The Garden of Earthly Delights

This all went down similar to the Peace Paddle Out.

It was a gray and gloomy Friday, and there was another small surf, work work work weekend coming up. The publisher doing the Malibu history book was breathing down my neck. I had been promising for months that I would turn the book in perfect, on the dot on Wednesday the 15^th, but now I had way too many photos and words so it was time to edit.

So it looked like it would be another no surf, work work work weekend, and then, much like S_____ P_____'s same-day invitation to the Peace Paddle Out the week before, salvation came from out of cyberspace, from John Stockwell the actor-director-surfer-farmer:

Hey Ben, I'm stuck working in Europe, but my wife Helene is having a farm dinner tomorrow night at our house for about 80 people. It's a charity event for but will evolve into a once monthly event in the vein of "Outstanding In The Field." (Google it). It will involve all the produce from our farm, honey from our bees,  wine from Casa Dumetz (Emilio Estevez) and Malibu olives.  You should cover it for Malibu Patch. It will be great food and fun people. I've included her email—so get in contact and let her know if you can come.

That sounded pretty A-OK. Any day is a good day for a Point Dume party. I'd been to John Stockwell's house before and had enjoyed their hospitality and the scenic vistas (and meeting interesting chaps like Mike D, aka Mike Diamond—you know, the Smell Good Plumber).

Rudely, and true to form, I tried to bring a friend, but Helene was gracious:

Bring your friend/s. Worst case scenario you will sit at the "chefs table."

Helene

As it turned out, my friend had just made a rapid ascent from overworked assistant to a big-time agent, to getting her first screenwriting gig alongside Barry Levinson and Buck Henry. She was beside herself and it would have been rude to bring both of them, but she couldn't go anyway, so I had to go it alone.

So I spent Saturday working working working and interrupted that to have a SUP session at Malibu on Saturday afternoon to work up an appetite.

Helene said the party started at 5:30, which seemed early, but they said to get there as early as possible to get the full effect. I got there around 6 and parked next to Point Dume Elementary. Soon as I got out of the car, I could hear the peacocks crowing and it sounded like I was walking onto a set for Tarzan Returns.

Walking up, I thought I saw a peacock, but really it was just the flaming-red mane of Jill Rapf.

 There was a sign-in table with a menu behind it, and that menu looked pretty good—at least the words I understood.:

    Smoked eggplant dip, lime cilantro.

    Farro beans, grilled shrimp, quince butter and bread.

    Green beans, sliced beets with horseradish aioli.

    Lamb “carpaccio,” shaved fennel and parmesan

    Jidori chicken on a bed of summer succotash and arugula

At the table I meet Annette Bode—aka Nettie Bode. She was Helene's partner in the shindig, and hard-working partners they both were. As I do with all German people, I told them my great-great grandfather Mathias Schafer was a school chum of Karl Marx at Kaiser Wilhelm Gymnasium in Trier. They were friends and exchanged letters for many years. At some point, GGGF Mathias didn't like the way Marx was leaning, and he burned all the letters.

Letters that now go for $20,000 each at Christie’s in London. And that's pounds, not dollars. But I digress.

Walking through the gate, I was snorted at by the official greeter for the shindig, who stepped in because the man of the house was stuck in London earning a nice dollar working on a movie with Halle Berry. Poor soul.

I was ready to defend myself and say it was a last-minute-invitation and I could show it to them on my cellphone.

But the snort wasn't a snub—because the greeter was a potbellied pig named Arnold.

I was also greeted with some tasty hors d'oeuvres, half a boiled egg with no yolk, and bacon and a dab of mayonnaise and some herbs in the middle.

Yum. "Broke da mout" as they say in Hawaii. A very nice start, and I hadn't even walked through the house yet.

Walking through the house, it looked like Tasmanian Devil was at work in the kitchen, as there was a flurry of activity with several young men and women dressed all in black, operating in smooth sync with a slender-chic woman wearing a white T-shirt. She looked kind of like my sister-in-law, who is from Java.

That was Helene, and I risked life and limb and injury from rotating knives or hot frying pans getting close to the kitchen to introduce myself, thank her for the invitation and say hello. She said hello politely, and then went back into Tasmanian Devil mode.

Wandering through the house and outside, I saw sitting by the door, a young surfer-looking chap strumming an electric guitar (their son, Casper), and guests showing up every minute. It was 5:30 and broad daylight, and there was that nice view looking northeast, across the canyon behind John’s house (John's garden!) and off to the mostly empty hills of Malibu and the Santa Monica Mountains beyond.

Working on that Malibu history book, I have spent the last couple of weeks looking at images of Malibu that go back to 1905. There is a series of aerial photos showing Point Dume in 1949. These days, Point Dume is like the Garden of Eden, but it's amazing to see that in its more natural state, Point Dume was as dry, level-barren and free of flora as the Kalahari. I think the Rindges grew lima beans along the Point, so maybe they had it cleared. But as of 1949, none of the trees, plants and shrubbery that make Point Dume so verdant were there.

None of it.

