AMID CONTROVERSY, BEARD HOUSE JUST KEEPS ON COOKING.

Byline: Suzanne Hamlin The New York Times

James Beard would have loved all this, said Caroline Stuart, the onetime assistant to the cooking legend and now the vice president of the James Beard Foundation.

She was referring to the culinary circus that has built up around the memory of the gargantuan food guru since his death more than a decade ago: spectacular dinners, power struggles, hotly sought-after awards, extravagant expenditures, rumors of financial mismanagement, disgruntled culinary climbers. Not to mention an annual black-tie ceremony for 1,500 food professionals that, produced for a half-million dollars, has been called the Academy Awards of Gastronomy.

``Jim would have loved the glitz, the gossip, the intrigue and most of all the attention,'' Stuart said. ``We used to accuse him of pretending to get sick, because when he was in the hospital, the Four Seasons would send over dinner and all his friends would bring him food and balloons.''

Since Beard died in 1985 at the age of 81, about 1,000 lunches and dinners, accompanying wines and just plain treats have been served at the James Beard House at 167 W. 12th St. The quirky little Greenwich Village brownstone, now the foundation's headquarters, is where the 6-foot-3-inch, 300-plus-pound dean of American food held sway for years like a pasha in a playhouse, entertaining a constant stream of students, cooks and food writers.

And like offerings to the master, the Beard House meals - a continuing series of dinners donated by chefs - have been free to the host. (``The best meal is a free meal!'' Beard was fond of announcing to overly earnest reporters.)

Free, at least, to the James Beard Foundation, the nonprofit organization that was established 10 years ago to, according to its charter and tax forms, ``promote innovations in American cuisine and encourage careers of aspiring chefs.'' But whether it is the chefs or the foundation that benefit has always been the question.

In the 1994 tax year, the foundation, whose board members describe it as ``still struggling,'' reported nontaxable income of $2,424,584. Of that, $1,381,635 was reported as expenses to further the careers of ``aspiring chefs.''

Now, some might argue that New York chef Gray Kunz, Charlie Trotter of Chicago, Los Angeles chef Wolfgang Puck and other national luminaries who have cooked at the Beard House are not so much aspiring as they are already there. On the other hand, many of the 200-odd chefs and cookbook authors who cooked for paying diners at the Beard House last year say that no matter what the cost (often from $5,000 to $20,000), they were honored to be there.

``For chefs, the Beard House is a home away from home,'' said one chef from Hawaii who paid $15,000 to transport his staff, exotic produce and local fish to Manhattan for a night.

``New York is still where it's happening, it's still the culinary center of the world,'' said the chef, who said he was embarrassed by the amount he spent, although not regretful. ``And if you're asked to cook here, it means you've arrived.''

Among the foundation's lengthy list of activities and events, the glue that holds the Beard House together is the series of meals of four to eight courses that are open to the public and cost an all-inclusive $85 to $95, including wine with each course and a chance to chat with the chef.

The chefs, often recommended by foundation members, are picked by the foundation's program director, Mildred Amico, a retired registered nurse and once a student of Beard's. Until recently, she ran the dining program for no pay.

The house can seat 70 to 80 people at communal tables upstairs, in the space that was once Beard's parlor and bedroom (one table is below the ceiling mirror where Beard's bed used to be).

The chef and his or her staff work in the cramped open kitchen downstairs, which has been slightly enlarged. Much of the kitchen work is volunteered by culinary students. Chefs get a food allowance from the foundation of $15 to $20 a person, which they almost inevitably donate back to the foundation. A monthly newsletter promotes upcoming dinners.

The newsletter is one of several publications that accounted for $150,000 of the foundation's 1994 budget. Other large expenses included the house's mortgage and upkeep; staff salaries and the awards program.

The largest annual expense - $500,000 - was spent on the recently held annual black-tie awards extravaganza in a ballroom at the Marriott Marquis. There, in a well-rehearsed ceremony before an audience of 1,500, the foundation told 58 food professionals that they are the best in the country - the best chefs, the best restaurant owners, the best wine and beverage people, the best restaurant designers and the best lifetime achievers for 1995.

