Showing Off Food

The Grand Trianon room at the Beverly Wilshire had more the air of a Cafe de Commerce than of anything regal one night last week as Stan Jones, entrepreneur and food-and-beverage editor for Palm Springs Life and Monterey Guest Life magazines, brought his road show displaying California food and wines to its home state for the first time. Jones, as executive director of the private California Commission for Food and Wines, brings together purveyors of California food and wines with invited food writers and food-service wholesalers, retailers and restaurateurs. But until last week, Jones’ miniature trade shows had played only along the East Coast and in Seattle, beating the drum for food and drink from what Jones calls “the magic word California .”

At one stand as more than 300 guests mingled about, munching and sipping, Allan Corrin, a grower-handler from Reedley in the San Joaquin Valley, was showing off his small clusters of fresh Ruby Seedless grapes, which he calls “The Lunch Bunch,” to a food-service buyer from UCLA. Corrin was also displaying tiny, fresh Black Corinth grapes more commonly encountered as dried currants. He bills them as “the grape for champagne,” suggesting using them as a tasty decoration on a champagne flute or a garnish.

Across the room, Barbara Lang of Inglenook winery in Napa Valley was demonstrating how to pair various wines with a wide range of California goat cheeses from St. Helena, Santa Rosa and tiny McKinleyville, north of Eureka.

In between, the California Beef Council sought to explode notions that red meat is rich in fat and calories, offering examples of “light cooking with beef.” Other groups showed off and offered samples of miniature vegetables and edible flowers, and new uses for dried fruits and nuts.

Now in its second year, the commission is aiming at such sometimes-neglected cities as Philadelphia, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Kansas City, Mo., and Denver, Jones said. In addition, to fill what he sees as a void in news about California’s gustatory delights, Jones now is working with Palm Springs Life’s publisher and other investors to produce a new magazine, California Wine and Food Report--which he calls “a trade book with a consumer look”--expected to make its debut around the first of the year.