By MANNY HOWARD
Published in May 2001
A younger mover and shaker from Dallas teaches
Hollywood how to have fun
Saturday has welshed on its promise of a day of dead calm. By midafternoon, a breeze picks up that is too chilly to carry the scent of the bougainvillea in the yard of Sally Horchow's Mediterranean-inspired home in the Hollywood Hills. With consternation, Horchow inspects the gathering clouds loping in from the valley below and the wooden stakes that anchor two rows of then easels to her split-level lawn.
She has good reason to worry about the threat of rain. The easels bear original photographs taken by friends and fellow movie-industry alums Jeffrey Trachtman and Kyle Kaufman. Dallas native Horchow, thirty-one, whose father is a mail-order-catalog tycoon turned Tony Award-winning Broadway producer, met Trachtman and Kaufman in 1996 while she was working on the ill-fated independent movie Sand, for which she served as associate producer, Trachtman as assistant to the producer, and Kaufman as "soul council and surf consultant." Fittingly, Kaufman's work was captured during a recent circumnavigation of the globe in a sailboat outfitted with six surfboards, enabling him to catch a wave at every port of call. Meanwhile, Trachtman's images are dreamscapes of urban, mostly East Coast, America, lending the party its catchy theme: Surf & the City, with long boards, wet suits, and Tahitian and Singaporean beer stashed on one side of the yard and a dignified champagne bar on the upper lawn.
Horchow's intention is to produce her many friends - casting directors, actors, producers, and lots of writers (both big screen and small) - to the work of her two compatriots from the indie trenches. Guests are encouraged to drop about $350 for a print - which they do. "I love these guys, and I really like doing things for them," says Horchow, who last year threw a similar party for friend and Dallas Morning News photojournalist Allison Smith. "Besides," she adds, "parties-with-a-purpose have unintended effects as well. "You really count on people like Sally to promote a social life," says Peter Giblin, a screenplay writer who heads an Internet start-up. "Los Angeles is not like New York, where you just have to get out of your house. If Sally wasn't around, nobody would ever move from the couch."
The lively conversation - over passed hors d'oeuvres of salmon tartare and Thai-accented fried plantain, and fueled by a beer from Singapore called Tiger (surf) and Veuve Ambal Brut Elysee Peche, a peach-infused champagne (the city) - ranges from the possibility that, in Los Angeles, having a stalker, at least a nonviolent one, just might raise your social capital, to odds-making on the looming television and screenwriter's strike.
Not that Horchow, who was Steven Spielberg's executive assistant for two years in the mid-'90s, and, before that, assistant to the producer at Late Night With Conan O'Brien, need worry about a strike. Now a freelance writer for national fashion and lifestyle publications, she recently landed a gig writing a column that she doesn't - but others do - describe as "Sex and the City West," for Angeleno magazine. "I wanted to write about off-the-beaten-path L.A., like hanging out at the county courthouse," recalls Horchow. "But my first column was about my online dating experience, and my editor decided that was richer material."
Writing aside, the buzz on Sally Horchow is that, if she puts her mind to it, she can throw a party that even Hollywood will stall a development deal to reminisce about. One story goes that halfway though a meeting at DreamWorks, a writer friend noticed a coconut on the shelf behind the studio executive's head. No ordinary coconut, this one had a zipper around its girth, which could mean only on thing: The coconut, like 149 others, had once held an invitation to Horchow's thirtieth-birthday Desert Decadence party in Palm Springs, which was held at a secret location and featured a midnight performance of Aztec fire dancers. Immediately, the development conversation turned to Horchow and her fabulous fete. "I really do like Los Angeles, but all the clichŽs are true," says actor-writer Adam Drucker, a New York native and a friend of Horchow's at Yale, from which they both graduated in 1992. "Here is a corner of Los Angeles where you're always going to meet smart and funny people - and that's an exception. They're not just a bunch of people trying to land a part on Baywatch. But I don't mean to make them sound salon-like. They also tend to be pretty raucous."
Her garden now a teeming open-air gallery, the threat of rain passed, Horchow gets down to the serious business of enjoying her efforts. "One of the joys of having this place is that I can share it," she says, holding a bottle from the surf side of the garden and gesturing to the house behind and view before her.
Heat oil in a heavey saucepan. Peel plantains and cut slices on the diagonal into 2-inch flat ovals. Fry plantains in hot oil in batches.
After removing each plantain slice from the oil with a slotted spoon, dredge each plantain in brown sugar. Let cool slightly on paper towels.
Stil cayenne pepper and lime juice into creme fraiche. Chop peanuts into bits using pulse setting on food processor.
Chop scallions finely. Assembly: Place plantain on platter, add dollop of prepared creme fraiche.
Sprinkle with peanuts. Garnish with a pinch of scallion. Serve immediately.
Cut salmon fillet into smaller chunks and chop completely in a food processor. Dice scallions, including 1 inch of green heads, and add to salmon.
Mix in other ingredients. Marinate in the refrigerator for three hours. Serve on fried wonton skins.
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