Cater Aid

“He’s a really good scout ,” said the announcer, his voice cracking with earnestness. The people milling around on the floodlighted lawn nodded approval and applauded as heartily as you can when you have a drink in your hand.

The scout in question was a location scout, the person who goes out and finds just the right location for filming a drama or commercial. The various breeds of location professional get no official respect from the entertainment industry--there are no Oscars for scouting, or for keeping the location crew and the local community on good terms, or (here’s where it gets interesting) for catering the food for a couple of hundred people on a shoot.

So on Friday, the eve of a conference of the Assn. of Film Commissioners International, the California Film Commission and Film Liaisons in California Statewide (whose initials are FLICS, of course) hosted the first On Location Awards, featuring the Caterers to the Stars Awards.

The big conference (“Cineposium”) was at the Queen Mary. The location awards were taking place about two blocks away (on location, as it were) on the waterfront lawn of the Long Beach Travelodge Hotel Resort & Marina. To get to them, you had to make your way through a parking lot full of young guys gorged with muscle tone and winner’s spirit, because the Travelodge was simultaneously hosting a Jet Ski show, complete with Yamaha, Kawasaki and Tecate banners.

Once on the lawn, you could listen to the scouting awards or look out over the water or schmooze in the comfort of a cool ocean breeze. But the real action was behind the stage: a row of eight caterers’ trucks. The knowledgeable sneaked back there as early as possible.

It’s a tough job feeding a film or TV crew. You have to please both the fickle foodies and the meat-and-potatoes working stiffs, not to mention the show people who are on strange diets, and do all this way out in the boondocks. Meanwhile, all the other catering companies are barking at your heels, so every caterer relies on at least a couple of splashy please-everybody specialties. “If I don’t serve roasted carrots and my green bean and spicy pecan salad,” said the proprietor of Jenny Cook’s, “I’m out of business.”

The amazing thing was that despite all these difficulties, the food coming out of these caterers’ trucks was really pretty impressive. Cleaver’s, which won for best entrees and best overall (the coveted Golden Whisk Award), certainly makes exceptional, tangy ribs, and any restaurant in town would have a hard time beating Silver Spoon (best presentation award and Bronze Whisk) in the roast duck category, not to mention dolmas and tabbouleh.

Actor Gary Sandy, one of the panel of judges, read off the awards and presented the various whisks. Meanwhile, those who had been gorging themselves made sure to pick up sample menus from the caterers. One listed “angle food cake,” and in Hollywood, of course, that might not be a typo.