh Marinara Sauce

2 tablespoons minced fresh basil

1 (6-ounce) package sliced mozzarella cheese

Slice eggplant 3/8-inch thick. Sprinkle with salt and let stand 30 minutes.

Pat eggplant slices dry with paper towels. Beat eggs with milk. Dip eggplant slices in mixture, then bread crumbs. Reserve remaining egg mixture and crumbs for chicken.

Place eggplant slices on lightly oiled jellyroll pans. Bake at 400 degrees 25-30 minutes or until browned and tender.

Skin and bone chicken breasts halves. Pound to flatten slightly, then sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Dredge chicken with flour, dip in milk/egg mixture, then bread crumbs. Saute in olive oil until browned on both sides.

Line 13-by-9-inch baking dish with eggplant slices. Top with 2 1/2 cups Fresh Marinara Sauce. Add layer of chicken, then layer of eggplant slices. Pour remaining 2 1/2 cups Fresh Marinara Sauce over top.

Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon basil, then place mozzarella slices in single layer over all. Bake at 350 degrees 20-30 minutes, until heated through and cheese has melted. Sprinkle with remaining 1 tablespoon basil. Makes 4 servings.

Fresh Marinara Sauce

2 cups finely chopped onions

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 cup olive oil

8 large tomatoes

1/2 teaspoon crushed dried oregano

Salt

Pepper

2 tablespoons butter

Saute onions and garlic in olive oil until soft. Peel, seed and chop tomatoes. Add tomatoes to onions and garlic along with oregano. Cook 15-20 minutes, until slightly thick. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Swirl in butter. Makes 5 cups sauce.

BOBBY’S CRUNCHY CHICKEN BITES

1/2 cup soy sauce

2 teaspoons Sherry

1 clove garlic, minced

12 to 14 chicken drumettes

1/4 cup cornstarch

1 teaspoon sugar

Oil

Combine soy sauce, Sherry and garlic. Place drumettes in mixture and marinate several hours or overnight, turning once to marinate evenly.

Combine cornstarch and sugar and use to dredge drained drumettes. Fry in oil until browned, turning to cook on all sides.

Makes 12-14 appetizers.

DOROTHY’S GOOD CHEESECAKE RECIPE

1 cup sugar

4 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, softened

1 tablespoon vanilla

4 eggs

8 ounces white chocolate

2 (10-ounce) packages frozen raspberries

Framboise, optional

Cream sugar, cream cheese and vanilla. Add eggs, one at time, mixing well after each addition.

Melt chocolate in top of double boiler over low heat. Let cool slightly, then add to cream cheese mixture.

Pour batter into buttered 9-inch springform pan. Place in water bath and bake at 300 degrees 1 1/4 hours or until cheesecake is set in center. Cool, then remove rim from springform pan and chill.

Thaw and strain raspberries to remove seeds. Add framboise to taste. Serve cheesecake with raspberry sauce.

Makes 12 servings.