Top Chefs to Share Talents at Fund-Raiser for the Homeless

Friday is the annual fund-raiser for Share Our Selves, a Costa Mesa food-distribution and emergency-services center for the homeless. The four-course dinner begins at 6 at the Robert Mondavi Wine and Food Center. Tickets are $150 per person, and Taco Bell has pledged to match all proceeds from ticket sales.

The money will help outfit the shelter’s new kitchen so local chefs can teach nutrition and cooking classes there.

Tickets are still available, and those interested are encouraged to call ahead: Linda Schilling, (714) 723-4159.

Among the chefs preparing the meal are Michael Kang of Five Feet, Alan Greeley of The Golden Truffle, Claude Koeberle of The Ritz, John McLaughlin of J.W.s and Sarah Scott of the Mondavi Center. The menu is still being planned.

1570 Scenic Ave., Costa Mesa.

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Secretaries Week begins Monday, and at least two local restaurants have not forgotten these pillars of industry.

Pascal Epicerie has designed a picnic basket for secretaries who cannot leave their desks. For $12.50, the baskets include a choice of sandwiches (Nicoise tuna, vegetarian and rotisserie chicken), salad, French cookies, soda and a French orchid.

The baskets are available Monday through Friday. Orders must be placed in advance.

1000 Bristol St., Newport Beach. (714) 261-9041.

At Prego Ristorante, owners are celebrating by holding two drawings for Chanel gift baskets, worth about $350 each. The baskets contain Chanel products. Names for the drawings will be collected throughout next week.

18420 Von Karman Ave., Irvine. (714) 553-1333.

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Barry Ogawa, food and beverage director for the Airporter Garden Hotel, was recently named maitre d’ of the year for 1993 by the Southern California Restaurant Writers Assn.

Ogawa won the award for his work as the manager of the Depot restaurant in Torrance, where he worked last year.

18700 MacArthur Blvd., Irvine. (714) 833-2770.

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Applications to enter the 15th Annual Elizabethan cooking contest on May 1 are available now at Pavilions stores. But you better hurry: the deadline to enter is Friday, April 22.

The contest will be held at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire at Glen Helen Regional Park in Devore, about an hour’s drive east of Los Angeles.

Contestants must wear Elizabethan-era costumes and recipes must be derived from 16th-Century menus of England, or from other countries with which England traded. The cost to register is $10.