Souped-Up Benefit at Bangkok Four

Sweetening--not spoiling--the broth was the trick on Tuesday for the “cooks” who attended a benefit for the Someone Cares Soup Kitchen in Costa Mesa.

Gathering at Bangkok Four in Crystal Court at South Coast Plaza, about 70 guests became cooks when they swirled bites of food in a simmering broth during a traditional Thai feast.

Here’s the way it works, explained event organizer Anton Segerstrom: “Using a strainer, guests cook vegetables and seafood in a chicken broth before eating them. At the end of the meal, they have a flavorful soup to share.”

The idea, Segerstrom said, was to heighten guests’ awareness of the soothing properties of a hearty helping of soup--an item ladled out daily to more than 200 hungry at South Coast Christian Church.

The other idea, Segerstrom said, was to raise funds--tables at the event sold for $1,200 each--to help the Someone Cares Soup Kitchen afford to relocate in an independent home. “Tonight, we’ll give (kitchen founder) Merle Hatleberg $15,400,” Segerstrom said.

Hatleberg founded the kitchen five years ago after she saw the hungry eating donated soup straight from the can. “They used to come to the senior center where I worked and ask me for a can opener,” said Hatleberg, who lives in San Juan Capistrano.

She couldn’t stand it, she said. It was too painful to watch. So she began to ask for food donations to cook up meals for the hungry.

“The average age of people who come to me is 45,” said Hatleberg. “But I’ve had them between the ages of 3 days to 90 years old.”

Favored soups are lima bean (created with beans donated from the Segerstrom family) and turkey-vegetable, she said. “But I give them chili on Friday--they need a double-protein to last them though the weekend. We’re not open on Saturday or Sunday.”

There’s no limit on soup portions in her kitchen, Hatleberg said. “I have some people who drink six or seven bowls a day. And that’s a 12-ounce bowl of soup.” (When she doesn’t receive enough donations to create a meal, Hatleberg goes out and buys “what’s cheap,” she said.)

After sipping Moet Chandon champagne during the reception, guests feasted on the Thai dinner, which featured culinary exotica artfully arrayed on trilevel black lacquer trays.

For starters, there was fresh halibut filet, stuffed baby calamari, Japanese scallops and sliced octopus to cook in the broth pot. Then, guests could select vegetables such as napa cabbage, sliced lotus root and enoki and shitake mushrooms.

As if that weren’t enough, there was tropical fruit and coconut flan with toasted almond and warm sugar palm sauce for dessert.

Among guests were South Coast Christian Church pastor Bob Ewing; soup kitchen volunteer Art Rorden (being a volunteer is “my job now--I’m retired,” he said); Pat Warmington, soup kitchen volunteer coordinator; volunteer Jack Moriarty; Bruce Guenther (new curator of the Newport Harbor Art Museum), and Ron and Gail Soderling.