Gourmet Food

Bristol Farms Gourmet Specialty Food Markets will be acquired by an investment group as part of a plan to expand the chain, which is now in three upscale cities including South Pasadena. Kidd, Kamm & Co. Inc., a Beverly Hills investment company, is buying the Torrance-based gourmet food market, according to Irv Gronsky, owner and president. Company officials declined to reveal any financial arrangements but did say the sale is in escrow.

Courtney Sales Ross doesn't feed any smelly canned pet food to her menagerie. A recent issue of W reports that the 46-year-old Texas-born widow, who inherited millions from her late husband, former Time-Warner chief Steve Ross, has hired a chef to cook exclusively for her critters, which include King Charles spaniels, ponies, a goat, a burro and a llama. Their menu eschews the normal pet junk food in favor of dishes such as mushroom risotto.

Jurgensen's Market, a Los Angeles-area gourmet food grocer for nearly six decades, has closed its only remaining store but will maintain its adjacent cafe. The Pasadena store, long a fixture at Lake Avenue and California Boulevard, was closed because it was no longer financially viable, said officials at Ojai Capital, the Pasadena-based company that owns the business. The upscale grocery, which closed Saturday, will reopen Wednesday for a four-week liquidation sale.

What happens when good food photographers go strange? Mixed Lizards Demi-Chaud Froid. Festive Possum. Beak and Claw Surprise. Tadpole Consomme. Toad in the Whole. Armadillo Asado Ahumar. Snake and Eggs in the Grass. Get the picture? You can, along with text on each of these frightening faux meals, in "Critter Cuisine," which turns the oh-so-perfect world of gourmet food photography on its ear . . . and snout . . . and armored shell.

As a kid who tended to get motion sickness within a three-block drive, a five-minute boat ride or a two-second plane trip, trains were the only promise of travel without pain. But in those days--the old days --of the '60s and '70s, rail travel was erratic, unpredictable, unimaginative and, well, just plain boring. A train was a bus on tracks. Now comes the Keystone Classic Club, a luxury train car that offers gourmet food, hot showers, shoeshine service and big easy chairs.

The fresh-cut flowers arrive at check-in. The menus feature chicken crepes and broiled cod Provencal. Such are the amenities at Redondo Beach's South Bay Hospital, which has hired a gourmet chef and adopted the hotel-style slogan, "We treat you well." In the high-stakes competition among health-care providers, some area hospitals have stepped up their marketing techniques in an effort to woo patients and build consumer loyalty.

Rosanne Marcus is probably the only hostess in Southern California who gets out the Pooper Scooper when she invites a few party animals over for the evening. Her fledgling business specializes in throwing birthday parties for pet dogs. Dressed in a poodle skirt and sweater, the 34-year-old Encino woman greets each arriving canine, hands out party favors of Milk Bones and leads the singing of "Happy Bowwow to You."

Attention, shoppers! An innocent trip to Bristol Farms for some arugula or balsamic vinegar just might turn into a freebie feeding frenzy. First, a sip of chicory coffee. Or perhaps a Hain rice cake thickly spread with Cascadian Farm organic apple butter? Next thing you know, you've snacked on fresh Tahitian pineapple, turkey chili, Camembert cheese, homemade salsa and chips, oat bran cookies, escargots and carrot juice.

Except for the tall, shuttered windows, the plant doesn't look that much different than any other moderately successful agricultural concern. But then again, the windows are the key. For it is these windows that open and shut to capture the cool, dry air that blows in from the surrounding hills of the Po River Valley and permits the small miracle that is the creation of top-quality prosciutto di Parma.

Elite Cuisine of Hancock Park and West Los Angeles serves--are you ready-- Kosher gourmet food. It would take a couple hundred pages of Talmudic discussion to evaluate that phrase, so I'll refrain. While I didn't find the ghost of Escoffier--or the guiding presence of Alice Waters--at Elite, neither did I find the sort of "gourmet" dishes I think of as "Haute de Cruise."