For those unable to attend a recent dinner at the Yale Club, the winners of the cookbook and food journalism awards were also announced. The awards were spread over two nights, partly because there were so many of them.

Overseeing the ceremony was Al Roker, an NBC weather forecaster, and Nina Griscom, a TV Food Network host.

For those who couldn't be present - for the nation's food community, few excuses could have justified an absence - a one-hour version of the three-hour ceremony was shown on cable television. For the live audience, most of whom paid $200 a ticket to attend, the bonus began immediately after the awards were announced - the stampede to an adjoining ballroom for a walk-around banquet featuring the work of 28 chefs who donated their time, working with donations from national beef, pork and produce trade groups. Wines were donated by 38 Napa Valley wineries and Champagne by Perrier-Jouet.

For the food-service business - the fastest-growing industry in the country - the James Beard Awards are not only the biggest game in town, they are also the only game.

If it doesn't yet make or break reputations, the James Beard Foundation appears to speed them on their way. Chefs say a Beard award helps inch them up the high-profile ladder in a profession in which publicity is now valued as much as talent. Winning cookbook authors, who can purchase Beard Award stickers to have pasted on their books, say that, even if book sales don't improve markedly, bookstores are much more likely to keep a winning book in stock and that their next contracts are usually more lucrative.

Although the International Association of Cooking Professionals, a group of 2,300 teachers and cookbook authors with headquarters in Louisville, Ky., gives awards to cookbook authors and journalists (the group's annual meeting was held in Philadelphia), the Beard Foundation has the added cachet of its parade of prominent chefs.

``The chef frenzy just keeps growing,'' said Stuart, the foundation's president.

A scholarship program, begun in 1990 with just $7,000, granted $140,000 in culinary aid last year. This year, the foundation is offering 36 scholarships totaling $175,000.

The foundation, according to its 12-person board of trustees, more than satisfies its charter to promote the culinary arts, as well as satisfying the Internal Revenue Service, which has not challenged its tax-exempt status.

Peter Kump, the foundation's first president, who died in 1995, believed thoroughly in the idea of culinary arts: cuisine, not food, created by chefs, not cooks. Austrian by birth, Kump, who had opened a New York cooking school in 1974, moved quickly after Beard's death to establish what Kump called a ``foundation for the culinary arts'' - a thought that apparently had never occurred to Beard himself - with other Beard friends and colleagues, including Larry Forgione, Barbara Kafka and Julia Child. The foundation's board, founded in 1986, scrambled to raise money and loans, including a $250,000 down payment for the house, which it bought for $750,000. To date, $1.2 million has been spent on the mortgage and renovations.

Several years of power-struggle bickering followed (Child, for one, disassociated herself from the group in a disagreement about the awards), along with off-the-record accusations that some board members were using foundation funds for their own gain.

Len Pickell, who has been the foundation's president since Kump's death, said he is not unaware of the charges, but he called them totally false. ``I think the problem was that Peter was by nature extremely close-mouthed - he felt he didn't have to explain his mission to anyone,'' said Pickell, who is a certified public accountant and who, like Kump, receives no salary as the president.

``Believe me, Len is a real CPA - he knows exactly where every dollar has gone,'' said Stuart, adding that, because of the foundation's nonprofit status, the financial records have always been a matter of public record, if anyone cared to pursue them.

Like many volunteers at the foundation, some of whom have been associated with it since it was founded, Pickell became involved by attending a dinner. As a wine buff, he offered suggestions on how to improve that side of the menu, and subsequently he became the director of the wine program before becoming the foundation's vice president and now president, which he says is a 12-hour-a-day job.

Why would anyone donate so much time and effort to what, from the outside, appears to some to be just the continuation of one big, elitist party?

``I agree with Peter Kump: cooking can be art,'' said Diane Harris Brown, the foundation's director of corporate and individual giving. ``Chefs can create the most powerful kind of magic,'' said Brown, an art historian who worked at the Pace Gallery before joining the foundation as a kitchen volunteer.

Most chefs agree that if anything has knighted them as artists, it is the Beard House.

Peggy Tagliarino, whose public relations company has represented several chefs and authors who have cooked on West 12 Street, said: ``They consider it the ultimate recital, like Carnegie Hall. And they go all out with special dishes that they might not be able to cook in their own restaurants.''

