Black, White, and Red Hot: Chau Lam organizes food for the City’s biggest ball
May 30, 2003
Every two years, San Francisco comes alive with the decadent Black and White Ball, a celebration of food, wine and music benefiting the San Francisco Symphony. The event draws not only the grand dames and dukes of the city’s elite adorned in haute couture and prêt-a-porter gowns, but also a mass of revelers seeking to party the night away.
The gala is spread over Civic Center and Davies Symphony Hall, with tents pitched all around the area, allowing partygoers clad in black and white to enjoy the last weekend of May.
One of the main attractions of the biennial event is the food. Attendees are treated to a gastronomical tour de force, sampling dishes from some of the finest food establishments San Francisco has to offer. Planning for the Black and White happens months in advance, with organizers prepping the venues, booking the musical entertainment and arranging the menus.
Enter Chau Lam, a petite, spunky 35-year-old and maestro of the menus, who describes herself as a chili pepper.
“I’m hot and spicy, but not in a bad way, in a good way,” says Lam laughing. “Hot enough to burn your tongue to last awhile, but not enough to last a lifetime.”
Wearing a pink-colored, flowered shirt and fitted black pants, Lam’s classic bob frames her broad smile. Over lunch at Straits Café in the Richmond District, Lam spots a board member of the Asian Art Museum and graciously goes over to her table.
Whether it is her energy or smile, Lam’s personality is sure to leave an impression. Lam is making her second appearance as planner and coordinator for the Celebrity Chefs menu. The ball offers patrons a sit-down dinner complete with multiple silverware and goblets and a casual, hors d’oeuvres-style mobile feast, with Lam responsible for the latter.
Lam has lined up more than 80 diverse restaurants to cater the event with delectable finger foods.
“The menu is pretty diverse so people can basically try anything and everything,” she says, noting the ethnically diverse cuisines available in San Francisco. “The menu reflects San Francisco. There will be meats, seafood, vegetables cooked and prepared in French style, American style, Latin style and many others.”
Besides growing up with a mother who cooked religiously and effortlessly, Lam never set foot in a culinary school or worked in a kitchen other than her mother’s. And on her shelves, you would be more likely to find books by Jean-Paul Sartre than Julia Child.
Born in Saigon, Vietnam in 1968, Lam, the oldest of three siblings, grew up in the shadow of war and communism. As a young child, Lam remembers her family having to burn materials and anything printed in English in front of their modest house to protect themselves from the communist regime.
“We weren’t really wealthy, so we weren’t considered the bourgeoisie class that was what the communists hated, but we still had to look out for ourselves,” she says. “I remember during the war, watching the tanks drive by and having to obey curfews. It was scary but my mom was always there to protect me.”
Because her family is ethnically Chinese, Lam said her family had to leave Vietnam as part of the government’s attempt to rid the country of Chinese.
“I didn’t have the boat-people experience, instead we flew to Bangkok and then to America,” she says.
In the summer of 1979, Lam, her mother and her younger brother and sister arrived in San Francisco. Lam, who was 11 at the time, had to help her mother watch over her siblings. Her parents got divorced when she was just five years old.
The foursome settled in a tiny, one-room apartment in the Tenderloin District. Lam went directly to sixth grade and said she was miserable from day one in middle school all the way through high school.
“We were so poor. It was embarrassing at the time because at school everyone around had nice clothes and things,” says Lam. “But I knew that my mom was a single mother working hard to support her family and making sure that we did well in school and not get into trouble.”
Touching foot on U.S. soil, Lam did not speak English. Although she had English classes at school, she says her teachers just passed her so they didn’t have to deal with her.
“It was an awful experience for me,” she says. “I remember we didn’t have enough money for my gym clothes, so my mom went to New York Fabrics to buy a swath of nylon to make me some shorts and bought a pair of shoes from Woolworths.”
But that didn’t discourage Lam. If anything, she said, growing up poor made her more ambitious. She took that mentality all the way to San Francisco State University, where she majored in philosophy and minored in Asian American studies.
Looking back, Lam says her experience has made her humble and strong, two attributes that have molded her into an entrepreneur and savvy businessperson.
Lam, who married last November to her beau of 10 years, started her own event planning company, Chilipepper Events, in 2001. She got the name from her red iMac computer and also her personality.
The Black and White Ball is on Sat., May 31, 9 p.m.– 2 a.m. For more information on the event and how to purchase tickets, please visit www.bwball.org.
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