Rock and roll caterers

Brown slices asparagus for a salad. “When you’re getting into music, you want to be into the most obscure bands with the smallest release records. With food, it’s the same thing,” he says.  (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

George, left, and Brown prepare dishes in Brown’s kitchen. The duo like to post musical pairings on their blog for the food they make.  (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

A pan of focaccia is prepared in Brown’s kitchen.  (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

Brown slides focaccia into the oven. That’s his Hot Knives partner, Evan George, in the background.  (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

The finished focaccia has been topped with chopped tomatoes, sliced squash and goat cheese.  (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

The finishing touch is put on asparagus salad with toasted walnuts and herbed goat cheese balls.  (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

Amanda Brown, left, and Diva Dompé run a raw food and vegan catering company called Crops and Rawbers.  (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

Brown works on a dish. Her catering company operates largely off-the-grid — popping up at art openings, rock shows and warehouse parties.  (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

Dompé prepares food. The fact that Crops and Rawbers and other such newcomers to the catering world are vegetarian, vegan and raw is, according to those involved, attributable to the nature of today’s increasingly eco-conscious food landscape.  (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

“People don’t realize that just as there are all these professional people going to train at Le Cordon Bleu, there is a whole generation of chefs who are punks, and they’re partying and they’re hedonists and they’re into food and sucking the nectar out of life,” says Brown, working on a dish.  (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

When they’re not whipping up dishes for Crops and Rawbers, Dompé, left, and Brown play in the psych-art-rock band Pocahaunted. They also run a label, Not Not Fun.  (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

The duo. “Just because Diva and I love to be in the sunshine and we love fresh food and we love to make music and walk around barefoot, doesn’t mean we’re hippies,” says Amanda Brown. “I just always want to take things to the next level.”  (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

Back in the late ’80s, Stephen Hauptführ was largely responsible for jump-starting L.A.’s rave scene through a weekly downtown acid-house dance party called Alice’s House. Now, he’s a caterer.  (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

Hauptführ works on a dessert tray. His catering career grew out of weekly dinner parties he used to throw out of his loft in the Brewery on the industrial outskirts of downtown. These days, he mostly caters small, private dinners and sells prepared food to Whole Foods, Naturewell and Elf.  (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

Hauptführ’s goodies: vanilla and milk chocolate squares topped with a dab of cherry.  (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

Guests eye an almost empty tray of Hauptführ’s desserts during a fundraiser at the LACE gallery in Hollywood.  (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

For me? A guest finds a tray of Hauptführ’s goodies hard to resist at the LACE gallery party.  (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)