But that's the miracle of Southern California—turning the desert into the Garden of Eden.

Which is certainly what John Stockwell and Helene Henderson have done to their house and the acreage behind it.

Farms, in Malibu?

That view off to the lovely, undeveloped hills was framed by a very long white table—must have been more than 30 feet—all laid out under hanging lights with place settings for several-dozen people.

Cool, was that the Chef's Table? I'll sit at that table. Rub a dub dub, where's the grub? The main course was not for some time, and the way they set this party up was clever, and a way for guests to work up an appetite.

Stockwell Farms has about an acre plus in their backyard, and they've got their own nice garden of eating back there: A few rows of grape vines, citrus trees, fresh peas like my mom used to grow. Love them raw, won't touch them cooked.

There were barns, corrals and sheds. A surprisingly rural acre in a place where the cost of an acre is truly surprising.

This was a walking hors d’ouevres tour or kind of like an because there were tables large and small scattered amid the flora and fauna with a variety of food and drinks that were all worth finding.

Up top there were snap peas, radishes, carrots and other fresh-grown crudités available for dipping in a number of dips. Off in the distance there was a wine table, with reds and whites poured with a smile by Sonja of Dumetz Farms.

To get down to the lower level, you had to walk by the pen with two goats, who added their own musty smell to the proceedings. To the left of the goats, there was a table staffed by the familiar faces of the people from .

They had olives on pieces of bread dipped in that olive oil, and the toothpicks holding it all together came in handy for what was to come.

A path under a tree on the left side of the Back 40 lead down to another table. The cheese table, where a young person was making fresh-squeezed orange juice with citrus that appeared to have come from the neighborhood.

The cheese plate had mozzarella, goat cheese and other flavors, but the best of the best was the brie drenched in honey. I don't know if any of the cheeses were locally produced—Adohr Farms went out of business a long time ago and no Malibu dairy replaced it—but the honey came from about 20 feet away, where what looked to be a spaceman was actually another local lad dressed in bee-keeping kit and pulling the honey out as fresh as food can be.

Cool. This was really cool. It was fun to wander around, through the grape vines, past the goat pen, getting in a nice walk while ranging as far up as the bacon and egg hors d’ouevres in the front yard and all the way down to the cheese table below.

Clever. Very clever. Who knew Malibu was so rural? Who knew hiking for hors d’ouevres could be so fun?

Who knew just two goats could put out that much smell?

Helene was still going like a white T-shirted tornado, and then it occurred to me to feel bad for her fella, poor guy stuck in London earning Hollywood money working with Halle Berry.

So I started clicking HTC Evo photos and emailing them to Herr Direktor, and I hope the interruptions didn't screw up production. I sent the first one—a long view of the set but empty white table—at 6:11 and then sent others of Helene at Work, Arnold the pig, guests arriving, etc.

Apparently they have internet communications on the other side of the pond, and John responded at 6:40:

       This is just like being there. How's the weather?

The weather, as it turned out, was foggy, gloomy and a little cold. Malibu didn't suffer through much May Gray this year, but the June Gloom came in just after Memorial Day, so it was a little chilly at the Blue Crush Ranch.

But the company was warm.

Matt and Jill Rapf were about the only people I knew, so I walked and mingled the cheese with the Dumetz wine and dipped fresh snap peas in the dips and got a few more of those bacon and eggs hors d’ouevres and sent more cellphone photos to John in London, where the poor guy was stuck.

Whether or not he showed them to Ms. Berry, I don't know.

The time stamp on a photo of people sitting down at the table reads 6:58, so that means dinner was served promptly at 7. As it turned out, there were no musical chairs and there seemed to be exactly enough seats for the number of people who showed, so I got to sit with the grownups.

(Although sitting at the long table was regal, and made me think of that Knights of the Round Table musical routine from Monty Python and the Holy Grail)

The first course had a white plate of green beans, sliced beets with horseradish aioli. And then a plate of  lamb "carpaccio," shaved fennel and parmesan.

My mom will tell you how fond I am of beets, but the lamb carpaccio was nice. Surfing in cold water plus all that walking did not counteract all the bacon and egg hours d’ouevres and honey-dipped brie, and I was ready to grind.

It was very pleasant and nice, sitting at a long table of several-dozen people, on a summer night in the middle of Point Dume in Malibu. It was a little cold and a little gray, and it all felt a little NorCal—not that there's anything wrong with that.

This is probably how the swells roll in the Napa Valley.

The main course was jidori chicken on a bed of summer succotash and arugula, and that was good too. Warm to ward off the cold, and loaded with flavors—some of which I recognized.

The last photo I took is time-stamped 8:54, and I went home soon after that because my brain had gone back to "I have two books to finish by Wednesday mode," and so I answered that call.

Helene was far too busy before, during and after the dinner to answer questions, so I sent her a bunch the next day, while she was still cleaning up from a tasteful, tasty and apparently very successful night.

Here are my questions and her answers:

I overheard you say you are a private chef? Are you formally trained as a chef and what experience did you have leading up to this event?

