Saratogans and Los Gatans know Troy for the parties he caters or the home demonstrations he conducts, or better yet, for a combination of the two when he prepares special appetizers for guests and then demonstrates how they are made. His cookouts can be a five-course meal for 30 or more at $40 to $50 a person. If teaching comes with the meal, he charges up to $75 a person.

Cookbook fanciers know Troy for his book, Troy Brown's Portabella Cookbook, which offers 105 recipes--95 of them vegetarian--covering lasagna, stuffed portabellas and bell peppers, sandwiches, squid, trout and turkey.

"But portabellas are my specialty," he says.

Troy first discovered the giant dark brown mushroom at Costco, where they were densely packed in a quantity designed for big families or big parties. His experiments revealed their startling versatility.

"People in the store would ask how I cooked them, and I'd explain, and pretty soon a crowd would form," he recalls. "I told them any recipe where you use cooked meat you can use portabellas. Because of their meaty consistency, they can be pan-fried, oven-cooked or barbecued."

One of his favorite recipes is for pesto portabella lasagna. He starts by slicing the portabellas into 1 ¹/2-inch strips, drizzling them with olive oil and then grilling them. The strips are then placed in a deep pan atop alternate layers of cooked lasagna, caramelized onions, raw chopped carrots and spinach, mozzarella cheese and pesto. The mix is baked at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

Troy, 58, is an Oklahoma native reared in Redwood City. He credits his cooking career to Ken Harlan, owner of the Golden Oak Restaurant in Morgan Hill and the Lucia Lodge in Big Sur, where Brown spent more than four years learning to cook before taking over as chef. But cooking really started when he was a child with his grandmother at their home in Redwood City.

"She told me that in case I don't get married, I'd better know how to wash, iron and cook for myself," he says.

But he did marry. Margot Brown, a practicing psychologist with offices in Menlo Park, first met him as he played the conga drums, luring her with music into his life.

He says, smiling, "I told her, 'If you stay with me, I'll give you the world.' "

Today, 37 years later, the two live on 10 acres in Boulder Creek.

The naming of their company, Califa Foods, is another romantic tale. As Brown tells it, the Spanish explorer Hernando Cortez named California after Califa, a woman with whom he had a longstanding love affair. The Browns have owned Califa for three years. Soon they will add five more marinades that Troy created. All of them may be used as a glaze, in a salad, for barbecuing or stir-frying, as a dipping sauce or as a spread. Troy plans to name one after Margot. A 13-ounce bottle runs $7.

Califa Foods can be purchased on the second and fourth Sundays of every month, from 9 a.m. until noon, at the Los Gatos Farmers Market in the Town Plaza of Los Gatos. Information about the products may be found at www.califafoods.com or by calling 877.322.5432. Additional information concerning catering and cooking demonstrations can be obtained by calling 831.338.1017.