Brownie PointsArlene Mantegna and Laura Hernandez were...

Brownie Points

Arlene Mantegna and Laura Hernandez were sitting by the swimming pool behind Mantegna’s Toluca Lake home two years ago, wondering how they could market Hernandez’s heavenly chocolate brownies.

Hernandez mentioned that she had seen some great boxes that were meant for fortune cookies, but she couldn’t see how they would work with brownies.

The light bulb went on over Mantegna’s head and she smiled.

This is how Fortune Brownies came to be.

Two years later, they are making brownies as fast as the twin ovens can turn them out.

The brownies come in chocolate walnut, chocolate mint, peanut butter and “serious chocolate,” and sell for $18 for a box of six. Inside each brownie is a fortune; the buyer may tell the bakers what the fortune should say. “They are perfect for congratulating friends or saying thank you,” Mantegna said. She isn’t saying how the bakers get the fortunes in there so that just a portion of the paper sticks up and the paper doesn’t get all gooey.

Once they figured that out, they serendipitously told pal Kathy Tucci about their new venture. Tucci, a vice president for talent relations at NBC, said she knew 10 people to whom she wanted to send fortune brownies, which is why Alan Rachins and Larry Drake of “L.A. Law,” Betty White of “The Golden Girls” and John Ratzenberger of “Cheers” were among the first to receive the goodies.

It was several months before the women were confident enough to rent the North Hollywood bakery at 11651 Riverside Drive. Before that, they baked at Hernandez’s home and depended on friends to get the word out. But their friends, many of them in the entertainment industry, were enthusiastic.

Mantegna’s husband, Joe, is the well-known film character actor who is making “Bugsy” at Columbia with Warren Beatty and director Barry Levinson. Hernandez, who produced “At the Movies” with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert before moving to Los Angeles from Chicago, had worked in production at Paramount Pictures.

Arlene Mantegna says the Fortune Brownie company has been successful enough to make even her skeptical husband sit up and take notice, and Hernandez says she is delighted to be making brownies instead of movies now.

Work It Off

Linda Palmer of Calabasas says that if you are suffering from ecological shame over that overly long shower or colored toilet paper, there is a way to expiate your guilt this weekend.

Palmer, a member of the coalition that is sponsoring this work party, said the Santa Monica Mountains Trail Days is a yearly event in which San Fernando Valley residents and others from the Los Angeles area volunteer their time in order to build new trails and spruce up the old ones in anticipation of the summer hiking season.

“It’s a great weekend that starts off Friday with people gathering at the Danielson Ranch, where we will be camping out Friday and Saturday nights,” Palmer said. “Everyone is welcome to camp free for the entire time, or people may come out for a day’s outing.”

The event is sponsored by the California Department of Parks and Recreation and conservation groups, including the Santa Monica Mountains Trails Council, the Sierra Club-Santa Monica Mountains Task Force and the California Native Plant Society.

Palmer said people need to call beforehand to Frank Padilla of the state parks department at (818) 706-1310.

Branching Out

The World Research Foundation in Sherman Oaks is a resource library containing information on the latest breakthroughs in both traditional and non-traditional medicine.

The library, which is open to the public, has books and tapes from researchers throughout the world on a variety of intrusive--including drug and surgical--and non-intrusive therapies. The organization also presents programs during the year in which researchers exchange information.

Now, according to Steven Ross, foundation president, the organization is planning to greatly expand its facilities to include information on environmental issues in health.

“These days, the way environmental factors impact on our health should be a major theme in medicine, so it was a natural step for us to take,” Ross said.

New Horizons

In addition to lending books and publications, the public libraries now seem to be a clearinghouse for all sorts of free publications.

At the Woodland Hills branch, there are two countertops full of the stuff, including a booklet called “The Whole Person,” which looks like “The Whole Earth Catalogue” until you peek inside.

There are 88 pages of ads, no editorial copy. Each extols the virtues of a diet or health treatment, or gives information on lectures and classes on psychic counseling, past life regression, advanced Tarot, crystals, shamanic counseling, learning how to talk to animals, neuromuscular re-education, aura readings, divine healing, stress-free driving. . . .

If your holistic awareness doesn’t extend past eating whole-wheat croissants, this publication is going to be a mind boggler.

And if you think that most of these people must live in New Age havens like Hollywood and Venice, you’re in for a surprise.

About half of the ads come from the Valley, such as the one that a Reseda woman put in for “those who would like to commit themselves to use the crystal skull as a tool for personal and planetary healing on a regular basis.”

She was not available at the number given in the ad to supply clarification.

Overheard

“I wish they would put these things in a plain brown wrapper. I’m terrified my Republican friends will see me doing this.”

--Woman buying Kitty

Kelley’s biography of

Nancy Reagan at a

Woodland Hills bookstore