THOUGHTS ON FEEDING YOUR SECRETARY

I’m not sure who invented Secretary’s Day or, for that matter, National Secretary’s Week (the dates of which are April 23 and April 21-25, respectively), but judging from the number of secretary-honoring goings-on scheduled by the eating places of Los Angeles for the occasion, I suspect that some representative of the restaurant industry might have had a hand in there somewhere.

Now don’t get me wrong: I think being extra nice to one’s secretary at least once a year is a very good idea. I’d certainly be extra nice to mine, if I had one. But I’m not quite sure I understand why such niceness should occur only once a year, or why secretaries should necessarily be singled out for attention over, say, law clerks, production assistants, salespeople or, for that matter, gardeners, chambermaids or chauffeurs--and I certainly don’t understand why, in the city of Los Angeles in the year nineteen-hundred-and-eighty-six, so many restaurants and/or their public relations teams should automatically assume that the secretaries whose day or week it is are necessarily secretaries of the female persuasion.

The Los Feliz Inn on Hillhurst, for instance, is running a daily Secretary’s Week drawing, offering a $50 dinner certificate to each winner. Well and good. But owner/chef Pierre Pelech, not even addressing the secretary him- or herself, advises executive types that “For your secretary to become eligible, all you have to do is drop your business card in the box. There’s nothing to fill out, and she (emphasis mine) could be one of the lucky winners.” Lindsey’s, a new downtown restaurant that offers New York-style deli food by day and “intimate candlelight dinner” by night, really pulls out all the stops on the 23rd by listing a “ ‘two for one’ deliciously fresh pasta salad to every secretary that is accompanied by her (emphasis mine) boss.” (Whether the offer is also good at intimate-candlelight-dinnertime is not specified, but then that’s probably not the kind of appreciation of secretaries the founders of the day and week had in mind.) Virgilio’s in Los Angeles and Antonio’s in West Hollywood offer a rose and a free glass of champagne (in the first case) and “a beautiful flower” (in the second) to secretaries on April 23, with no gender specified, though I suspect they have female types in mind. (After all, nobody offers free roses on Father’s Day.) The second annual Secretary’s Day Luncheon and Fashion Show at the New Otani Hotel downtown--held, for some reason, on April 22 --doesn’t restrict itself to women, either. Frankly, the idea of seeing all those secretaries’ outfits, antique costumes, bridal gowns and especially lingerie modeled sounds pretty good to this guy. It’s back to the distaff only, though, at Le Cafe in Sherman Oaks, which adds insult to injury by scheduling Secretary’s Day as the debut of its new “special reduced-calorie entrees and salads for the working woman”--as if secretaries were, by definition, not only women but tubby women to boot. Believe me, if I did have a secretary, it’d be “Ms. (or Mr.) Jones, take a letter!” on this one.

NOT UP TO SCRATCH: Vicious vandals have apparently struck Scratch in Santa Monica, painting the exterior of the entire building, which used to be politely and rather elegantly white, a thick, shiny silver color with a scattering of muddy red oval dots. Who would have done such a thing? I ask you. There oughta be a law.

POISON POISSON: This column’s first annual Fugu Award for Adventures in Dangerous Dining goes to 72 Market Street in Venice, which offered, on its April Fool’s Day menu, a specialty of “Grilled Santa Monica Bay Croaker with Hemlock and Oleander Sauce” at $20 per serving. Not only did nobody order the dish, reports proprietor Tony Bill, but nobody even seemed to notice that it wasn’t a real creation of the kitchen. (What that says about the state of contemporary American cuisine is another story altogether.) I must say, in all modesty, that I dined at the restaurant on the evening in question myself and I picked the dish out right away. I would have ordered it, too, but with croaker being so rare in local waters and hemlock, of course, out of season, I didn’t trust the mere $20 price tag. I figured there might be something wrong with it.

CHANGES: Max au Triangle’s German nights will be May 12-15 and not last week as originally announced by the restaurant.

GREAT BUBBLIN’ BEURRE BLANC!: Holy Escoffier, but there sure are a lot of Great Chefs and Great Restaurants popping up all of a sudden these days. Yesterday, for instance, saw the launching of the “Los Angeles Great Chefs Cooking Series,” a course of eight weekly classes by such local masters as Roy Yamaguchi, Ken Frank, Susumu Fukui, Vito Gnazzo and Laurent Terrasson (who, incidentally, is chef at the L’Ermitage Hotel and not at just plain L’Ermitage, as publicity for the series seems to indicate). Though one class is over, a selection of four of the remaining ones is available at $225 per person. Call (800) 321-9955 for more information. Yamaguchi touches greatness again on Sunday, May 4, as coordinator of the second annual “Great Chefs of L.A.” event at Le Bel Age Hotel, to benefit the National Kidney Foundation. About 28 local restaurants and 20 wineries, plus the Robin Rose ice cream factory, will be represented. Tickets are $100 each. Call (213) 641-8152. . . . Then there’s the Great Chefs of the World, featured at the Specialty Cuisine Workshop up Truckee way--Paula Wolfert, Anne Willan, Jacques Pepin, Ken Frank and more. These classes are from three to seven days in length, and run from this last Thursday-Saturday (sorry about that) through late November. The number to call in Truckee is (916) 587-2545. . . . And finally, there’s Simone Richlin’s weekend morning classes in, and featuring the masters of, the kitchens of such restaurants as L’Orangerie, Muse, the Grill, Max au Triangle, Rockenwagner, Colette and the Seventh Street Bistro. Classes are grouped in series of four and run $225 per series. Details at (800) 423-7371.