Cancer League’s Cup Runneth Over

Big plans netted a bigger party Sunday at the South Coast Cancer League’s “A Taste for Life” benefit at the Robert Mondavi Wine and Food Center in Costa Mesa. More than 670 guests paid $100 each to sample food from 25 local restaurants and choose from 170 domestic and imported wines.

Attendance was nearly double last year’s bash--this in a season of slim guest lists and paired-down proceeds. How did party planners do it? “I totally panicked,” admitted Donna Blue, who chaired the event. “I kept telling committee members ‘Be creative! Be creative!’ And the party just kept growing and growing until we sold out.”

After counting the money raised from ticket sales, donations and an auction, an estimated $125,000 had been raised for the American Cancer Society’s Orange County Unit.

Tent City

After dropping their shiny cars with valets, guests stepped down the stairs to Mondavi’s rock-strewn garden area (designed by Toren Segerstrom, the artist son of arts patron Henry Segerstrom). For the party, the garden was sheltered by a white tent spanning 1.7 acres.

Circumnavigating on the spongy grass--past food booths and wine buffets--guests made cocktail conversation over the pumped-up volume of Captain Cardiac and the Coronaries. An hour’s worth of pop hits from the ‘50s and ‘60s boomed across an empty dance floor--until Rae Jean Ryan of Corona del Mar and Jack Van Eden of Newport Beach two-stepped onto the parquet.

Palate Pleasers

The food, glorious food, was organized by Hans Prager, owner of the Ritz Restaurant in Newport Beach.

Restaurant samplings included the Ritz’s quenelles of lobster; rare ahi with papaya relish on a radicchio leaf, from Irvine’s Bistro 201; crab cakes with lobster sauce, from the Rex in Newport Beach; grilled eggplant filled with marscapone and goat cheese, from Tutto Mare in Newport Beach, and pork tenderloin with pear brandy from Chanteclair in Irvine.

Ed Schaefer of Cerritos-based Southern Wine and Spirits of California coordinated the wine stations, which offered domestic, French and Italian wines. Schaefer’s boss, Ted Simpkins, is the husband of South Coast Cancer League president Mary Jean Simpkins.

Faces

Isabel Mondavi, who lives in Napa Valley with husband Michael (son of Robert Mondavi), flew in from a business trip in Florida to attend the party. Monday, Mondavi and her friends Mary Jean and Ted Simpkins drove out to the desert for a few days of golf at the Simpkins’ get-away home at PGA West.

Among guests were Tina and Matt Schafnitz, Patty and Jim Edwards, Jackie and Mike Casey, and Valaree and Robert Wahler.

Committee members included Diana Bromiley, Peri Corso, Mona Lee Nesseth, Nancy Clayton, Judy Steele and Ed Schaefer.

Quote

“I’m freezing!” said Mary Jean Simpkins, who wore a sleeveless white suit. The early evening sunshine had paled to chilly dusk. “I’m going to have to drink a lot more wine.”