All Hail the Queen of American Cuisine at Harvest Auction

For the last 37 years, Julia Child has been telling us to saute sweetbreads and brains instead of Hamburger Helper. At 88, the grand duchess of American gastronomy is still preaching her gospel on the good life: the more butter, the better.

“Julia has taught Americans to live better. And she’s taught the world that our cuisine ranks with the world’s finest,” said California vintner Robert Mondavi in presenting Child with the Robert Mondavi Wine & Food Award on Saturday at the seventh annual Harvest Auction to benefit the Collins School of Hospitality Management at Cal Poly Pomona.

More than 500 guests packed the ballroom of the Los Angeles Marriott Downtown for the lavish black-tie dinner. “Look at this crowd,” said Mondavi. “We raised the prices, and we’re filled to capacity. Julia is a national treasure.”

Event chairmen Larry Shupnick and Bruce Schwartz and chef Michel Richard agreed. “We had no trouble attracting star chefs to create the menu,” Shupnick said. The menu: wild mushroom soup, white truffle risotto, king salmon Wellington and roast veal ribeye, topped with a sinful orange and chocolate baba.

The blue-ribbon cast of chefs included Patrick Jeffroy from France; Roberto Donna of Washington, D.C.; Michael Mina, George Morrone and Roland Passot of San Francisco; Mark Tarbell and Christopher Gross of Arizona; Michel Cornu of Napa; Nancy Silverton, Mark Peel, Sean Dent and Roberto Gerometta of Los Angeles; and Felicien Cueff of Santa Barbara.

The evening raised a record $420,000--$113,000 generated by the auction alone, which included a lively bidding war between the university’s major benefactor, Jim Collins, and Shupnick on one item. The two finally agreed to split the cost of James-Paul Brown’s painting “Portrait of Julia,” which is destined for a wall in Phase II of the Collins Center set to open in 2001.

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Jennifer Jones Simon’s posh reception at Pasadena’s Norton Simon Museum last Wednesday was a dual celebration of the completion of the museum’s theater renovation and the premiere of “The Art of Norton Simon,” a 30-minute documentary on the life of the industrialist-art collector, who died in 1993. NBC newsman Tom Brokaw, a museum board member and longtime friend of the Simons, was to emcee the event but sent last-minute regrets via video explaining, “I’m still a hostage in Florida.”

Veronique and Gregory Peck and Candice Bergen were on hand. Peck narrated the film, which was produced by veteran documentary-maker Charles Guggenheim (“RFK Remembered”) and directed by his son Davis Guggenheim. The script is a straightforward account of the highs and lows in the saga of the complex genius, who in 25 years amassed a collection that rivaled the Morgans’, Mellons’ and Fricks’. “Hooking the fish was not his real love,” says art expert Pratapaditya Paul in the film. “It was reeling it in.”

Jennifer Simon’s socials are rare, but she always draws an eclectic crowd of east and Westside pals. Guests included Elisabeth Shue, Judge Mariana Pfaelzer Rothman, Judge Matt Byrne, Dr. Bradley Straatsma and his wife, Ruth, James Galanos, Gus Tassell, Terry Stanfill, David Jones, Phillippe Oates (who designed the theater’s interior); Yuki Takei, Barbara and John Crowley, Blake Edwards, Kathleen Brown, Frances Brody, Ed Moses, Betsey and Sid Tyler, Lawrence Wilson, Jeannette and Bill O’Malley, Maureen and Ed Rover and several members of the Simon family.

The film will be shown daily during museum hours, says Sarah Campbell, director of art at the museum.

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When Shakespeare couldn’t find the word he was looking for, he made a new one. Words that we all know now--gloomy, majestic and many others. Actor Michael York, who grew up near Stratford-on-Avon and has spent a lifetime studying Shakespeare’s works, held a one-sided conversation with the Bard on stage at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens last Tuesday. In the audience eavesdropping on “An Evening with William Shakespeare” were members of the library’s corporate fellows, including chairman Ron Olson.

An Oxford honors graduate with a doctorate in fine arts from the University of South Carolina, York has spent more than three decades playing Shakespearean swashbucklers. This last year, his book “A Shakespearean Actor Prepares,” co-written with stage director Adrian Brine, was published.

Of the 30,000 words employed by the Bard, 2,000 were of his own invention, York said. “Will knew more of mankind than any other writer. His relevance is timeless,” York said as strolled through the library’s priceless collection of early Shakespeare folios.