Grousing chefs who complain - none on the record - that the thousands of dollars some have paid to be star chef for a night is not worth it, are dismissed by Stuart. ``No one is under any obligation to come unless they really want to,'' she said. ``But on a purely practical level, I think the kind of publicity they can get, and the contacts they make here, are probably worth the investment.''

The visiting-chef program was started in 1986 by Wolfgang Puck and was followed by nine other chefs that year. Stuart estimated that about 1,000 chefs have cooked their way through the last decade.

``If you don't call as soon as you get the newsletter, it's hard to get reservations now,'' Tagliarino said.

No reservations were needed for a free, two-day Mediterranean culinary conference recently held at the World Financial Center. Sponsored by the Beard Foundation and the International Olive Oil Council, the event featured dozens of chefs and cookbook authors, many of whom were flown in, some from abroad, at the foundation's expense.

Joining a number of other specialty-food companies, wine producers and kitchen-equipment manufacturers who have made contributions to the foundation, the olive oil council became a sponsor, donating money to the Beard House for the Mediterranean conference. Arlene Wanderman, the United States representative of the council, would not disclose the amount, which Brown said ``is our largest contribution yet.''

However, Wanderman said, ``Of all the nonprofit organizations I have dealt with in the past seven years, I can tell you that the Beard financial records are the most impeccable I've ever seen.''

For an annual fee of $125, anyone can join the James Beard Foundation. And thousands have. In addition, there is a small corps of volunteers who have donated their services in exchange for being near, and sometimes helping, visiting celebrity chefs.

The meals at the James Beard House are open to the public and cost $50 for lunch and $85 to $95 a dinner (prices include wines; there are no tips or taxes). The meals are cozy, with up to 80 diners at communal tables.

Foundation members - there are 3,700 - receive a $20 discount on most dinners, a $10 discount on most lunches and discounts on other events like restaurant meals. Included with membership is a monthly newsletter listing future dinner menus, chef biographies and other food news. For further information call, [phone]; [phone], out of state.

The foundation, which owns the Beard House and rents space for publications at 6 W. 18th St., has 25 paid staff members, 20 full-time volunteers and 200 part-time volunteers.

Many stalwarts of the house, some of whom have been involved since its inception in 1986, work without pay. No salary is more than $50,000 a year, according to the organization's public accounting records.

Paid program heads are Diane Harris Brown, the director of corporate and individual giving; Mildred Amico, the chef's program director; Mitchell Davis, the director of publications; Melanie Young, the director of awards and the annual auction, and Clay Triplette, the house steward. Working without pay, as they have been for 10 years, are Len Pickell, the president; Caroline Stuart, the vice president and scholarship director, and Jeanne Wilensky, the director of public relations.

The annual James Beard Awards, given to chefs, journalists, cookbook authors and restaurateurs, have been controversial since their inception in 1990. As imperfect as any award given by humans, the Beard honors have been particularly criticized because of a secret-ballot procedure that no one seems able to explain.

The awards are divided into five categories, each with a chairman, vice chairman and secretary who serve one- to three-year unpaid terms. The current chairmen and the awards they oversee are: William Rice, the food and wine columnist at The Chicago Tribune, restaurant awards; Joe Crea, food editor at The Toledo (Ohio) Blade, cookbook awards; Joanne Hayes, food editor at Country Living magazine, journalism awards; Anne Byrd, a North Carolina cooking teacher, electronic media awards, and Belmont Freeman, a New York architect, restaurant design. More than 300 food professionals nationwide serve as unpaid judges for one year, 200 of them in the restaurant category.

With the exception of the restaurant design category, none of the judges are identified. Young, the awards director, said the judges ``don't want to be badgered by public relations people.''

She called ``ridiculous'' accusations that only chefs who have cooked at the James Beard House at their own expense can win an award. ``Most judges don't even know who has cooked at the house,'' she said. (Several chefs who have cooked at the Beard House have been nominated repeatedly but have not won.)

The foundation pays the Arthur Anderson Co., an accounting firm, $20,000 a year to print, mail and tabulate the detailed ballots, the results of which are not known until awards night.