I ran the catering company Lavender Farms Catering, for many years. I catered many events for celebrity clients such as Barbra Streisand, Kiefer Sutherland, Madonna and many more. Today I work as a private chef for S____ S____, one of my previous catering clients. I also have one published cookbook, The Swedish Table. If you stop by. I can supply you with a copy.

Who is Netti?

Netti Bode, our CEO and director of cool, created all items such as our awesome logos, T-shirts, aprons and all general design and set up. She is also partners in a company in Germany called bellybutton. Netti can email you more info about herself later too. 

What was the inspiration for this event: Supporting Point Dume agriculture? Supporting Point Dume Elementary? Working and stressing furiously for days to feed several-dozen people? (and feed them well, that was all yummy, by the way) 

In addition to my job in town, also have cooking classes that many of the moms from PDMSS school attend, and not sure when, but somewhere along the way we started talking about throwing a fundraiser for the school, and I asked my friend Netti if she would join me. Once Netti and I started talking about putting together the dinner, the idea started growing. Netti made the brilliant contribution of making the logo, the menu, the aprons, the table design, etc.

Had you ever done an event like this before? 

I have catered many events, but as a caterer your job is to please the client. This was the first time doing an event, where we could incorporate the look we wanted.

What is the name of the Stockwell Ranch? Stockwell Acres? Stockwell Farms? Grayfox Farms? The Lazy J? The Industrious H? 

I have gone from Lavender Farms (previous catering company) to Malibu Farms (helene + netti).

Can you name some of the companies that were represented at the party? Are they all from Malibu?

Sonja from Casa Dumetz, right on Dume drive, and Robert from Malibu Olive Oil. We also got lemons and oranges from Karen and Cameron Farrer on Wildlife. A lot of the produce I grew right here in our yard. We would have been able to use more stuff from our yard, but due to the cold weather a lot of stuff was not ripe yet. We have 300 raspberry bushes, for example. The beets, the arugula, radishes, sugar snap peas and all herbs, including the basil for the basil ice cream, was from our property. Trevor Zimmerman from Deuce events catering (where we will be leasing commercial kitchen space for future events) supplied the baked goods. We would love to incorporate more local companies.

 What did it cost to attend the event? 

$75 per person, but in retrospect we should have charged more! We were not sure how the event would be perceived, and I wasn't confident we could sell the tickets for a higher price, but as it turned out we sold out within hours. Chi Kim, the principal of the school,  had suggested a $100 ticket price, but we thought maybe that would be too high.

You said it was "overbooked." How many people contributed and how many attended? 

All the tickets were sold through the school, which caused a little bit of confusion as we had no control over who bought the tickets, etc. There were always only 66 seats available, and there were 66 tickets sold on the first day of sales, but then there were several who said they dropped checks at the school, but they were not on the list that we were given by the school, so there was confusions of who had or did not have tickets. 

It seemed like you had the right amount of seats for the number of people who showed up. No more, no less. 

We ended up with four open seats in the last minute, which allowed us to seat everyone. We had two seats for Sonja the wine donor, but then she said she wanted to work the party and talk about her wine, and that she would not need her seats. Also Robert from Malibu Olive oil, who asked for two seats, ended up not staying for dinner. 

Can you say how much was raised?

Assuming that everyone paid (all payments were made directly to the school), $75 per person x 66 tickets. We wanted it to be a casual and fun evening and decided we did not want any live auction or other activities asking for more money. Therefore, all the money raised was exclusively through the ticket sales.

Were there any minor or major disasters, miscues?

I think every event is a learning experience, and I am sure we can even better as we gain experience. The major issue was the weather. Freezing! We wanted to add heaters last minute, but none were available local. 

 How many staff did you have, cooking and serving?

In the kitchen there was me, and one helper Amber. Then we also had two externs from a cooking school. The floor staff was mostly made up of our "posse" of Malibu high kids (go malibu high!). I think we had six or maybe seven of them, not sure exactly. There were two "real" waiters there.

The cheese table was worth the walk. Especially the honey and brie. Were those cheeses all local? Any of them? 

We are still looking to source more stuff  local, and when I say local, I mean Malibu local. Although we have goats, they are both males kept for grazing and not milking. At this time we do not have a Malibu cheese supplier. If you know one, we would love to be in contact with them.

Do you intend to do this again in the future? Your place is perfect for it.

We are officially open for private events and bookings!

And then, of course, the two questions you’re all wondering about (No, not what is Halle Berry really like)

Are you Swedish? You don't look Swedish.

 Yes. Grew up in Sweden. My mother is Swedish.

How do you stay so thin working around luscious food like that all the time?

Genetics. And I don't eat processed or junk food. Ever.

But that's easier to do when you live on a farm. Next time, she should contact Lou Busch and score some avocados. I talked to Lou a couple of times for the Malibu history book, and every time he loaded me up with a dozen avos from Busch Farms.

And who knows what other earthly delights are growing in the gardens of Malibu?

Hopefully, there will be a next time because this first one was a hit. For more information on this night, and to encourage Helene and Nettie to do it once a month, check out their website here.