Chef Pascal Olhats’ latest venture: ‘The Gray Event’ to protect elephants
Pascal Olhats greets the lunch rush at his Corona del Mar restaurant and heads to a back table, where he sits down, glances at a bracelet on his wrist and touches it.
The knotted string on the chef’s forearm was given to him and blessed by monks in Chiang Mai, Thailand, which Olhats visited last year.
There, Olhats and his wife spent a week in the northern province’s Elephant Nature Park, a sanctuary and rescue center where dozens of members of the endangered species are rescued and rehabilitated by a Thai nonprofit, the Save Elephant Foundation.
The award-winning, French-born chef and restaurateur, whose four businesses include Cafe Jardin and Pascal’s Tea Garden Creperie at Sherman Library & Gardens in Corona del Mar and Pascal in San Juan Capistrano, has collaborated on a number of Orange County culinary ventures and philanthropic acts for 27 years.
Helping abused and threatened elephants is his latest mission outside of the kitchen.
To help raise funds for the Save Elephant Foundation’s park preserve, Olhats is hosting his first charity dinner, “The Gray Event,” on Oct.22 at Sherman Library & Gardens, where he will prepare an evening of Thai appetizers, music and dance along with introducing the organization’s founder, Lek Chailert.
“This event is to share my experience with people,” Olhats says. “I do believe in charity and supporting any needed cause, but I want to share, of course, how touched I was, and I want to leave a connection in the world. I think that’s important.”
Last May, Olhats and his wife, Christine, spent five hours a day during one week, tending to more than 75 elephants at the park preserve, which is run by both paid staff and volunteers.
Their duties included washing food bowls, picking corn in husking fields, transporting 50-pound food bundles back to the park and bathing the animals after their feedings.
Elephants sniff for food all the time, and they never stop eating, he says with a laugh.
And contrary to popular belief, he adds, they are gentle creatures, even though they typically weigh 2.5 to 5.5. tons.
Elephants are close to his heart, he says, since he learned of the conditions the animals face when used for entertainment, transportation and ivory poaching.
According to Save Elephant Foundation, wild baby elephants are captured and taken away from their murdered mothers and forced to undergo a domestication training process. The practice uses pain to train the elephants to accept riders, perform tricks and paint.
Chailert, who will deliver a lecture on Asian elephant welfare and conservation during “The Gray Event,” has voiced elephant documentaries produced by National Geographic, Discovery Channel, Animal Plant and the BBC.
Olhats will also feature a slide show of his volunteer trip overseas and present a Thai cooking demonstration with veteran food writer Cathy Thomas.
The vegetarian food in Thailand was one of the best parts of volunteering at the preserve, he says, and he plans to incorporate the use of spices, papaya and Thai curry to his restaurants’ menus.
“My goal is to travel more to this ecosystem and help these animals,” Olhats says. “I like helping give them a good life.”
The Gray Event is at 4:30 p.m. Oct.23 at Sherman Library & Gardens, 2647 E. Coast Hwy., Corona del Mar. Tickets are $100 to $250. For more information, call (949) 673-0034 or email patty@pascalnpb.com.
Twitter: @KathleenLuppi
