ARENAS

Better Break for the Fans To judge from the latest group of mammoth sports palaces, the real winners at games in the future will be the folks in the stands. Spectators can figure on walking shorter distances, sitting in living-room comfort and enjoying a better view of the action than ever before. Latest proof is the 19,000-seat Forum in suburban Inglewood, Calif., ten miles southwest of downtown Los Angeles. The $16.5 million Forum is the brainchild of Millionaire Sportsman Jack Kent Cooke, 55, who decided to put up a new home for his Los Angeles Lakers pro basketball team and his new Los Angeles Kings hockey team. In fact, Cooke only won the franchise for the Kings by audaciously promising to have the arena finished in a breathtaking 16 months.

Timeless Place. Last week, after three months of round-the-clock construction, Cooke's Forum opened on schedule. Despite the breakneck speed with which it went up, the colonnaded, Roman-style structure, designed by Los Angeles-based Charles Luckman Associates, is distinguished by its spectator-pleasing efficiency. For one thing, the arena has gone all out for color coding. On their arrival for the opening hockey game between the Kings and the Philadelphia Flyers, fans holding yellow tickets, for example, found that they parked their cars in a yellow-designated lot. They entered the arena at a yellow gate and passed through a yellow tunnel to the yellow section, where girls wearing yellow mini-togas showed them to their seats--yellow, of course.

Once settled in carpeted luxury on the extrawide, foam-cushioned seats, spectators were treated to views unencumbered by pillars, thanks to the structure's 407-ft., rafter-free span that is suspended by taut cables resembling the spokes of a bicycle wheel. With the Forum's time already booked for 200 days in 1968, Cooke could finally relax, proclaim his new sports palace "a timeless place, something a man can be proud of."

Fast Exit. "To do what we did on the Forum," adds Architect Luckman, "would have been impossible in New York." He should know, since he is also the architect for New York's new Madison Square Garden Sports and Entertainment Center, part of a $150 million construction project that has presented problems of both space and timing. To make room for the new Madison Square Garden, the fourth in the city's history, as well as an adjacent 29-story office building, the superstructure of cavernous Pennsylvania Station had to be demolished and all its facilities moved underground. This meant scheduling construction so that the 200,000 travelers pouring into the station each day would suffer minimum inconvenience. Although computers were used to lick the logistics, the station's baggage-claim area still has had to be moved no fewer than 16 times since construction began back in 1963.

Nonetheless, the three-level, drum-shaped building is headed for completion by next month. Already finished are the center's 5,000-seat Felt Forum Theater on the lower "plaza" and a 48-lane bowling center on the intermediate level. On the upper level are the main, 20,500-capacity Garden and 64,000 sq. ft. of exhibition space for trade shows. Topped by a 425-ft.diameter suspended-cable roof similar to that on the Los Angeles Forum, the Garden is likewise laid out for the maximum comfort of fans: a Luckman study shows that the average spectator can exit from his Garden seat to the street in 52 seconds. Instant Replay. Other cities, inspired by Houston's 21-year-old Astrodome, are hoping to combine indoor convenience with outdoor spaciousness. Kansas City plans to build adjacent football and baseball stadiums, either of which can be enclosed--or left uncovered--by means of a single, movable roof. New Orleans, meanwhile, hopes to build a $46.4 million domed stadium by late 1971.

With a capacity of 80,000 for football (v. 52,000 for the Astrodome), the all-weather, rectangular-shaped New Orleans stadium now being designed by that city's architectural firm of Curtis & Davis will feature movable stands that travel on air cushions rather than tracks. Another innovation calculated to lure fans out to the stadium: huge television screens that will flash the same sort of instant replays that they now get on their TVs at home.

FOOD

Chef d'Oeuf

To make a party go, there is nothing like a new game or a novel gimmick. For the past several seasons, hostesses as experienced as Mrs. Paul Mellon, Mrs. John Hay Whitney, Mrs. Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt and Clare Boothe Luce have found just the ticket in Rudolph Stanish, 54, a veritable chef d'oeuf, the best omelet maker in the land, maybe even in the world. Name an omelet, from plain, fines herbes or cheese to lingonberry, red caviar or sour cream, and Rudi can make it: his omelet repertoire includes more than 100 varieties; and his own booklet of favorite recipes, enthusiastically endorsed by Playwright Edward Albee, has become a quiet bestseller.

But it is not what Stanish does that counts so much, although Mrs. Richard Rodgers, wife of the Broadway composer, considers his omelets so delicious that she had him back last week for the eighth Christmas Eve in a row. Stanish's success lies in the flair with which he carries it off. With the grave deference learned through years of buttling, he takes his place behind a rack of his special omelet pans,* each with its own propane-fueled Bernz-o-matic burner. Then he effortlessly pops in the butter, ladles in the egg mixture and presto, out come the omelets at the rate of four a minute from each pan.

The Secret of Perfection. So far has Stanish's fame as an omeleteer spread that what started as a moonlighting job, after his regular duties as head chef at Manhattan's Goldman, Sachs Wall Street brokerage house, now sends him jetting on weekends to serve hunt breakfasts in Virginia and midnight suppers in Houston (his charge: $125 per party, plus expenses). Over Christmas and New Year's, in addition to making omelets for five parties in three days in Manhattan, Stanish flew to Nashville, where Mrs. William Tyne says: "There's no question about it; he made the party," and to Grosse Pointe Farms, Mich. There Mrs. Charles McCusland White reports "everyone adored it; he talked as he worked, answering questions and giving out cooking tips." Deb Daughter Jane White pronounced him "just fantastic. My friends went back for fourths and fifths."

What is Stanish's secret for the perfect omelet? Simplicity itself, says he. The eggs should be at room temperature, and they should be beaten lightly or the omelet will toughen. Don't allow the butter to brown, use at most just a pinch of salt, and be sure the pan is hot. Cook for precisely 15 seconds, stirring briskly in a circular motion with the side of a fork. Except for dessert omelets, he adds one special ingredient: Tabasco sauce. The later the night and the more the drinking, says Stanish, the more Tabasco.

*Made by Manhattan's Bridge Co. of solid aluminum, 10 in. in diameter, with heatproof handle, it costs $11.95, has become a gourmet's favorite.

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