Fielding Caters to All Tastes With ‘Secret Ingredients’

When she was a development executive for The Ladd Company (‘Braveheart’) and Lynda Obst Productions (‘Sleepless in Seattle’), Lisa Fielding got used to the long gestation period required to get movies made. Now, Fielding is applying the same tenacity and meticulousness that she exhibited in Hollywood to her new Pacific Palisades-based catering business, Secret Ingredients. ‘With cooking, it’s like falling in love with a story,’ Fielding says. ‘It’s an organic narrative. A great meal really is like the escape one gets going to a movie. Food has that potential.’ Four months into catering, Fielding is building a clientele devoted to her prowess in the kitchen.   ’Lisa cooks like an artist,’ says producer Wallis Nicita (‘Mermaids,’ ‘Six Days, Seven Nights’).   Laura Clark, a Mandeville Canyon resident, notes Fielding’s grilled shrimp pasta with roasted cherry tomato and orange confit: ‘I don’t even know what a ‘confit’ is, but it’s other-wordly.’ ‘I cook everything, from traditional American, authentic Mexican, country French and Italian, and East Indian,’ Fielding says. ‘But I am partial to Mediterranean flavors: halibut fillet, fragrant olive oil, sal de mer, heirloom tomatoes, burrata, and home-baked pissaladi’re.’ Professionally, Secret Ingredients represents Fielding’s second take at a food-related venture. From 2005’07, she intended to open Picnic, a Palisades gourmet food store. Fielding was no stranger to the waiting game, having attempted to produce a film based on the book ‘The Villa Golitsyn’ by Piers Paul Read for over two decades. Attached to Annette Bening and Jeremy Irons, the project ultimately fell part. Similarly, complications arose with Picnic. Fielding, fellow Palisadian Nancy Sanders, and Daniel Nolinger intended to open the shop at 1017 Swarthmore (now occupied by Madison). But Fielding had a falling out with Sanders, and a succession of new partners failed to bring Picnic to fruition. After upgrading the storefront and acquiring the necessary permits and trademarks, Fielding says she lost $170,000 in the ill-fated investment. ‘The store was supposed to be fun and exciting, but what a nightmare!’ she told the Palisadian-Post in 2007. Fortunately, Secret Ingredients is off to a smoother start. Fielding told the Post half-jokingly that she has already envisioned a reality show emerging from her adventures in catering. As she says, ‘Food is drama!’ On Monday evening this week, Fielding catered a dinner party for eight at a Paseo Miramar home with a breathtaking view of the Pacific, clear out to Catalina. As dusk filled the Palisades sky with an ice cream-swirl of orange and lavender, guests gathered at the dinner table, including Wendy Plumb, owner of the Cottage on Swarthmore; Palisades-based trainer J. J. Janda; Brentwood resident Lisa Chadwick; and Suzanne Barzman, daughter of screenwriter Ben Barzman (‘El Cid’). ‘When I was six years old, I pulled a step stool up to the counter where my grandmother was baking pies and rolled out my first pie crust!’ Fielding says. ‘My grandma Rodriguez, on my mother’s side, is Mexican, and there was always a fresh warm stack of homemade flour tortillas and chili on the kitchen table. But it was my mom who really set the bar for great meals. I would follow her around as she cooked while listening to Frank Sinatra and Chet Baker.’ ‘Her food is par excellence,’ says Fielding’s mother, Helen. ‘She also does the flower arrangements. And she bakes!’ Fielding’s peripatetic childhood exposed her to international cuisine as her late father’s job (in banking) meant growing up in Germany, Lebanon, and southern France before the family returned to her birthplace, San Francisco. She attended UCLA, where she double majored in sociology and pre-law before entering entertainment. Currently working on TV projects, Fielding believes that catering complements her screenwriting: ‘I finally have the time to pursue both of my passions.’ As Fielding served a tray of bruschetta on Monday, Barzman took partial credit for Secret Ingredients, recalling that ‘Lisa was at a crossroads in her life and I said, ‘You’re such a good cook, you need to do this professionally.” That crossroads included the breakup of a long-term relationship, which helped encourage Fielding to blaze a new path. ‘My cooking is organic,’ says Fielding, who frequents farmers’ market for fresh ingredients. Catering a recent West Hollywood party, she paired salmon in a honey glaze with roasted asparagus and a summer salad. Her repertoire of baked goods includes cupcakes and pumpkin cheesecake with a praline bottom crust. ‘I’m really lucky I get to bring so much joy to people through great food and companionship,’ Fielding says. ‘Life without either is rather colorless, don’t you think?’ Fielding opened Monday’s meal with a green salad with pancetta and lemon vinaigrette, accompanied by California ros’, before serving lasagna with a chicken rag’ and a white B’chamel sauce. By 9 p.m., the guests gathered around a table on the deck. As dessert was presented”peach-and-blueberry cobbler ‘ la mode, accompanied by mint tea and French-press chicory coffee”the full moon illuminated the ocean view, partly obscured by a middle-ground silhouette of palms and busy hillsides, that could have passed for Casablanca. A big believer in karma, Fielding places her faith in life’s ecosystem of positive energy. She has not given up on her retail dream and still holds the storefront’s lease: ‘If Picnic has a second chance, it will come through this.’