BY NATALIE HAUGHTON >FOOD EDITOR
PHOTOS BY JOHN McCOY >LA.COM

The most glamorous awards show of the year (and a chance to see the big stars in designer finery) could just be the 14th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards this Sunday ... if the Oscars show is felled by the lengthy Writers Guild of America strike that seems to have no end in sight. (WGA granted a waiver for the SAG Awards show, so it will be scripted by union writers and there will be no picketing).

The Los Angeles Shrine Exposition Center will be decked out in gold and ivory, inspired by SAG'S 75th anniversary celebration to evoke the feeling of the Golden Age of the Hollywood Movie Palace.The fluted columns, art deco arches and chandeliers, glass elements and table settings, stemware and china are designed to create an elegant, glamorous, formal dining room.

Guests will dine on sumptuous Mediterranean fare - four mini selections on a single dinner plate, created and orchestrated by Alan Jackson, executive chef/owner of Los Angeles-based Jackson Catering, who is returning for the fifth consecutive year.

Floral centerpieces designed by Chris Matsumoto, owner of Los Angeles-based CJ Matsumoto & Sons Flowers, will feature multi-pieced low glass containers lined with black velvet and filled with green moss, succulents, white orchids, white roses and yellow calla lilies.

"It takes a week to set up the dining room" - with carpet, tables, chairs, glassware, china, linens and flowers, notes Andrea Wyn Schall, the awards event supervisor and owner of Beverly Hills-based A Wynning Event. "We use rectangular tables (placed) on an angle toward the stage so everyone has a great view."

The aisles are wide so it's easy for the winners to make their way to the stage. "We do black carpet because it makes the floor disappear for television and it highlights people on the floor - especially the gowns."

It's a juggling act to have 1,200 dinner plates ready and waiting on the beautifully decorated tables in the Shrine prior to the 5 p.m. show, points out Jackson, adding that the food is served at room temperature due to logistics of the program. "It's a live show and, basically, timing is critical. We can't be late."

Jackson presented 12 items to the SAG committee for consideration - and they chose his creative takes on lamb loin, tuna nicoise, chicken bisteeya and a grilled vegetable roll.

The plated food has to stand up aesthetically (and not drip on ball gowns) as well as flavor- and safety-wise for up to an hour and a half, points out Rosalind Jarrett, SAG spokeswoman.

"What's fun about the plate is that it is four little works of art in food. It's designed to give something wonderful to the taste buds, not to fill up," she adds.

Dinner and libations will continue, along with desserts and espresso, at the post-awards gala hosted by People magazine and the Entertainment Industry Foundation. It is staged in an adjacent tent.

Jackson and a kitchen staff of 15 begin prepping three days before the dinner, while food deliveries start a week in advance. The various parts of each dish are made in Jackson's large catering facility, then transported in refrigerated trucks to the Shrine by 10 a.m. Sunday. "Then we have six hours to prepare the plates.

"The real challenge is ... how early to put the cold food on the plate so that it still looks good and fresh."

Jackson finishes making up the plates as close to the event start time as possible, utilizing 38 people in a makeshift kitchen set up in the garage structure adjacent to the Shrine. "We break up into teams - and each has a particular dish to complete in a particular sequence."

Once the show goes on, Jackson returns to his Sherman Oaks home to watch the show with his children - 3, 5 and 13 years old - and have a beer.

"My job is done once all the plates are on the table. My staff oversees the rest and wraps it up.

"I love doing this - it's a fun yearly benchmark."

The best thing about it is "seeing your plate on television and seeing 1,200 stars enjoying our food."

Although this particular plate (requiring 22 prep steps) is complex, Jackson's food/presentation philosophy is "simple is better. I cook how I like to eat, and generally it is very light and not overfilled with fat. Flavor comes first and is most important. The food must look pretty, too."

Jackson is no stranger to actors, celebrities and restaurateurs, as many are friends of his parents - radio personality Michael Jackson and Alana Jackson, the daughter of actor Alan Ladd - and he got to know several of them during his childhood living near Benedict Canyon.

"I grew up eating incredible food," he adds. "My grandmother had a great Hungarian cook."

His dad also cooks. "He's a great griller - and there's nothing like a breakfast made by him."

Jackson idolized his dad's great restaurateur friends during his youth - Bob Spivak (Daily Grill), Patrick Terrail (Ma Maison), Bob Morris (Gladstone's), Anwar Soloman (Prego, Chianti, Harry's Bar) - and they were a great influence on him.

Jackson, who started cooking in college, graduated from Claremont's Pitzer College with a degree in political science in 1990 and kept cooking. With four years of hands-on restaurant experience under his belt from Camelion's in Santa Monica and the Bel-Air Hotel, at the age of 24, he opened Jackson's on Beverly Boulevard in 1994 with 15 investors. A year later, he opened Jackson's Farm in Beverly Hills. He sold the Farm in '98 and closed Jackson's a year later.

With fine dining his passion, he moved on to catering - and has been in the business about eight years.

"The catering business is easier to manage than a restaurant," he says. "It's also much more fun, flexible and creative. I cook every day for some of the most well-known and powerful people" (although he's not at liberty to disclose his celebrity clients).

"I'm impressed with the stars if they like my food," he says, half joking.

Heidi Jackson, Alan's wife of nine years, is a partner and handles the sales and business part of the company. A full-time staff of 20 handles 300 to 500 events (weddings, premieres, corporate events, big parties) per year - ranging in size from 10 to 5,000 people. Among his clients are the Directors Guild of America, The Paley Center for Media and Christie's Auction House.

Jackson returns today from a stint in Park City, Utah, at his first Sundance Film Festival, where he cooked breakfast, lunch and dinner - 800 meals a day, for five days straight - for celebrities, distributors and filmmakers at the Village at the Yard, in an old lumberyard-turned restaurant.

After Sunday, Jackson will no doubt be working on his soon-to-open Lemonade restaurants (one in West Hollywood by Bristol Farms and the other in downtown Los Angeles in City National Plaza at Fifth and Flower). They will be dine-in cafeteria/take-away style eateries.

Natalie Haughton, (818) 713-3692 natalie.haughton@dailynews.com

 preview>

14th ANNUAL SCREEN ACTORS GUILD AWARDS

>When: 8 p.m. Sunday.
>Where: TNT and TBS. (Repeats at 11 p.m. on TNT.)