In a City of Plenty, They Harvest the Leftovers

The Beautiful People are leaving as we arrive at the Board of Governors Ball, the big post-Oscars bash at the Music Center last Monday. We’ve come for the leftovers.

It’s almost midnight and, in the Angel Harvest truck, we’ve been circling for more than an hour, navigating between traffic cones and traffic cops and every stretch limo this side of Chicago. Sometimes it’s not easy to do good.

Finally, driver Tony Wade backs the truck up to a loading dock abutting makeshift kitchens, where chefs have been dishing up designer pizzas and salmon and medallions of veal and little round chocolate cakes on which perch tiny Oscars.

Ducking waiters dashing to and fro from the huge party tent, balancing remnants of dinner on gold-rimmed china, Wade goes to work, sealing big foil pans of food with plastic, loading them into the truck.

Helen ver Duin Palit, founder and president of Angel Harvest, has been chatting up the chefs and is satisfied that this is fare fit for recovering alcoholics. The veal’s OK, she tells Wade, but leave behind the port wine sauce.

Soon, we’re on our way to Burbank with our edible cargo: 11 pans of gourmet goodies and an enormous container of chopped salad. The destination is New Way, a residential rehab center for indigent men.

Angel Harvest has been here before and the truck’s a welcome sight, even at 1 a.m. Before Wade can park, five young men appear to help unload and carry the food up to the simple kitchen.

In addition to the salmon, veal and pizza, there’s a mountain of asparagus and fresh blackberries. Counselor Chuck Ramsey is well-pleased with this feast for the 40 residents and staff of six: “We won’t have to cook for several days.” He knows, too, that this will be a big morale boost; nonprofits can’t indulge in pricey delicacies.

“Enjoy, fellas!” says Wade, and we’re off, mission accomplished. The next day he’ll return to the Music Center, pick up another dozen trays of food that have been kept cold and take them to a Lutheran Social Services soup kitchen and food pantry on South Gramercy Place.

Angel Harvest came to Los Angeles in November with a proven track record of 13 years in New York as City Harvest. It also came with a premise: That L.A.’s entertainment and advertising industries are a potential horn of plenty.

The concept is simple: Pick up free perishable food and take it right away to those who need it. Palit, 47, who grew up in Ohio being admonished to “eat everything on your plate,” has been finding innovative ways to feed the hungry since 1980, when she ran a soup kitchen in New Haven, Conn. Next door was a restaurant with a specialty of potato skins. Palit wondered, “What did they do with the insides?” She asked, and the next day was gifted with 30 gallons of potato insides. From then on at the charity, it was potato salad in summer, potato chowder in winter.

Part sociologist, part psychologist (her college majors), Palit founded City Harvest in 1982, forging a link between the homeless and hungry and major Wall Street firms with their big parties and executive dining rooms.

If it is good, free food, City Harvest will take it. Once, it was 7,000 pounds of salmon, frozen in a solid block. Palit’s solution? A crowbar and elbow grease. Then there was the blue lemonade--”two 18-wheelers full of it.” Seems Tropicana had been experimenting. But the piece de resistance was the 14-foot, 4,000-pound chocolate Statue of Liberty displayed at a Manhattan hotel during the lady’s 1986 centennial. Palit was told, “Come at midnight and chop her apart.” By 4 a.m., the chocolate was on its way to rehab centers.

With City Harvest having spawned 130 similar programs in the United States and abroad, Palit decided the time was right for Los Angeles. Entertainment people had told her that there was a need for a nonprofit agency that would pick up at any hour, on short notice, and deliver the food immediately. No storage, no middlemen, no red tape, no charge.

The key is having the refrigerated truck and a Health Department-trained driver on call 24 hours a day. As Palit puts it, “You can’t take 1,000 pounds of food in a Honda car.”

Angel Harvest figured that the Governors Ball was a perfect setup. The logistics: 1,650 meals prepared by Wolfgang Puck and Restaurant Associates and more than a few guests who probably wouldn’t eat--too excited, too intent on getting to the next party or too calorie-conscious. (Angel Harvest always harvests lots of desserts.)

As it was New York-based Restaurant Associates’ debut in the Governors Ball kitchens, “We over-prepared a bit for this one,” says Vice President Carl Schuster. “We’re happy to have what’s left over go to a good cause.” He knew Angel Harvest, having had “a wonderful relationship” with City Harvest at Lincoln Center.

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Angel Harvest operates out of donated Century City offices with a paid staff of three, including Palit and Wade, on an annual budget of $360,000, all from individual, foundation or corporate donors. In its first three months, it delivered enough food for 36,000 meals. To date, it has served 22 agencies that have food programs.

Recipients must be established agencies within the county, have regular food sources and feed clients--Palit always calls them “guests”--on-site without charge.

Palit visits each agency before approving it to make sure that there is adequate food storage and that the agency’s on the up-and-up. No shenanigans, such as selling food to the homeless.

She’ll tell you that Los Angeles has 500 soup kitchens, shelters, rehab centers and emergency feeding programs, some feeding 1,000 people a day, and “a huge influx of people needing food.” The food is out there. It’s just a matter of getting it to those who need it.

Los Angeles parties, she’s found, are bigger than New York parties, and plates are piled higher. “This city is very much about presentation. But more people out here are on diets, so we’re getting more food.”

Show biz, with its premieres and awards shows, is her major source, but there are produce donors and a few restaurant donors. Commercial photographers contribute. Say Wendy’s is doing a salad bar commercial. “They want the perfect tomato, the perfect lettuce,” Palit says, “so they may ship out 100 cases of each. They usually find the perfect tomato in the first case or two.”

Call us, she says ([800] 227-5346), and “we’ll be there, come hell or high water.” She ponders the L.A. possibilities. Those big weddings, those all-out bar mitzvahs. . . .

* This weekly column chronicles the people and small moments that define life in Southern California. Reader suggestions are welcome.