With less than five days before DooF-a-Palooza, many of us are as baked as a pizza Napolitano, crusty as a load of Acme bread, and smelly as a Cowgirl Creamery Pierce Point. A lot goes into the making of a large event, but come Saturday, October 20th, we’ll be as fresh as the flowers itemized in the silent auction, courtesy of Chef Alan Tangren from his own Narrow Gauge farm.
As a production assistant from Napa, my part has been to coordinate the two-pronged silent auction. On one prong is standard fare like bouquets and getaways to Napa Valley, Sonoma, and Mendocino County. Skewered on the second prong is a slightly off-beet feature called 24 carrots. 24 carrots won’t include any veggies, diamonds, or gold nuggets. Instead, buried in a planter box of corn pellets will be 24 premium bottles of wine, cleverly disguised with orange cellophane and frondy stems as our favorite crunchy taproots. With hidden demi-carafes, regular bottles, and magnums, the shapes and varieties of the wines unearthed will come as great surprises. And since a guest can only purchase one carrot, 24 revelers will get to experience a tug that is truly unique—conceived solely and originally for DooF-a-Palooza.
Traveling up and down Northern California to create the packages, you bet I’ve used that line before. But lines have been hardly a necessity, easy as it is to pitch a concept such as DooF. The truth is that DooF’s genesis is Northern California as a whole, as worthy of partnership in Eureka or Monterey as it is in Berkeley, its birthplace. The show’s tenets flit through the same fields, streams, and harbors of many conscientious growers, purveyors, chefs, and restaurateurs.
With my attention spread between two parts of an auction, I’m still filling the final slots for the 24 carrots feature, and it was just Monday that I visited Goosecross Cellars. Colleen Topper, Hospitality and Public Relations Director, doubles as a chef and offers more than 100 recipes to be paired with Goosecross varietals. From the tasting room, the attendant phoned Colleen, who was sorry to say that they had reached their donation capacity for the year; there simply was no more wine to be given. I left graciously, but, sure that she would love the concept of our show and our exciting benefit, I insisted that Colleen at least receive my packet. 5 minutes later, Goosecross phoned and granted my request. Just like we find room in our stomachs for sweet and unique desserts, many-a-winery I’ve visited has had an unprecedented tooth for generosity. Experiences like this make it pleasurable for me to rove the coast and valleys, knight errant of DooF’s noble cause.
And it’s not just me. Organizing the legions on the Google side of this effort is Chef Mirit Cohen, who’s worked tirelessly to make sure that the o’s in Google and the o’s in DooF are like two pairs of eyes with a shared vision. At one of our large meetings at Google, after a business lunch at her own café, Mirit led us to an interdepartmental meeting still wearing her chef’s coat, a coat with the look of one who does her best work in the trenches. Alongside DooF’s executive producer, Mike Axinn, Mirit facilitated a fine meeting, the foodstuffs smeared and splattered across her chest like a DooF coat of arms.
With the excitement of a pep rally’s aftermath, it was on the car ride home that we joked about a hokey fight song for our DooF-a-Palooza, and then decided seriously that a party without pennants was not a party for a crowd like us, and a TV show like DooF.
On October 20th, somewhere near the 11th hour—so to speak—DooF-a-Palooza will completely come together and appear as natural to Google’s courtyards and cafeterias as an entrée on a shiny plate. Consider how DooF (F-o-o-D backwards) purports to change the way kids think about food by engaging them in fun alternatives to unhealthy eating, immersing them in a world of color and taste, growers, purveyors, and silly characters.
The experiences our team has had with other businesses, and, of course, Google, have held a mirror to the business world, allowing me to see it backwards. And I’ve seen the generosity, ardor, and collaboration that make many of these businesses successful on a holistic level, and that will make DooF-a-Palooza and a great success of its own.
Until Saturday, give me a D; give me an O; give me another O, F!
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