<i> Voila! </i> Socialite Turns Into a TV Chef

So what if the NBC camera zoomed in on a pan of cold chocolate chips and a reluctant glob of peanut butter during a recent segment on “Today in L.A.: Weekend.”

The dessert sauce that should have been simmering could just wait .

Stirring spoon in hand, socialite-turned-TV chef Deborah Fabricant waved the camera toward another holiday dish she was whipping up for viewers: winter pesto.

And then she went on to prepare marinated goat cheese with thyme and rosemary, a rich French bread topping and an exotic libation--Boerenjongens liqueur.

Glitches don’t fluster Fabricant, a food stylist and consultant who once had her own food emporium.

“You just keep going. It’s great fun,” Fabricant says of her Saturday morning appearances on Channel 4. “It’s what I’ve always wanted to do.”

For her own holiday celebration in Corona del Mar, Fabricant--a charity mover known for her stylish parties--will sit down to a table topped with a favorite posh Santa and serve her family an elegant, simple meal.

“I love to keep it simple,” says Fabricant, a former special events manager for the Robert Mondavi Wine & Food Center in Costa Mesa. “I believe in great effects with minimal effort. A lot of people get carried away. Simplicity and style are the hallmarks of great entertaining.”

Centerpieces go a long way toward providing ambience at a dinner party, Fabricant says. “I believe in one magnificent something on the table. I surround my white Santa with angel hair and candles,” she says.

She giggles when she recalls the time, years ago, when she made herself the focal point of a benefit buffet.

When dinner was served, party-goers were stunned to see Fabricant, draped in Mylar and Saran Wrap, serving food from the center of a table that looked like her skirt.

“People couldn’t figure it out,” she says. “But all I did was put two eight-foot tables close together, spread them with white cloths covered with Mylar and then crawl underneath to a space I’d created in the center.”

Fabricant landed her NBC spot after taking a Orange County community college class in television operations and on-camera performance.

She did do well that a professor helped her make a few tapes on entertainment and food--”I’ve been in the industry for 25 years,” she says--and she sent them off to television stations.

“NBC called and told me they wanted me on the air.”

Her next goal? “My own half-hour show about entertaining on a major network.”

(For her above-mentioned holiday recipes, mail a self-addressed, stamped envelope to: 418 Goldenrod Ave., Corona del Mar, CA, 92625.)

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A traditional Christmas: It will be a traditional goose feast for former White House Chef Hans Raffert when he celebrates Christmas at his home in Alexandria, Va.

“Family gatherings call for traditional feasts such as goose, turkey or Virginia ham,” Raffert said last week during a luncheon at the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace in Yorba Linda. “You can have your beef and chicken the rest of the year.”

Raffert will serve the goose with side dishes of red cabbage, fresh vegetables and a salad created from “the lettuces in my garden,” he said. “Dessert will be a traditional Yule log.”

During his tenure on Pennsylvania Avenue, the German-born Raffert cooked for Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan and Bush.

Before luncheon guests dined on beef tenderloin with a Madeira-laced truffle sauce, they viewed one of Raffert’s famous gingerbread houses in the library foyer. Raffert created his first gingerbread house (make that a mansion--it is huge ) for the Nixons in 1969.

“Gingerbread is a wonderful thing to have around during the holidays,” Raffert said. “The spicy aroma of cinnamon and ginger gets everybody in the mood.”

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Remembering ancestors: Electa Anderson of Laguna Beach wouldn’t think of having a holiday celebration without the engraved calling cards of her grandparents and great grandparents on the dining room table or in the tree.

“It’s a very personal touch,” says Anderson, who is director of community relations for Roger’s Gardens in Corona del Mar. (It was Anderson who masterminded the recent appearance of hospitality guru Martha Stewart at the gardens. More than 1,000 people attended.)

This year, the cards will be clipped to a gilded antique Italian lampshade frame that will hold her grandmother’s China bridal basket, she says.

Inside the basket, Anderson will place dried hydrangeas--”because they were my grandmother’s favorite”--gilded grapes and fresh gardenias and white roses.

“I like understated elegance and a touch of whimsy on my table,” said Anderson. “And I like family holiday memories. If you don’t have calling cards, it’s lovely to place framed pictures of your loved ones around your centerpiece.”

And you don’t need a lampshade or a bridal basket from the 1800s to do it. “A ivy wreath accented with tiny vases of flowers, candles and pictures of your kids on Santa’s lap would be perfect.”