Down Under Comes Over the Top

Nothing pleases L.A. like combining exquisite food with charitable giving. Each takes the curse off the other.

On Friday, for instance, the New Zealand Trade Development Board joined with the Vision Fund of America to put on a food- and wine-tasting event. A largish crowd showed up at the 20th Century Fox studio commissary.

You could get New Zealand foods and wines either out on the lawn or in the commissary itself, with its historic Art Deco mural of ‘30s movie stars. Inside was also where you bought raffle tickets, checked out the silent auction tables and watched a video of Victor Borge speaking for the Vision Fund.

As the evening ripened, the event seemed to evolve into two parties. Inside, charity-event regulars with deep tans and pocket squares congregated with industry guys in sports jackets without neckties, all standing and talking shop.

The outside crowd tended to be ordinary people (and one striking teenage girl as self-possessed as a sphere of Carrara marble) sitting down and having a dinner of New Zealand ingredients, either at tables or on garden benches. “See? These are the kind of benches we’re going to buy,” said one woman in a pleased, proprietary tone.

Inside or out, the food was the same. There was a lot of New Zealand fish, flown in the night before: white salmon in ravioli, chunks of sweet blue nose bass on little sweet-potato pancakes, macadamia-crusted orange roughy on pumpernickel and green-lip mussels, sauce poulette.

And New Zealand lamb, of course: mustard-coated racks being carved into chops not nearly fast enough for the attendees. New Zealand venison, too, made into sausage or coated with coconut and grilled Thai-style sate with a peanut dipping sauce.

Best of all was the venison cured to make something like a garlicky venison pastrami, though the New Zealanders were just calling it smoked venison. It made a terrific canape with a green olive. One advantage to sitting outdoors was access to a huge platter of smoked venison with a sweet-sour gooseberry sauce.

Twenty years ago, New Zealand had a bounty on deer because they were ravaging the country’s vegetable farms. Then the resourceful Kiwis changed tack and started exporting the meat, which had very little of the gamy flavor people associate with venison because of the deer’s mild diet of lettuces. These days, the one-time pests of New Zealand’s farms are being farmed themselves.

Speaking of Kiwis, there were kiwi fruits too, on tartlets along with mangoes, papayas and apples. But they were only inside, possibly as compensation for the lack of a smoked venison tray. Come to think of it, maybe that was why the prizes were announced inside too.